I need to write something out tonight but I'm not entirely sure how to go about doing it, and even what it is exactly. I don't feel I can be as explicit on here as I used to be able to when no one really read this thing. Since the art fair I've been very busy, but in a lonely way. Working largely from home I can go whole days without speaking to a soul, except perhaps the postman. That is a radical change from art fair week where I literally lost my voice from talking so much, meeting so many people. When I go from one extreme to the other I tend to get a little antsy.
This is only one of many dichotomies I currently find myself navigating. I go between glamourous exhibition openings with gesticulating conversations, meeting person after person and immediately forgetting their names, to lonesome days in front of my paintings - the very paintings that get me to these exhibition openings - singing along to Stevie Nicks or specific sentimental songs that remind me of sentimental people. I am emotionally invested in something but unable to be physically invested. I go between thinking time passes all too quickly without the chance to savour a single second to thinking that it's a slow motion eternity. I want things that if I had them I wouldn't want them anymore.
I am in a brilliant, strange and glistening place at the moment. But it is unfamiliar. It is treacherous. I am making decisions and steering across uncharted territory in my work life, my love life, my social life (okay, all aspects of my life). I am getting older. The overarching protection bubble of youth no longer totally safeguards me and I feel exposed to the elements. I am asking questions that only I can know the answers to.
This is not necessarily a bad thing. It's a good thing. I am learning so much, feeling so much that I've never felt before - the good and the bad. My world seems so much wider now that I know my feelings can transgress oceans, now that I think of events in my life as pieces of a larger puzzle rather than a singular entity that exists outside of a greater plan.
I feel almost like a different person to the self I knew last year. I was so compromised, so enamored with the familiar. It was easy, but I that's exactly why I decided I didn't want it anymore. This year has been a self-exploratory year and it's been remarkable.
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| Minna Gilligan, 'For you baby', 2014, collage. |
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| The series of badges I designed for Melbourne Art Fair. I am doing a giveaway to win these on my Instagram! @minnagilligan |
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| In my studio on Monday |
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| Working at home today |
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| Brodie and I at the Melbourne Writer's Festival opening party on Saturday night |
As an aside to the rather intense personal rant above (hi guys!) - Brodie and I (plus other amazing gals!) will be speaking at the
'Amazing Babes' event for under 20s this coming Sunday the 31st. We are speaking about women who have influenced us - Brodie is speaking about Tavi and I am speaking about Ella Hooper :) More information and tickets here:
http://staging.mwf.com.au/session/amazing-babes/
Thanks for reading as always X
