Think of yourself as a Maker
How imagining you're an artist from the 60's can help to keep things on track
Last week I went to see Magdalena Abakanowicz’s exhibition “Every tangle of thread and rope” at The Tate. In the 60’s and 70’s Abakonowicz created massive sculpture from woven fibre. As my friend Ruth and I walked among these sculptures at times it felt like we were walking through an awesome, cosy forest, at other times it was as if we were in the ocean surrounded by giant rope-made sting rays. We watched some footage of Abakonowicz making her art, hoisting up the heavy rope and lugging it around and it struck me how manual and visceral being an artist for her was. How I envied that! She didn’t have to worry about whether to make a video portrait-sized for Instagram, or whether to reply to an angry man in her comments on youtube or whether to fully commit to TikTok. She just made art.
During lockdown I started making regular comedy videos. I’d made occasional online sketches ever since Youtube was a baby, but during the Pandemic I had more time to make them and I really enjoyed doing so. I remember at the time someone saying “Well done for being productive,” but the truth is I didn’t do it to be productive I did it because I like making things. When I was choosing which wigs to wear to represent different members of Call My Agent I was happy. Ironically it made me feel like myself. It was also extremely nice to make people laugh, albeit from a distance.
I still enjoy making videos. I like the freedom of thinking of a funny idea and not having to wait 8 months for someone to reply to an email to tell you whether they might one day consider developing it or not. I like not having to articulate my strange thoughts to a bunch of people, and instead just making something and knowing that I can sharpen it up when I edit it. I’m impatient and making my own comedy as soon as I want and putting it out immediately suits me. I am grateful that some of my videos have been enjoyed by lots of people and that this has enabled me to reach a new (online) audience. It’s lovely and heartening to know that I’ve made some people laugh, and I’ve heard from and connected with lots of lovely people because of it.
The thing I struggle with however, is the interminable admin that surrounds it. Now that there are multiple platforms there’s the dilemma of whether to make a sketch for one platform or multiple and if it’s for multiple platforms then does it need to be in a different aspect ratio for each one and what time should it be uploaded to this one or that one and why is TikTok not posting my video and oh no I’ve accidentally uploaded it twice now I’ll have to delete one and dear God kill me now please. This side of things is so dull. This side of things is the opposite of making art. But it’s necessary if you want to make sketches and put them online (which I do) for people to discover and hopefully enjoy.
So last week, as I was trying to organise my dull admin and wondering how to be strategic about managing my time, I decided to imagine myself as a maker. I’m not working with rope (sadly) but I am trying to make things, and this thought experiment has helped me to stay on track a bit. The admin still needs to happen obviously but thinking of myself in these terms has enabled me to stay focused on my priorities. I’ve wasted a bit less time with accidental scrolling. On days when I’m teaching or gigging at night I’ve been experimenting with writing first thing in the morning rather than battling admin first thing in the morning and also (and this is radical) I have been eating breakfast without listening to a podcast/scrolling/replying to WhatsApp messages. WHAT?!
I realise that for some people eating breakfast without any tech is an unremarkable experience, and to those people: I salute you. But when you are a self employed writer/performer there is a huge temptation to stay permanently connected to the internet because of the constant hustle; replying to potential work, filling out a doodle poll to decide when a zoom meeting should happen, sending a bio to a comedy night, sending invoices, promoting a gig, trying to send a high res version of a photo you’ve already sent to a venue, responding to the responses to the “content” you’ve put out there.
Anyway I recommend imagining you are an artist from the 60’s, it really does help to keep things analogue.
ps - thank you to those people who sent me nice messages about last week’s post. It’s lovely to know that people are enjoying my thoughts. The algorithm has rewarded us all with this video of Willem Dafoe talking about perfectionism and flirting with failure. I found it very heartening! I hope you do too.