on art making
plus the past two years of my life and what is the point of it all.
Hi friends ~~
My work is being shown at Craft Victoria’s atrium, in a showcase called Three Makers You Should Know.
I’m sharing the space with the immensely talented Em Frank and Claudia Bloxome. I am very grateful for Sarah, Cristal, Lisa and the amazing team at Craft, not only for putting the work together, put for putting us together. It’s a particular kind of honour to have your work cared for and put into context. To be seen this way, placed this way, among makers at the height of their craft, in particular with Em & Claudia, who are arguably, way more ahead of the curve in their practices than I am. I mean, wow, what can I say but thank you.
If you can make it, please come. The show runs until the end of the month…so, there’s ten more days left?…
*This really proves how bad I am at promoting myself as an artist, given that the show actually opened at the start of February. But I suppose that is a sort of signal for the rest of this Substack anyway, about where I am at the moment.
I've been putting off sharing this news because I always try to offer more than just an announcement, given that I rarely post and am not exactly active on any platforms. I want to make whatever I share worth your while by offering something beyond the surface, mostly about what goes on behind the work, what it all means. I wanted to do the same when the opening came out, but for the past few months, I’ve been struggling. It’s obvious, I think, if you look at the titles of the pieces in the show. (shimmered in this weight air & the wages of art.)
So, anyway.
29 years of my life have been shaped by navigating the bureaucracy that governs my existence. Each border control form, each visa appointment, a negotiation, a sort of performance review for my right to exist.
The review template was the same everywhere, its dimensions fixed. Certain answers were acceptable, others were not. I stay in the confines of the right answer, fitting myself into the same shape, year after year. It was easier. It made sense. It was also the only option.
Then, in 2021, I managed to escape the borders. My partner and I had been together long enough by then for me to apply for a partner visa. This, in turn, meant I was no longer tethered to a specific employer or job, no longer required to prove my worth in the same way I had for years. I thought my whole life that I could not wait to escape this life, that what I wanted out of being here was to make art, not write Google Sheet formulas all day. And at last, it was happening.
I enrolled in SoCa the next day.
*Between 2017 and 2018, when I was still living in Auckland with a restricted work visa, pottery was not the kind of art I could sign up for in the evening after work. The nearest studio required full-day attendance, there was simply no room for half-measures. I guess it was the inaccessibility that made pottery feel essential to me, that set it apart from every other art form I wanted to chase given the opportunity.
The first few months were difficult. Beginnings always are. Then I grew better at it, and the act of making became easier, though the practice itself remained demanding, consuming more and more of my time and attention. By then, I was also constantly tempted to see what would happen if I gave in completely.
If I let art consume my life full time, would it, at last, feel like a whole life?
By 2023, I had given in to my impulse. I let ceramics take up all the spaces of my life.
But then.
For 18 months, though the incredible joys of making did come daily, deep down, I was also consistently experiencing this dull yet persistent sort of ache. I think, for my brain, which had spent its entire existence up to this point surviving in rigid structures, with no real choices, no room to ask why, my freedom was starting to feel suffocating. There were days when I longed for the very structure I had once been so desperate to escape.
When the money ran out, it was almost a relief. Almost.
The plan had always been this: make art till I could no longer afford to, then return to work, earn more, save more, then back to art again.
In September last year, I fit myself back in the same old mould, I went back to work at yet another corporate job.
And to be honest, the first few weeks was good, or at least, it was something that could be described as such. The regular pay check helps, as does the illusion of certainty. Then the job went into a different direction, and I made the decision to leave it, certain only of what I do not want. But certainty in what I do not want does not seem to open the door to knowing what I do want. And so I find myself, for the umpteenth time in the past two years, once again, at the same crossroads, circling the same questions.
Here is the list of things in the messy cupboard of my mind, in no particular orders of importance:
What is it that I do want? And does it, in turn, want me?
Will children be part of my life? If so, when’s the expiry date for me to make this happen?
Can I afford adoption? Would we stay in Saigon for a few years, close to my family, if so, how can we afford our life there?
What job should I get in order to live closer to my family? Am I qualified for said job? Can I get it?
What does my future looks like? How much money is enough to care for my family when they grow old? Will I know when I have reached it, or will the number keeps on changing?
I love parts of my job but not its entirety. Should I pivot now? Back to school again? Is it too soon? Too late?
How do I stop spiralling?
How does an artist remain visible without social media?
Am I losing my connection to friends, to my community, by staying off social media? Or was that connection only ever an illusion, something that cease to exist once I stop putting in the work? And if I don’t put in the work no one else will reach out?
My body feels weaker than it used to now. How many times a week should I go to the gym and how can I fit that into my schedule?
*there’s too many to count here but I thought I should stop at 10, it’s a nice and neat little number.
The truth is, I’ve been circling these questions for some time now. Caught in their spiral for the past two years, I fear, that my life has been rapidly depleting itself of joy, dissolving instead into a sort of to-do list, where even pleasurable acts like seeing friends and having fun have become just another task to tick off. When do I talk to people, I feel as though I’m only regurgitating words, stringing them together into something that’s mildly legible so they might believe they can understand me, and I might believe that I can understand them, only so we can move on.
But really, I do not feel understood. I do not think anyone understands me. How could they, when I could barely form a coherent thought in my brain to understand myself?
At the core of it, I think, is that as an artist, who derive so much joy from making, I really don’t know what to make of what I do in these times. I seemingly always return to art because that’s where joy still resides within me. The idea of one small good coil pressed into another, the slow accumulation of form, the way larger meaning emerges out of these tiny act of repetition still does gives me that prickling sensation that resembles joy.
It carries me for a while, this joy, this making, but eventually, one does need to eat. And when you consider the cost of living, the relentlessness of the working life, and the looming, endless sense that you are not doing enough, will not have enough, that nothing you do will ever be enough, joy can be hard to sustain. It also doesn’t feel as though there is any way to escape this fact that we live in a world that demands more than joy in exchange for our survival. In our modern life, unless you know how to package your joy and your art, how to shape it into something easy to digest, to consume, to sell, I don’t really think you can sustain your living as an artist. Literally, you cannot afford to eat if you’re just making art in silent.
The reality of it is, we live here now, in the very real world of money and greed, and really, you must eat. When you’re hungry, you have no time to wait for the system to change. You must eat now, from whatever hands that offer it. And what if the hand that offer demands all of you, and there is no time left for art, no time left for joy, what then.
I don’t know. I’m still trying to figure all of this out.
But.
Sometimes.
In my rare moments of clarity, I allow myself to think that maybe beauty is good enough, that fun is good enough.
And isn’t the point to just enjoy the show?
And maybe, just maybe, I should just learn to dance, while there is still music left in me.
T.
xx
really enjoyed reading this -- felt the echos reverberating within me, as I'm sure others have. no answers to be found here, but know that many of your questions are so so so universal in their longing and desire to be found and understood. wish we could find a cafe on a rainy day here in brooklyn and have a tea! xoxo
Oh honey.
For what it’s worth I don’t think anyone can fully understand anyone else, but we try, and that’s what matters, right?
Giving you lots of hug, now and the next time I see you. Love you lots