Creative Sanctity

The artist has what she hopes will be a good meeting tomorrow. (As indeed have I, though another.) Presently she is watching a drama about a brother and sister and their two different ways of dealing with a perceived major injustice, the brother smartly trying to keep the peace and the sister reckless on havoc as revenge. I know a part of the artist's thoughts, the parts you cannot skim over, such as are deployed within and not on top of the brain, will also be thinking about what she is going to say tomorrow, as well as what and indeed which in terms of the reproductions she will show. (The soundtrack on the TV grows tensely cross-cultural.) This meeting is with an old friend of mine, a man I like, whom she was going to meet a few weeks ago. He is the one arranging for a gallery the artist likes to see her. Observing the back of her head, I am obliged to consider it must be frustrating to be expected to represent your work in discussions without the work being there. The reproductions are good - the colours intense and the printing on matt, which enhances the medium. But the artist's work requires being seen in the flesh, far more perhaps than most people's, as the experience of seeing it is as physical as it is cerebral. One idea is to arrange for a vehicle to take the work to the man's gallery. This may happen, in a week or so, after the initial meeting, as the artist has a friend with a large vehicle who has said she will help. I don't have a vehicle but don't like anyway being seen at such meetings or deliveries as I feel a husband can be an impediment in such situations and can apply sometimes unintentional pressure on otherwise working situations. It's not a man-woman thing, more about what I'd call the creative sanctity of the artist. Someone who knows the artist better than the person meeting her will inevitably make that person feel self-conscious. No, this is all about the artist. Not, despite this blog, the artist's husband.

Space, Sponsor and Spiel Ltd

I received an email from a friend across the ocean today who has always been a good ally to the artist. I have mentioned him before. He is an extrovert introvert. He is also a great communicator and I marvel at his witty take on the serious side of life, as well as his seriousness on fun. He was in part getting in touch to inform us about an exhibition curated by the man - the ally and friend - whom the artist is seeing tomorrow. I had already seen some reproductions of the work this contact is showing in collaboration with another gallerist. One was in the email, too. They are sometimes large and detailed drawings, as in the artist's work, though the artist of the images uses only pencil. The subject matter is more public and kind of earnestly symbolic. More masculine, in a way, too. More butch. There is no hint of any of the motherhood, say, or out and out acknowledgement of childhood, in the artist's work. But not everyone, I concede, is interested in that, or brave enough to admit its overwhelming importance. Life hangs from it. Tomorrow relies on it. I hope the artist enjoys the experience of seeing someone about her work tomorrow, even though that person is not the person with the actual gallery but the person with the connection to that gallery. I am sure she will be more than fine. Even if nothing comes of it, she is still a great artist. It is absurd in a way that the artist should have to do all this leaping, so precariously, from one rock of hope to another, when in fact her work is really so much bolder than most people's work, and her ideas so much more developed and evolved. I don't wish to come across as arrogant in any way on behalf of the artist but it must for her be rather like being the brightest person in the room, and, one by one, having to wander with your cup and saucer up to every living soul, and listening to their life stories without ever once being asked about your own, which is epic if only they knew, gripping, dashing, industrious, eccentric, passionate, sweet, sweeping, grounded, and ongoing. Who knows, maybe we will just have to end up putting on an exhibition of the work ourselves. With this and the previous 111 daily entries as part of our catalogue. All you seem to need these days is space, sponsor, and spiel.

The dock leaf grasps the nettle

The week has been hit running and today I have made contact about the artist meeting up with the gallerist in the heart of the capital with the new white space. My old friend, the go-between, is also helping arrange all this. All that needs happen now is confirmation of a time and a place for the artist to meet the person doing the introduction, with some recent examples of her work. This will happen some time next week and coincides happily with a rush of work on some miniatures - black ink on white paper - which accompany the larger pieces, excitingly, like a magnifying glass on some different but connected path. I am watching the work being done right now, four feet away from me, with the unusual sight of a sharp and old-fashioned nib in her hand and an opened bottle of ink. I am tapping on the keyboard deliberately gently in order not to rock the work. Also, her head is bowed and her eyes are covered by her hair. The hair is like a drape across the door to a studio. But I am happy there is a hint of progress on the long road which still lies ahead, and I can sympathise with the artist fully that it does not and will not happen overnight. It is not as if she is not doing the work. No, all she really requires now are some intelligent allies who have a great deal more power in the art world than her husband. (There is only so much I can do.) I also sympathise with the artist because the good news is always needed to outweigh the bad. That said, I have received a fresh blast of possibilities due to an important pair of eyes viewing today something or another about me which I am told has muscularised my chances of a posting. Wait a minute. The artist in the course of that second last sentence has questioningly and diffidently presented me with another small image to look at, her natural modesty preventing the work therefore from receiving immediate praise. This is what happens when you show something - which is good - guardedly and defensively - which is bad. People are put on the back foot. I must make a note of gently suggesting to the artist that she be more confident in her meeting. (Easy enough for me to say.)