Efforting
I’ve always equated creating with huge amounts of physical effort and over-extension.
That’s because I was in the dance industry till I was 25, then was a Pilates instructor till I was 40-odd, then had a tea business with a tonne of physical packaging and packing to do daily.
Now, in my art business, I feel pressured to create in the same way.
And this pressure is bolstered by how I see artists market themselves online. I see them efforting; there’s lots of movement in the shots, they've got their canvases, paint is splattered in video close ups, brush strokes, materials, objects…quite a lot of physicality.
In a season two episode of the excellent investigative podcast, The Dream, journalist Jane Marie discusses the legend of John Henry as a foundation of America's striving work culture and the deteriorating and ‘wearing” effects on black people and marginalized identities.
In contrast, I make my art on my laptop, then order it to be printed with a click of a button.
Expressing myself and making this work at the touch of a mouse whilst tuning into my kinesthetic self (how ironic), seems too easy.
That I haven't worked hard enough physically to produce this work confuses me. The image of the suffering artist juxtaposed with my privileged life as a white, middle class Australian in a spacious garden office complete with a comfy couch, abundant plants and my pet poodle tinges me with guilt.
Shouldn’t it be harder?
Hold on…before I get too guilt ridden, I think of Monet, well fed and funded in his beautiful life…
Then I remind myself why I am working this way. It came from a place of necessity having struggled with fatigue and brain fog for more than a year I needed to find a way to work differently - to pursue and encourage ease, to conjure calm in the digital folds and soothing colours of my works.
Harder is not better. I’m reminding myself of this each day in the process of re-imagining what it is to work - a dance between physical and digital realities.
It is a daily practice of resistance against productivity grind culture*. Two steps forward, one step back.
Till next week,
Rachel
