Begging for attention

 I have had a bit of a blog slippage, Clyde our new puppy is a cause for this but probably not a reason.  I also have a screen print I need to dig out which says " What Were You Expecting To Get from This?.  My words feel more appropriate in screen print than Neon, the cheap reproduction, rather than modernist singularity. 

I am blogging for the sake of it today and also out of a sense of duty to the practice of writing this blog .  It is important to make sure you write about not having anything to say when there isn't anything to say.  This is not ironic or the negation of negation it is merely a statement about the current state of things.

It's a week since my last supervision, I said a few Hail Mary's and downloaded a couple of articles to read but have not yet found redemption.  I quite like what I wrote about ghost and unicorns and the minor gesture.  There is a chunk in the middle of it where I give away too much but as I'm writing it mainly with artists in mind this is a good giving away. There is some technical writing that I'm probably going to have be much more explicit about within a holding text.  This may mean I need  to feed the good bits into a larger text without it becoming captured by the banality of academic writing. Perhaps if we are to think in a metaphor then there are jewels which need to be mounted within a piece of jewellery.  The mount needs not to detract from the stone yet it has to be secure and made from the correct alloy, white gold, platinum or silver. High Carat gold although pure is too soft too do the work of holding gems in place. 

I bought a copy of process and reality by Whitehead its surprisingly easy to read - reminds me of Bertrand Russel's History of Western Philosophy.  I've struggled with  anti-Oedipus its always going on about the anus and I'm not sure I'm in the mood for that.  Although I recon its a necessary foundation for reading 1000 Plateaus, opening up ideas such as the Body without Organs  to its origins. There is a strong psycho analytical historical perspective that I've not really got time to find a way to work with.  I've read enough to get more of a handle on schizo analysis and how it rattles Lacan's Freudian cage.  

This is the question I suppose, the one I'm finding hard to navigate.  I'm expecting constructive and serious critique, I'm expecting to be pushed and to push myself into places where I feel uncomfortable.  I'm not expecting to be nurtured or dammed by faint praise.  I'm expecting and was promised nothing but blood sweat, toil and tears.  I probably didn't expect my identity, my aspirations or my visual arts practice to be as challenged as they have been. I had made a strong attempt to ring-fence these I'm not precious about them really I just keep them away from view.  This week though they have felt a little vulnerable and exposed, in some ways they are receding as the nerve gradually dies back in an angry tooth recently crowned.