Postcarding
I didn’t know my future. None of us did. My return flight had disappeared and I didn’t know how much longer I could stay. It was only reasonable to stop my art making.
It wasn’t a good time to add more pieces to my puzzle...
There was a point here in New Zealand between the art residency and the film job where everything stopped. The world stopped. If New Zealand could conquer the virus, maybe I could find work here. But if I didn’t have that option, I should surely stop my painting. Why make more things if you may have to pack up and go?
Without my art practice, I craved structure. I found myself shooting at the gun club a few towns over. Wednesday nights, no matter how stormy the winter nights got, I’d layer up for an evening learning how to shoot rifles in the cold concrete building. I relearned how to breathe, how to actively see and how to quiet my body. All of these I practiced in the service of accuracy, but they all provided invaluable skills outside of the range.
As I progressed, I saved my target practice sheets. Maybe I would glue a few maps pieces together, to use the maps up. Maybe I’d make little collage postcards. Targets aren’t the easiest graphics to work with, maybe I’ll just add a little paint…
Art is an action that ends in an object. I shouldn’t be making more objects to move around, but what if I make objects that are made to move on their own?
