Correcting the Lean

 

I made this collage nearly 18 months ago as part of the Neverland project.  It's quite strange to look back as this was my last practice-based Poly-technic project. Half in Sheffield and half in Venice in a pre-Covid world of touch and travel.  I have applied for some money to do 'Neverland Again',  I'm not very hopeful, the competition for funded and freelance work is massive at the moment.  

I haven't really thought that much about the balance between the academic work and practice for a while. In the past it took care of itself. The practice was never really practice and the academic work was only just academic work. It all hovered like a mist on the horizon at Cleethorpes, a place of ambiguity and change. The other side of the Humber. For a bit this week though it's felt like I was losing touch with my very strong personal identity of bean a visual artist. I am not naive, I know that this identity is probably all there is in terms of me being an artist. I struggle to hold onto it though, without making too much fuss - or a bean suit- though it is important for the work. 

The other thing is that in building the play equipment at Highfields Adventure Playground and nursing a bad back plus the trauma of trying to buy a new house I haven't really been doing much academic work for three weeks.  I have missed my writing Thursday which for the past four months had at the very least meant that I was struggling to write.  I have read a couple or three articles on play and sat close to books by Deleuze and Whitehead but a bit of me thinks -I'm having a breather - the plateau stage perhaps.  Kim had this when she gave birth to Alice.  The contractions stopped so there was nothing to push with, no momentum to push Alice out.  We had to sit in the front room and watch another bit of Muriel's Wedding on the telly and wait for another contraction to slowly build.  God, I wish I was getting a baby and not 80,000 words of well referenced drivel at the end of this. 

So it is a pause for breath but in some ways it does not seem long enough. I feel like I'm still in the middle of a deep inhalation and perhaps I should cling to this for just a little longer before holding my breath, panting and then pushing.  I reckon that in the scheme of my metaphor I'm only 6cm dilated and need to watch the end of Muriel's wedding, eat a curry and have some very serious sex before this little baby PhD is ready to pop out and make its way in the world.