Crit this

I love crit. I honestly do.

However, there are the occasional weeks where I ponder why on earth I am standing in amongst a group of young adults, straining to see meaning in some raw, 'experimental' art work at 9.30am.
It's not that I don't appreciate the opportunity to see other class mates' work, and I am certainly more than grateful for the fact that my work is given the same amount of consideration.
But sometimes it just feels cruel.

I don't mean 'cruel' in a human sense - by all means, crit should absolutely be the place for brutal honesty, tears and questioning what you're doing with your life - but more in the sense that the work itself can seemingly be discussed until it's lying cold and lifeless on the ground. All of the mystery and intrigue of an art work can be interrogated away; the sheen of ambiguity is lost.

Although

It's probably when the work survives this process that you know you're discovering something worth your time.

Bryony's thoughts

 'She raised one hand and flexed its fingers and wondered, as she had sometimes before, how this thing, this machine for gripping, this fleshy spider on the end of her arm, came to be hers, entirely at her command ... The mystery was in the instant before it moved ... when her intention took effect. It was like a wave breaking.'

'Was everyone else really as alive as she was?'

'She knew it was overwhelmingly probable that everyone else had thoughts like hers. She knew this, but only in a rather arid way; she didn't really feel it.'

My first words

How to begin, how to begin...

A million others have sat here, where I am now - staring at an only slightly less than blank screen, hoping for inspiration to come; willing thoughts to pass through an empty vacuum.
Or so it would seem. For nothing is really as simple as saying what we mean, or feel, or see. What could possibly be easier, when all we need is ourselves?
But it is precisely that which can force such a stutter; an immediate mental block. Suddenly, there is a dramatic hesitation because we - maybe only I, although I can't be brought to believe that I am the only one - realise that, in fact, we should have something to say.

And what if we don't?

This engagement with ourselves, with our own thoughts, is reason enough to trust that everyone does have something to contribute, no matter what that may be. We are human. That is interesting all by itself.
But the realisation of this quality, I would venture to say, could be what truly allows us to find our voices.

I'm an artist.

But not because I make work, or read about art, or visit galleries. Or because I chose to study it.
Not even because I enjoy it.

I'm an artist because I believe that art - potentially one of the top 5 most ambiguous words in our vocabulary - is a language.

So, here I am.