The Artist's Body
Circling HomeWork #28
I make art that exists in three-dimensions, by hand. Making drawings certainly isn’t the most physically demanding art form (see: dance, large-scale sculpture, performance art, etc.) but unlike conceptual art it is a physical process that requires my body to go through specific and repetitive motions, in specific postures. As I get older, I’ve been considering how to better care for my body with this in mind. If my HomeWork on Record Keeping was about organization, information, and process in service of getting things done as an artist, today’s is about tending to the embodied, sensory experience at the heart of being an artist. If my body is my first home, then creating a home in which art can survive will involve tending to this frame.
The relationship between health and my ability to make art has been on my mind lately because even though my migraines are more ‘under control’ than they’ve ever been, generally, I am also—specifically—amidst a couple weeks long run of headaches nearly every day. It feels like it could be anything:
weird weather
lots of pollen
a head cold
coworker who wears lots of cologne
general stress and a physical propensity to carry tension in my neck, face, and shoulders
emotionally processing a major life change
Caring for my physical health is a way I hope to sustain and create more ease around my art practice. This intersects with other ways and reasons I take care of my physical health like the way it affects mental health and chronic pain. In spite of the migraines, I’m a pretty healthy person overall. But even so, having the energy or wherewithal to tend to your living space and life admin tasks, much less a creative practice, when you’re in sustained pain can feel impossible at times. Every time my migraine medication kicks in and kills a headache that would have previously taken 12 or 24 hours to go away, it feels miraculous—a new, mini lease on life. Doing the laundry, or cooking dinner, or going to the studio feels possible again. (You do only get so many pills per month though, because if you take them too frequently that could also, wait for it, cause overuse headaches.)
Feeling bad (and trying to feel good) takes a lot of time and energy, and if you have it—money. All three are limited resources also needed to support a sustainable creative practice. The limits to and expense of medical and mental health care in the US are systemic issues, yet we also have to… do something to live our lives.