And then there’s this one………………. It brings it all back home, back to ageing. My own ageing experience is exposing a side I’d have preferred to remain hidden – vulnerability.
Working as authentically as I can, now feels absolutely right at this time in my life. I’m revealing not only my vulnerability but also my obsessions, over and over again. I wouldn’t blame you, the viewer, for feeling a sense of impatience at my apparent self-indulgence, or even wishing to reject or distance yourself from me – maybe it feels too close to home?
But I’ve been here before. At one point during my PhD, my supervisor warned me of the pitfalls of over revealing and yet I accepted the risks. But it felt different back then, I was at the edge of my own ageing. But now, 10 years further down the line, I’m immersed in its realities, both the anticipated and the unforeseen.
I suspect that this isn’t really any different to any other project of autobiographical inquiry, where private exposure and reflection are all par for the course. Yet each project of personal inquiry will be unique and it’s here that any preconceptions about remaining safely behind the wall of objectivity, disintegrate.
Indeed, I’m seeing this disintegration unfold in each of the macro images that emerge from my silk/metal forms. The macro images included here are a good case in point. Yet I find it intriguing that I can work away at these images and not be fully aware of what they are revealing and what is in fact, emerging from the shadows.
My deepest, unspoken fears.
They come to me in dreams.
I glimpse them sometimes, out of the corner of my eye.
I ignore them.
I can’t quite bring myself to acknowledge them.
Not yet.
They have no name.
So, do I welcome them in?
