Almost this time last year (a year ago in September) I won an award!...(And then I entirely forgot to post what I wrote about it!). This is a somewhat classic move on my part, as I can get easily distracted by the next thing in life and or in my work. However, the show I won this award for, is not something I failed to complete, or got distracted by; Quite the opposite. The show I won this award for was almost a decade's worth of my hard work.
So it feels only fitting that this show would be worthy of some recognition. Because it's by far the hardest thing I have, and I feel fairly confident in saying ever will, create. This show was a bearing of my soul, heart and body. An extremely vulnerable, initially raw, messy, journey of a healing process, that was then shared, on stage with a live audience.
There are many varied opinions on what it is to 'use' our art for our 'own' healing. On who we 'should' be making our work for. Personally I subscribe to the belief that we make the work we have to make. Not neessarily the work we want to make, or need to make; the work that has to be made, because it won't let us be, until we have made it, shared it or given it the life, it's demnading that it must, recieve. This work is not rational in any way, it will not answer the question: "How is this for?" And if it were to answer, it would reply "It is for anyone, everyone, and noone, all at once." Simply, it must be made. Because it has a life force that needs to be followed. And then we, as the artist, are duty bound, to follow.
It will be my Birthday in a couple of months, and I am reflecting today on all that the last few years, and decade have brought to me and into my creative/artistic life....rather a lot!
This last decade has seen me transform myself and change my life in radical ways and it is easy sometimes to forget about that. To be so caught up in the present and or in processes of making peace with the past, that I forget to stop, and really look at, how far I have come. It's funny in a way to win an award for a show that is about my healing and recovery journey from sexual and domestic violence. Strange that these life changing experiences in my past have become a space for celebration, in my present. And that also feels very fitting. To receive some recognition for still being here and making the work I am making. And in fact I feel that everyone who has been through the kind of journey I have, (am also still on and will always be on), deserves a f**king award just for managing to get out of bed, and make any kind of attempt to continue with their lives.
Because this is the real act of innovation; finding a way, anyway, to keep going, with your life. And I suppose that is what the heart and driving force behind this work is; that we don't know what people have been through, or what it can take a person, what it costs them, what they have given, to be able to find and fight their back up, off the floor again.
And within our culture, we are often fixated on the events themselves or the ignoring of them, because they are too uncomfortable. And in reality, for many of us, what comes after, is often much harder, or at the very least as hard. One act of violence can take decades to heal. And we don't often give cultural recognition or validation to those journeys of huge and unwavering strength, determination, passion and the will; To Live.
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