The Middle
Change | Expression | Distillation | Intuition
Out of the Shadows
The last few years reshaped everything. There was a period where I wasn’t sure I’d find my way back to making at all. But I did and my work became shaped by my own reclamation. It was careful, considered, patient. Filled with softness and stillness. It helped me to rebuild myself, gave me peace. I hope that those works continue to bring peace to others. But something began to shift, I no longer need to seek refuge, rather expression.
‘While I Waited for Myself’ series of work
The Shift
I’ve been sitting with my sketchbook and exploring this shift. I suddenly pulled out an array of materials, things that had been gathering dust. The visual language that flowed looked so different to what had flowed for the last two years. It took me by surprise, but yet felt so natural, intuitive and just me. Yet it was familiar, I had been creating work like this before life shifted.
The sketch that shifted it all
The Gap
But it caused an internal conflict… It spoke of a ‘gap,’ a big gaping hole… How could I create something that looked so utterly different. But knowing that it was something true, not a profound piece of art, a simple sketch that filled me with joy, excitement and enthusiasm. A physical response. These responses are so important, our intuition, our soul speaking to us. But how we react is the test. In that moment I could have dismissed the sketches: they don’t fit with my style, the momentum I’ve built with galleries will be lost, such a change won’t appear professional and on and on and on… But instead I listened. In that dark time that came before, there was no inner voice, nothing guiding me. Silence. And here was a shout!
Intuition
I built my style at a time when I needed control, stillness, quiet - it helped me to rebuild my identity after she had slipped away. But my nervous system now is asking for something else, she feels safe. I am not betraying my previous work by evolving. It’s impossible to ignore the call from her now, looking for something else. I sat on the couch, sketchbook and a pencil case stuffed with all sorts of things I felt were for someone else. I allowed myself to let go of outcome, of style, of making something ‘good’ and just asked my intuition to take over. Drawing over old drawings that no longer spoke to me. Building texture. No rules. Imperfect. I couldn’t wait to start again the next day.
The Middle
But what about the gap? The gap between finished work and sketchbook, the gap between gallery-worthy and experiments, the gap between past and present. The middle. But is the middle not our whole lives? Where is the destination? The gap is the journey, is the point, is what it means to be an artist. Our journeys shape us, we are forever in the middle. Forever adapting, questioning, changing, growing. The best artists are always mid-formation, those that become fully formed, calcify.
I can move through, not knowing. I can choose to stay in the middle. I owe no one a stable aesthetic forever. And neither do you.
