Copper Leg Residency as part of A Body to Dwell project, September-November 2024, Vaskjala, Estonia
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Upon my arrival at Copper Leg, I was instructed to spend 48 hours by myself.
Here is my reflection from that time.
Here is my reflection from that time.
The Find (series), watercolour crayons, acrylic and pen, 2024
Cover Letter, video/performance, 04:49, 2024
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As an artist, it is unlikely you will be able to make money purely from your work. Instead - unless you're much luckier and more talented than I - you must have another job, or even another career on top of your art. For me in fact, I need the other career - if I were to only make art and try hustle my anxious backside off to make money from my art - I would be lonely and unhappy. As much as I critique corporate culture, I actually love working in an office and I love working with people in an office. That is to say, I ₗₒᵥₑd (past tense) working in an office.
Spending these months on my art practice, draining my money in materials and accommodation and flights, I am acutely aware of being unemployed, following a recent restructure at my previous workplace. The only money that has come in is from a sweet, but random Estonian man who commissioned some paintings of himself, his grandson, and a really strange painting on his car bonnet. Upon my return to Naarm, I anticipate writing many, many cover letters; re-tailoring my CV again and again; responding to Key Selection Criteria. When I was drifting through my Google docs recently, I felt sorry for just how many earnest words I had drafted, edited, and sent off to many, many managers over the years, to no avail.
Probably you've experienced the same thing.
This work speaks to that, but also to many other things. As bushfire season approaches Australia, as our reliance on plastic continues, as the water rises, as we get thirstier, as we get more obsessed with making money, impressing potential employers and ignoring wars, genocide, increasing tribalism everywhere, the looming catastrophe that the climate crisis is already wreaking on the world.... our need to drink water and survive remains. And our need to make art.
