The Game is becoming a practice that at once tolerates my restlessness, keeps my mind engaged with a steady flow of new things to make with and new problems to solve, and somehow creates temporary spaces where things get quiet for a bit. When all that lines up, my hands will show me what they know – if that makes sense.
On ‘rules’ - I realized at some point that not knowing the rules when I was younger often put me right up against them. It also gave me a certain amount of courage to disregard them. As I am now, I see the boundaries designed to keep me in place and (maybe for my own amusement) I find myself testing them, or at least teasing them. And yet! I do not thrive in the absence of boundaries and rules. I am much more likely to fall in line when the rules are of my own making. I think that might be the case for everyone.
Some materials were hard to separate from when it was time to select a new batch. And sometimes new processes bring new material insights. Paying attention to those ‘sticky’ materials is important, I think. Beginning in the second month, I allowed previously selected materials to remain in play even as new materials were introduced. In effect, I was able to both keep things changing while also developing deeper confidence and understanding of material language.
I decided to take a two-week pause from the studio because I was feeling a bit automated and glitchy from this game process, and which I was second-guessing. I’ve been writing even more than usual (I’m writing this now!), I feel like I’m starting to integrate, accumulate, things I see and learn.
In deciding to call what I’m doing ‘a pause’ I recognize an indelible habit of mine. I am doing what I do when I don’t want to do what I’m supposed to do. In this case, follow my own game rules. They are not real – nothing happens if I stop. Maybe that’s the point.
There has been no ‘pause’ at all during this pause from the studio. In fact everything has revved up and I’m searching for my next thing. An anti-inflammatory detox? Digging a hole in my backyard to see if I can source wild clay? It is this restlessness, unwillingness to stay, attach myself that pushes me to find new ideas. While it served me well in academia, these are the exact tendencies that often blow up my art practice, and often prevents me from making meaningful (direct) connections with and within my work. Here it is now masquerading as productive insight. I’ve had 1000 new ideas for studio experiments in the last few days and only 5 days into my two-week pause. Fuck this. Pause is over.
Sitting here earlier holding yet another rock sculpture, I made the mistake of asking myself why am I making rocks? As I returned to the studio table my hands brought tears to my eyes and the clay felt like flesh. I don’t know how else to say it…
It’s good to pause. Pausing does not require stopping everything, or doing nothing. A pause can occur by simply shifting my focus of attention - quieting the loudest parts, so that the quietest parts can be heard. I recently adapted the pace of studio work to allow for points of pause. This often looks like me puttering intensively alone in my studio, with or without headphones, arranging things, clearing clutter, solving practical studio problems, creating small installations of things on shelve or walls, taking photos to find new stories, relationships and overlooked details, or waiting with curiosity for vibrations and echoes to enter the atmosphere. I used to call this indulgence wasting time or procrastinating. I now understand it as a vital part of my practice. Allowing time for thinkingwith the half-started and half-finished work in my studio is a kind of pause within the steady movement of restlessness.
I left the unstable conditions of my childhood/youth knowing I would not have the safety of a ‘place,’ nor the grounding roots of kinship, to return to. I learned to travel light and keep moving. I travelled without resting, at times recklessly, without guardrails, without a compass, and without the comforting whispers of passed-down wisdom from elders. I learned slowly, intuitively, iteratively, and in situ, how to teach myself. I secretly made art (before it was Art) using a language of my own making to create a safe haven (but not a home) where I could be in the world but not seen by it. I navigated upheaval by tucking pieces of ground from the places I visited into pockets and carrying them with me like unbroken wish bones. When I was more in control of my conditions, I displayed my pieces of ground on windowsills and held them in my hand when I needed to feel solid and in place.