Last weekend, I attended a private view at a little studio that overlooked the Atlantic. A friend from New York had been spending the past two months on the British coast, gathering material for a final show, which was a colour-bursting collection of vast hanging canvases that told the story of a hero’s journey, alongside ceramic sculptures, intricate jewellery and a seemingly endless supply of source material. There were torn-out pages lining the walls, books piled up on tables, even pieces of art made by kids who she taught back home in New York.
We spent an hour looking at the bigger pictures and finer details of her work, and then she walked us through each piece, explaining its context, as well as some of the references she had plastered all over the space. Some I recognised, but most were new to me, and they varied from other artists’ work and simple colour swatches to poems and adverts.
She tells me she likes to do these residencies – particularly in places so full of ancient history, folklore and myth – because it gives her brain a chance to shut off from daily life, and reach for new ideas. And it struck me I have not been allowing myself the same opportunity.
It’s a tale as old as ‘have you tried turning it off and on again?’, when the computer glitches and all you can do is restart it. My brain is similarly malfunctioning, not releasing the same levels of creativity as before. And while it’s nearly impossible to do as the French or Swedish have historically done, and take the month of August as a ‘grand vacance’, I am seeing the bright side of a week or two of actually switching off. Or perhaps it’s merely a dimming of lights, then readjusting your eyes so you can find something new in the shadows.
Often in that daily churn of life’s neverending tasks, it’s easy to stop searching for inspiration. Or perhaps it feels more natural to let it come to us via screens, when really, the point of it is to seek it out in the real world. I think the switching off allows us to switch back on again, and return more lit up than before.
PS: You can check out Chelsea Pettyjohn’s work here!
Words by Cat Sarsfield
