Creative Lockdown
The idea of lockdown was initially quite exciting; the idea that this might be a bit of a reset; the chance to create new work with no expectation of having to go anywhere or do anything. The freedom to just create.
The reality, however, is very different. The financial worry. The worry about the virus itself. The things around the house that need doing and now seems to be the best time to do those. The worry about what everything shutting down actually means. The worry about whether you’re doing the right thing by turning away customers because you don’t think you should be going to the Post Office. Then there’s the stress of having to be in lockdown with a 4 year old who knows what’s going on but doesn’t really understand, and who has conveniently just developed the arguing and answering back skills of a teenager. Add in the frustration that, despite their constant bleating to others about the importance of staying at home, many people are still doing non-essential business, going to the post office, going on their daily “exercise”.
After all of that, you’re left with the dawning realisation that actually things probably will never change, the super rich will always be fine, the world’s biggest companies and banks will continue to profit from everyone’s hardship and we live in a world of narcissists, more interested in their own image than any kind of genuine sincerity. But, all that, is for another time and another blog, maybe.
In truth, my difficulty in creating any new work started long before Coronavirus got serious here in the UK. Many months ago I brought a small pencil case of marker pens and charcoal home from the studio, together with a pad of paper and the intention of working on something new. It went in the cupboard below the TV and it has stayed there ever since… there always seemed to be something else that needed doing. But now, in the days of lockdown, I still can’t bring myself to make anything new. I’ve sat down and made some sketches but I can't seem to commit to anything further than that and actually create some new work… I don’t know whether it’s the fear of not doing the right thing and wasting good paper, the worry about creating yet more work that I can’t sell, or maybe even that there is no point to creating art at a time like this when people are losing ”real” jobs and will have no money to spend on pictures. It could be the fear of wasting time (even though now it is seemingly in abundance), the thought of whether I should be doing something else that would be more constructive, the concern that maybe I should be making the most of all this time with my family and not thinking about work at all. Maybe (and quite probably), it’s a combination of all these things.
Anyway, it’s been just over 2 weeks of lockdown now, and there doesn’t seem to be any signs of that changing soon, so still plenty of time to get my head in the right place and get going on my “isolation” series…