Something finally clicked this week and snapped everything into focus. For the past few years after graduating, I feel like I've been fighting every day to retrace my steps back to how I used to Make, and what I was primarily interested in. It was so difficult trying to remember who that was, and thus started a very long period of guilty procrastination from 'going back to an active practice', made even more difficult with the unfortunately very distracting and draining (but I did love it, even though maybe it didn't suit my nature or skills completely) full time job. During this 'lost' period, I relocated back home to NZ, and now after a year I am back again, and I feel like a completely different person. The year-long 'starting over' in a 'new country', trying to find work opportunities, make friends, be involved in the art scene, volunteer my time, broil through many long days and nights of self-reflection and isolation has really fast-tracked the growth of something I didn't know I desperately needed. I feel like I have been playing catch-up for the past few years and now I'm finally feeling something like the present. Have I finally caught up? Is that absurd to say out loud?
Right now, I'm still creating fragments, but now they feel like they make sense in a non-sensical way when I pin them on my whiteboard. The whiteboard is my canvas, my wall, my (almost) everything. It feels like a fluid research space, where I can experiment freely without too much pressure. My issue is I would resolve any idea I have too much, all in my head. Naturally I have killed off thousands of ideas this way. I do so much admin organising ideas and thoughts I have, and for what? I'm finally going to go back on my records and action something, any of the things I was excited by, whilst staying present. The added pressure of Needing to make and Needing it to reach other people and organisations in order to possibly stay in this country is adding to the pressure in the background. But somehow I know it will all work out. I just have to be brutally honest with what I'm interested in right now. And isn't that exciting?
[I am now two months into moving back to London now, learning a lot in my role in Interpretation..]