When I was an artist

Sunday. A glorious June morning. At last the constant rain has ended: the sun is shining, birds singing, cockerel crowing for joy and the old dog is happy to warm his bones in the sunlight streaming through the windows. La Famille Cusp have decided to imbibe a modicum of culture and visit some of the local artists who are taking part in the annual Open Studio scheme.

One artist is a print maker and lives only a 5 minute drive down the road in our village. Another, who paints seascapes, lives in the town. I have been looking forward to this little excursion for a couple of weeks so, despite only 3 hours sleep --- the result of a strange combination of M.E. sleep patterns and the gradual withdrawal of certain medications,--- I determine to 'bloody well go anyway or I'll never do any bloody thing' : this being an indication of the frustration of having the will but not always having the wherewithal to do what I want to do.

All is going well. Daughter is keen. Partner is keen. There are (surprisingly !) no ructions or whines or strops from the adolescent son. I'm settling into this idea. It isn't far and it'll be interesting to see what local artists are up to.

There is then a faint tremor in the air. Methinks that, may hap, it is a little leftover thunder from last night's storm, but no.....for this tremor is not meteorological. It is emotional, psychological; a kind of strange unease and stirring that has been brought about by a perfectly innocent remark by daughter as we sit waiting for the other two to be ready



'When you were an artist, did you ever have an open studio ?'


Thinks:" '....when you were an artist...' this surely implies the past tense i.e. she thinks I used to be an artist but now I'm not. Surely being an artist is a vocation, a calling , an expression of the inner kernel that drives one to create......oh gawd, I'm going all Isadora Duncan and I'll get strangled by my own chiffon scarf if I'm not careful and don't get a grip...'



'Well, sweetheart, actually no. I didn't because they didn't have that scheme when I was still making art


(don't tell her that my stuff wasn't really the kind of stuff you bought --- more issue based and experimental and involved all sorts of strange installations and dressing up. It's Sunday for God's sake --- the supposed Day of Rest and anyway I'm knackered already)


But I am still an artist. I still do creative things
trying to make myself feel a bit better, justify my existence)



'Yes but I mean when were you a real artist ?.....not like now........'
(What you mean now I just sit about and occasionally wash clothes, clean up, iron, make food, sock monkeys, puss cats, Xmas play costumes, etc. etc.)



'Well I was (there goes that past tense again). Yes I was..... I had exhibitions and awards and was on the telly and all sorts....
(Christ I'm really into justification mode now !...pull back a bit Cusp. This isn't an interview for a potential bursary or a meeting with the Arts Council)


And so that conversation draws to a close as the other two members of Cusp Famille descend the grand staircase and let us know that the Staff have our carriage ready that we may go on a jolly 'down the village'

Cusp drives and the others cycle. What a jolly jape ...and sooner than soon we find the house of the printmaker who is busy in his garden studio printmaking. He is working on some lovely woodcuts of wrens and has an array of beautiful work about him and in racks. Some are of local scenes and some are of other places we know and love. He is a tutor at a Printmaking Workshop 25 miles away; somewhere I used to go and print about 20 years ago. At College I loved printmaking and particularly etching and silk screening. I had to give it up because I couldn't deal with the smell of the inks and never found the newer water-based inks as good as the traditional materials.

The artist and I chat. We chat about the Printmaking Workshop. We chat about people we both know: members of the workshop who used to be my tutors on Foundation 30 years hence. I feel that tremor again......

My children have no notion that I know how to do what he's doing. They have no notion that the tutors at College suggested I went on to do an M.A. in printmaking. They have no notion that the business of standing and the business of the inks that are involved in traditional printmaking made it all too difficult for me. They have no notion that I was an artist.

I am happy to see the work and I am happy that both my children love the atmosphere of the studio and the pictures and are asking really pertinent and sensible questions. Daughter wants to have a go when she gets home and is very, very surprised to know that I still have lino cutters, rollers and even a bit of lino tucked away. Son is telling the artist how good he is at graffiti and cartoons. They like the rather bohemian air of the house and ramshackle nature of the artist and the way he is quiet and so absorbed in his 'chip, chip, chip' of wood as he fashions the images of the little wren and the lilting atmospheric music that the artist is playing on his CD

We go to the next studio. Cusp drives and the others cycle. This artist and her studio is a little different. She is much more orthodox and paints nice watercolours and seascapes. Everything is ordered and neat --- unlike the previous studio and any creative space that Cusp has ever inhabited. We all like the pictures and the lady and her cat that sits n the sunshine. The lady talks about how she is doing an M.A. at a nearby Art School and how she has just had an exhibition in Cambridge and is also showing work at our local Health Centre. Daughter makes the connection and realises she has already seen this artist's work at the GP's.



'Have you ever had any work shown at the doctors ?'


'Well no. They didn't have that scheme (either) when I was an artist'



Suddenly I feel that little tremor again and I realise that I've just said 'was'. What am I doing ?


Suddenly I feel as if I am a long long long way from being any part of this artist's world in which I am standing.


It's as if I was never any part of it,

never went to Art School,

was never respected,

won awards,

had exhibitions,

taught,

ran workshops,

was asked advice.



It's as if I am looking through a glass wall at another world where I don't exist.



'The Illness' has divested me of every last sodding shred of my past life so I am now very domesticated --- like a tamed animal --- that bumbles about doing passive, pleasing things ---- and
I am not pleased.
I am not happy
.....but I don't rage of rant because
(a) I am in a public space and
(b) I am with daughter on a nice Sunday morning jaunt in the sunnyshine.

I know that another piece of me has died and, in part, it is my own fault.

The truth is that my wherewithal is so bound up in trying to do the everyday necessities that there is no 'where', 'with' or 'all' left for the artist in me. It's true that I still create stuff --- clothes, cakes, the sockee monkee etc etc --- because they can be done piece-meal and don't take too much intellectual thought
but
the real me,
the real artist me
has suffocated under the weight and under the numbing effects of the Bloody Illness and also the nice little pills that the nice GP gave me 7 years ago when I was very, very poorly and desperate and, if truth be known, in shock when I suddenly could do nothing at all and could not see or hear or talk or digest properly.

That's also one of the reasons that I don't cry and don't rage and, maybe, it's also one of the reasons ---quiet apart from The Bloody Illness -- why my head is in a sludge and in 'NiceLand' where any radical, critical creative engagement seems impossible to reach. This is not to say that the nice pills make everything 'nice'. They don't. They 'iron out the bumps' as the GP put it and may help your digestive problems and your sleep patterns which are totally out of whack. Seven years ago I was grateful for anything to iron out any bumps --anything to help me cope with the physical distress of a failing body. Seven years on I have a sense that I need some bumps to keep me in touch with the world and let me creative spirit fly again.

I don't want to be behind the glass. I want some of what I had. I want to engage with the process. But it's scary. Scary to think I might be able to again and scary to try to withdraw from the pills --- a process, which for some people, is tortuous.

And then, be sheer coincidence I look at dear, brave Marjojo who has been and still is as poorly as the rest of we PWME. She is a real inspiration for she has maintained contact with her genuine creative self and last week she held an exhibition of six years worth of work in her home. I applaud her for her determination, courage and most importantly for the fantastic work she has made --- curious, unique, professional and intriguing.

I pray that in time I will be able to grasp back some of what I've lost and that before the sun goes down my children will know that I am an artist.