GLISK studio & gallery

Before coronavirus struck in early 2020, I had been following a path towards something which I wasn’t even sure was going to turn out. I mean it was an exploratory thing in its own right. In an attempt to re-set my life, to escpape old complications and move towards something which I could see clearly, something simple and pure and in which I could just be. I just took an action, based on the reality of my life, a mum, living in a small town in Fife, having been involved with community volunteering and community based work, the children being where they are at school, and being who they are personality wise, and a husband also bit risk averse, and having made a commitment to live above my parents. I also have struggled with mental health since a traumatic accident in 2016, and eyesight loss making lots of things just so much more damned difficult, exhausting, depressing. Unable to drive anymore I take the train places from the radius of where I live and tried to work out what I wanted to do. I guess in my heart what I really want is to live in the perfect situation and have a beautiful studio in my garden. But, I live where I live and we didn’t move again and create more upheaval, and where I am is nice but I have an antisocial neighbour, who makes us feel that I don’t really want to stay here forever. it doesn’t feel idyllic with this situation.

I bought a shop in Burntisland with the money I got for the accident. I liked Burntisland when I visited, it felt like an escape from my life, it feels forward looking rather than run by elderly small towners. I felt like it wanted something, a way of life with great things, good cafes, good coffee, places to meet and discuss the future, a way of doing things with potential, a buzz about it for this thing that I wanted. I met lots of people there and was settling in well, although not meeting with the local ‘influencers’ who seem to be everywhere now-adays. If you get in with them and they notice you and talk about you then you feel you’ve made it.

But the lockdown has felt like this has drawn a halt to the plan, I mean, the whole reason it appealed was that it created for me a new feeling of community, while allowing me to do something very much based around what I wanted, no compromise, no sense of duty or ‘should’ about it. Just gloriously, eccentrically, unapologicacally how I wanted it. I mean i’ve got that part, but the audience part, which always was the tricky part that I wasn’t willing to try and control, that has fallen apart.

How do I feel when I think about the way forward? I feel fear and shame. These are two emotions I am wrestling with. I went to extraordinary lengths to fight these emotions. I want to be fundamentally different and not feel them. At least, not feel them in this situation. I have felt real, terrifying fear. I don’t want to feel a lingering sense of fear, or rather I want it to be acknowledged as a major emotion, not as a snivelling one under the duvet, hiding away. Fear trumps the ordinary confidence of the unimaginative. Live with fear, allow it to drip on your canvas. I don’t want smug control. Anyway…

Shame is another thing. You should feel shame when you’ve done something wrong, something evil. You should feel shame when you are aware of the harm you’re causing others but you don’t care. Those who should feel shame can’t feel it. That’s the problem. I’ve made mistakes, I’ve done wrong. But in the scheme of things they’re small fry. So why do I feel shame so much? I feel shame because what I do doesn’t match up. its a bullied person’s feeling. Those who are bullies want others to feel their shame. And we do. I feel like this when I think about my art. Not in comparison to Big Names, no I feel quite comfortable there, because working hard and having integrity are all you can really do with art. No I feel shame when I think of the expectations of others FOR WHOM I HAVE LITTLE RESPECT. What the fuck is wrong with me? I have done this whole things just to work on that feeling. I want to feel totally shameless. Don’t like my art? Move along then. Think I should make my gallery more like you envisage such things? Too bad. Think that people should join in on high streets in a way you approve of? Nuh-uh its not going to happen. This is mine. I bought it with blood money. I got this money because I went right up to the edge of death and insanity. You can’t pay enough filthy lucre to make that ok in a heartbeat. I’ve had gruelling months instead. I’m the one who has had to do all the work.