Monday 8th July, 2024
My life revolves around artists. Dead ones, young ones, old ones, it doesn’t matter. Whether I’m talking to them, about them, or about their work, I am constantly working on projects about artists. I worry, every minute of every day, that those projects are not where they should be. Sometimes I think, should I just skip the hassle and start making art? Buy an easel, rent a studio, develop a practice? If so, would I have to enrol at an art school? We were surrounded by people who’d made that choice when, over the last two months, we went to the private views of the degree shows at two art schools.
We went to the Slade first. It was mid-May, early in the degree show season, and we managed to get into the art school before the queue became gargantuan. Despite the non-existence of wine, the art was good. We walked into a room flooded with orange light, containing speakers, a bench, a bag of unripe pistachios, and a bowl of loose, ready-to-eat pistachios. We each took a handful and ate them throughout the rest of the show. In another room, we marvelled at a big air-filled clear plastic hand reached towards the ceiling. After climbing a few flights of stairs, we screwed our faces up in front of a sculpture of a figure on a swing, flanked by huge lungs and a heart, clutching its white, long-pointed-nosed, otherwise featureless head. I couldn’t shake the feeling that, maybe, I should have been among them.
One evening, when I was at university, I tried to become an artist. I was attending a group dinner in a flat just off Birmingham’s Broad Street. The people who lived there were trying to foster a Gertrude Stein-style salon for the city’s art world. I had asked if I could show them some drawings, and they said sure. My logic went as follows: if the group liked them, I would be an artist. Simple as that. I arrived and joined the six or seven people milling around the flat’s lounge. I was nervous, handed a glass of wine, and expected to mingle. To begin the night, we were given a tour of the flat’s art collection. Most of it was very good. It dawned on me quite quickly that I really didn’t want to show anyone my work. I wasn’t an artist. It wasn’t real work. Being there was a mistake. We sat down for the meal - which was ridiculous, at one stage I was eating a confit egg yolk from my palm - and after a couple of hours I happily forgot what I was there for. I chatted, joked, and got into an argument about Brexit.
During a break in conversation, someone said, “Didn’t you want to show us some work?” I went bright red. Everyone looked at me. I looked towards my bag, quite obviously forming the shape of a framed picture. I gulped, nodded, stood up from the table and walked to the corner of the room, where I picked up my bag. The room was expectant. I slid out the drawings, housed in clearly cheap A4 frames, held one in either hand and said, “Yeah, so, this is them.” Silence. Someone coughed. “Huh,” a voice said. I could have jumped out the window. I put the drawings back in my bag and slunk back to the table.
Whenever I approach this feeling, I return to the same fact: This is my medium. You’re looking at it. I’m stuck with writing. I’m stuck with writing about art. So, then, if not to make art, would I go to art school to become friends with more artists? I had my answer at the Goldsmiths degree show. The weather was properly rubbish but the vibes were good. On the way there, I saw some students pushing trolleys full of wine towards the art school, preparing pop-up bars for visitors. I saw the same students when I bought two wines for us to sip as we looked through the show. Leaning over a mezzanine in one gallery, we watched two people dressed as delivery drivers pretending to have a fight. Later, we saw two separate people tattooing themselves while stark naked. Imagine if I did either of those things next to the dinner table of that flat in Birmingham. It’s unlikely that those artists would be friends with me.