The Way Things Wear

I used to be interested in how peoples hands would wear things.  The shiny big toe on the crude elfin figure of Pan in the botanical gardens. The patina polished  away by the acid coated sweaty fingertips of stroking of hands.  There was a wooden handle on an old style across the path on the way to my school, the edges warn smooth now fitting perfectly in the palm of my child self hand.  Form following function warn into its becoming through persistent use.  I made a series of works called the way things wear. The cast of the space missing in an old stone step at Bolsover castle. The absent end of my Nana's Yorkshire pudding spoon given to her as a wedding present warn away in half a centuries batter and now nestled in our cutlery draw.  The visualized record of entropy, the fact everything is gradually been warn away and re-dispersed across the world.   The wood in the image above was salvaged from a piece of play equipment. It has warn quickly due to the presence of sand and the fact it was needed as a grip when climbing through a hatch.  This wood is a jump, a hyperlink back to a line of practice that is always present yet currently behaves like a well behaved cancer and lives in remission.  Culture is ordinary - this is a fact.  Where does this thing, the writing of a PhD sit within this line of undefined practice? this is a question for my abstract because if the PhD can not accommodate the practice within its event it is irrelevant.  I may need to follow the advice of my good friend a bongwater and find something more useful to occupy my last few years of my creative production. The piece that is warn away is also present, the space it once occupied resonates with its absense.

 I have come back to my desk after what seems like a long time.  The writing above is from one of my first sole authored book chapters, it resonates now.  Titorelli bemoaning his inability to make great art as he has spent too much time with the lawyers has always stuck in my mind. This along with K's long walk up twisted staircases to visit him in his studio. A life as an artist is specific and requires practice. It is not better than another life yet it is different, the things that make it different are things that make an artist.

The fear of becoming an academic has receded a little now as it becomes clear that there is little chance of that.  I am a starter finisher though and although the writing feels daunting in oh so many ways the task has a certain urgency due to approaching deadlines. I spoke to Kate this morning and she is going to set me a daily writing task, this will be good for me.  I copied and pasted everything I have written into a single document - it was only 35000 words which is a bit worrying- there must be over 60000 on this blog which isn't a PhD but I am rather proud of it.

Culture is ordinary this is where it starts.  I have done the work the reading and the thinking I just have the writing to do now and although this is daunting I think I have an idea of what I need to do.   Ben Shannon PhD has a big section where he writes about the affordances of research-creation in  relation to his PhD study.  He doesn't make a distinction between research-creation and PaR this coupled with attending a workshop about working on research projects with artists reveals a gap in knowledge even if it is present within the literature.  I need to write about the affordance of research-creation in relation to my journey through the academy.  When I first started working with Kate Pahl we set off to do a conference in Boston she told me that the university should be a station that the train of my life passes through.  A warning not to get stuck in  the thick mud of it, good advice and something I took on board. My train has stopped but I'm not getting off just splitting my ticket to save money with an eye on a destination of choice.