I don't know why this feeling has come up so early this year - maybe so many things have happened that this year seems too full to hold any more. It was a year of personal growth, if professional stagnation. As I begin to look back on it, as though today were late December, there have been a few year-defining moments:
Getting married. Difficult to say why this was year-defining, even though I know it should be. Not very much has changed, other than adding the word 'husband' to my vernacular. Our family and friends are amazing, beautiful, supportive people, who made the day very special, and I felt and continue to feel very loved, but our friends and family were always amazing, beautiful and support people. I guess the year-defining-ness is that the event just brought these qualities more sharply into focus.
Of everyone, this was best exemplified by my sister. My little sister is more grown up than I could ever be, and she held me together with a fierce mix of bossiness, sarcasm and care. For all those who think I am ambitious, tenacious and stubborn - you don't know Kathy. And she's always much better dressed.
Lots of other people getting married. It was like chicken pox and everyone who was susceptible even in the slightest, caught the bug. Lovely, flowery, romantic, silly, Yay! bug. Something about the people around you marrying makes you realise you've graduated from adolescence to slightly less adolescent.
A difficult Third Show. I think trilogies are very difficult, and having attempted one in art, I'm not sure I could do it again. After two successful shows at the View Tube under the Views from the Edge mast, I am honest enough to say the third effort was not up to standard. A combination of bad timing, difficult curatorial position, and to some degree, a lack of inspiration or deep personal engagement, does not a good show make. Looking back on it, I'm not sure why it was attempted under those conditions, but it was an accurate representation of art-making for me in general this year.
In fact, other than wedding stationery and this difficult Third Show, I hardly ever made it into my shared studio in Bermondsey. I have no excuses - I just didn't go. It is probably the number one reason I am ready for this year to be psychologically over, as though the start of a new year wipes my creative slate clean and I can begin again, in a new space, making new work.
Running. aka, my billionth attempt at sustained weight loss. It went well at the start of this year, and in fact, better than I could have imagined. If you had said to me at the start of this year that by the end, I would have run a half marathon, and would be cycling 14-27 miles to work, I would have laughed it off as ridiculous. And yet, here I am.
I am reluctant to overstate anything here, though. I secretly still snack on horrendous things, and when I get a chance to do absolutely nothing, all by myself, I am usually ass-first on the couch with a remote in one hand and a coconut based pudding in the other.
Old work. This year marks the end of the Start Family Programme at Tate Modern. After 10 and a half years of delivering gallery-based family programming, of which I worked the last five, the team has been disbanded and the red desk retired. It was one of my first jobs in London, and it gave me the confidence and experience to go after other work in the legendary 'big institutions' that define the city's public arts landscape. The job also gave me some fabulous friends.
New Work. When one door closes, another door opens, and at the first sign of troubled employment waters this year, I cast a net to see what other arty fishy jobs were available. The sea responded brilliantly, and I find myself working a the National Maritime Museum in a job I completely adore. It allows me to combine a hobbyist enthusiasm for ships and the sea, with family learning and art.
It is a little known fact I have a keenness for maritime history and the sea. I love British seaside towns, old dockyards and quays, moors, breakwalls, fishing villages, ports, anything with an HMS and a story. The smell of salt and sulphur, whipped hair in the wind, and in Margate this year, a mushy pea fritter, all contribute to the experience of watching water and sky. I like especially to sit as the tide comes in and watch it devour plots of sand and grit, pebbled beaches strewn with all matter of sea debris. It always makes me feel better, even when I didn't know I was down.
Which brings me to my resolutions. I'm not exactly down, but I'm also not quite up.
So here they are:
I will run or cycle, every day. Even it is only for 15 minutes. Every day. I'd like to say this is for health and thinness, but it's actually for bacon and ice cream.
I will draw something, every day, and not throw it away. Many of these will be ugly, but I will keep them until this time next year, instead of chucking them in an embarrassed fit. Some may even be posted here for digital posterity.
I will visit the sea once a month, every month, if only for an afternoon. Upness, not downness, is the way forward.
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