With a space of one’s own, you are - to coin a phrase - ‘exactly where you need to be.’ This space is important to you. Actually, no, it’s more than that. It’s crucial. It’s a place, amongst other things, that allows you to channel ‘flow states’ (getting into the zone) in which you can travel with your chosen medium, exploring new territories and experience feelings of exhilaration (or frustration!) through outcomes.
Recently I read a quote by Neil Gaiman who said words to the effect, I hope that in this year…you make mistakes….if you are making mistakes…you’re doing something’ I would like to add to the very end of Mr Gaiman’s sentence, the word ‘right’. Mistakes, if that word really can be applied to the creative process, produces happy accidents, and can also cause such tear-jerking frustration you need to just vacate your space - have some caffeine - and come back refocused, and usually, re-invigorated by the challenge your mistake has created. Such is the push and pull of emotions in your space; a private domain where serendipitous moments, of course, also happen. And, oh the joy when that does occur!
And so today, I opened up and shared my tinsy space on film, as part of Brighton’s forthcoming Fiveways Artists’ Open House in May. Four of my fellow exhibiting artists shall be doing the same over the coming month, giving a snapshot of not just practice, but of their workspace.
