My practice is fragmented across multiple places, yet anchored by the conceptual and emotional 'studio home'. This is my perimeter of safety, essential for the unjudged mess of making. I am very socially awkward and find the 'out' can restrict my creativity. The walls of the studio garden help.
It is a brick building sitting within a tiny walled garden for the Old Harnessmakers in Norfolk.
Studio Door during open studios
Old Harnessmakers building [my house and his old workshop is my studio]
The text we have been asked to read has really made me think about the tension i feel, it isnt personal; it’s an art historical hangover. I want the generosity of the master craftsman—the dignified, hands-on transfer of skill—but I also require the autonomy of the singular artist. To claim originality is to demand a shield against external judgment. I believe both that originality exists and that originality doesn't exist. It is interesting to consider this in relation to the Old Harnessmakers: makers in this space for several hundred years... It feels romantic and valuable. I struggle wiht this.
This struggle boils down to the need to share knowledge versus the need to maintain Opacity. I refuse the demand for total transparency. I also want to be completely transparent. Following Glissant, the Right to Opacity is the right not to be perfectly understood. He writes: "We demand the right to opacity... not enclosure within an impenetrable autarchy but subsistence within an irreducible singularity."
My work seeks to be an 'Open Enclosure': a space that offers full, humble skill transfer while simultaneously refusing to translate its inner, tacit knowledge. It must be generous on the surface, yet resolutely impenetrable at its core. not to be mean but to protect my experience of the creatiion. I want to share everything. Is this a need to 'confess?'
I wonder if my work needs a bigger space - or a variety of spaces...
