I lie exhausted amongst the bags and boxes containing my posessions. I have successfully moved. Emptying the cottage revealed a filthy backdrop and two days cleaning could not entirely wipe it clean. Rugs hid forgotten beer spillages, the dust and grime of a years open fires, invisible when furnished, emerged with each load of the van. In hope of a humble deposit, and self respect I suppose because I would have earned more than I would have lost if I had left the place a tip. . We should move each other rather than ourselves and dump rubbish. The superstitious delusion of essences, the objects that map ones identity, the props that support our sense of self we drag from home to home. This is all invisible to another's eye, separated from emotional tags one can see the crap for what it is.
Three flights of stairs to this top flat. Mag helped me get the fridge freezer and washing machine up here but otherwise I shifted it all myself. Claire helped pack and contributed some cleaning but she had her flight to Scotland booked for the day of the move. Our last night we slept apart on opposite sofas, the bed already gone. Driving her to the airport always fills me with sadness. We talk all the way through Radstock, midaomer norton, chew magna. The drive back is silent and empty. It is when she is gone I love her most. A shameful admission and undoubtedly the reason I have had so many relationships yet not managed a marriage.
The move has forced me to neglect making so a workshop weekend awaits to try pull back some time. The desk I am making, perhaps my most technically challenging piece, undoubtedly my best commission piece is one I am proud of. Elliptical, six cylindrical legs, the wall of the ellipse is laminated to two shapes. The front drawer echoes the back whilst the remaining four sides are all identical but laminated to a different former. Veneered at the same time in a vacuum press. These will have black stringing lines inlaid to echo the details of the maple office where it will sit. If you're kean look through January's postings where some photos of the office show the detail inits laminated glazing bars. The elliptical top has a maple border with carved edge and green leather work surface. Quite a bold piece. I had said it would be my last but the commissions seem endless. The next being a corner bookcase of quite some size to complete a room in a house on Exmoor where I have made all upstairs furniture and may well do downstairs too. That is the third house I have furnished in entirety. The odd additions that the clients spice it up with sometimes blend quite well. I get an enormous sense of well being walking round these houses where each detail, all proportions are the product of my mind. A reflection of myself. The bookcase, however, is to match the background joinery of Malcolm whose aesthetic is quite different from mine. His has a touch of the Tim Stead about it with knots and defects selected and preferred. My feeling is that wood is organic enough already in its grain and disciplining these patterns is where the beauty lies. The use of contrasting timbers takes restraint and care or one can create work that tires the senses. In this room splayed beech fights yew, already too much, further acacia detailing I find unrestful on the eye. Furniture is as much about what you don't do as what you do. I imagine, to his eye my work is overly modest. When I do the bookcases I will endeavour to enhance his wood panelling with a more mature, quieter piece. Students often fall into that trap, of incorporating too many themes in a single piece, the mistake of many a designer maker too. It can be easy to forget that when making a piece ones intimacy is far greater than the viewers. My challenge is to not over make it revealing the rawness of the surrounding work. The detailing of the house is a real missed opportunity and to my eye something of a folly. Given the opportunity I could have created a far more considered interior. My furniture provides islands of sense amongst the malaise of mixed and mismatched timbers. My work for the Chelsea house is far more refined. My work for Exmoor only partially my design. Given sketches I realised and tempered down the ideas. For a time I struggled with working to another's initial conception. It drove me to consider abandoning furniture. The project has taken over five years, my furniture took three which is a long time making work I would never put my name to. Each visitor to the workshop would see what I was making and, to be frank, at times I had to make it clear these weren't my ideas to retain self respect. Once complete I took some sort of pride in it all. I began posting photos of it on this blog, if your kean you can look it out. Slightly embarrassing, I would compensate with a wild drug fuelled private life. Climbing industrial architecture and developing my photography as my primary creative outlet.
The pieces for Chelsea are closer to my taste but still I am essentially creating what I imagine my client wants. This drift from my own artistic or creative mission has been driven by necessity. It has become a means to an end. A way to make money. I created a reasoning to excuse my making work I don't like. That I am fulfilling others dreams.
I so dearly want to return to my initial reason for making. To create an art of myself to leave for the world. During my days of exhibiting my own speculative work I would sell roughly half, all the best ones. This left more and more of my work to try store. You can only exhibit a piece to the same audience once and if it doesn't sell you are stuck with it. Never able to use it for scratches and the marks of use render it no longer fresh. It also presents an image of artistic stasis if you exhibit old work. I take some consolation in knowing few are truly able to get by solely through exhibiting speculative work. Most are either born rich, marry money or teach to supplement their income. I used to. But if you are only in the workshop two or three days a week you won't produce much of worth. Or it will be slow.
So still I wrestle with whether to continue the commissioned work of which I am fortunate to have an apparently limitless flow. Or return to my art. I have no savings to support me while I amass a body of work. I am working class, hand to mouth, my labour all I have to sell. I could work on commissions in the day and my stuff at night but these are ones tired hours. I prefer to practice something else, like writing of an evening.
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