Lately I feel torn between the need to make objects and the desire to work on paper/canvas. My priority is always finding the appropriate medium to explore my subject, at the moment I need to do both. I wonder if that compromises one or the other. can you do both. i wonder. Overriding that is the pressing need to pay the rent and bills and artwork comes in second. always. My jewellery helps me at this end, but again, lately I wonder what the work would look like if it didn’t have so much to be accountable for. All these thoughts are making me tired. And I start dreaming of jobs with paid lunch breaks and superannuation. And then the art dreams go quiet. A dilemma.
Bettina Speckner, at a talk she gave at the beginning of the year, said that you can not make art jewellery and production jewellery, production compromises the art. That it is better to earn a living from paid work and let your work reflect your intentions outside of the constraints placed by responding to a market. Hearing this I questioned what I was doing, but have continued to make production jewellery. Lately I am wondering about a number of things, but I know that when it comes to the crunch, I cannot stop making things and that will continue. But I suppose sometimes you have to wonder about the nature of things.
