The Art of Beginning Again

As the cliché goes, the hardest thing for a writer to face is a blank page. One day life changes and your practice changes or stalls, and then that blank page begins to stretch out over months then years and then so much time has passed you can no longer remember what you used to write about.

Perhaps if I all had done was open a new notebook, grab a pen and just write something then I may have written more and sooner; but I “used to be a blogger” so inertia won out and the page stayed blank. The speed of progression in internet age however means pausing too long gets you left behind. Social media algorithms shift, blogging platforms change, even the act of blogging online has changed beyond my recognition in the intervening years.

I did once have an old-fashioned WordPress blog which narrated the thoughts and progress behind my art practice (and it is still online for all to see). I wrote it for myself to start - then for me and my art college tutor - and eventually for me again. A proper research practice journal which I was immensely proud of. I thought of resurrecting it directly but so much has changed in the interim, including my website platform and audience and losing all the passwords…. perhaps it's a good point to just simply start again. I can use that blank space to mark a huge liminal period in my life where my art practice has been forced to evolve and me as well with it. Older, although no wiser, and still oblivious about what is and isn't cool to be done online (and doesn't just using that word mark me out as Gen-X!).

I'm writing for me again, but if my artwork or my words resonate with you too, then please do follow the road along with me. I don't want a million-strong audience, just the right people who want to hear what I might have to share. If that's just my mum and my cat then so be it.

Here's to starting again.

Angelique