100 days

I am writing this after emerging from a house that has been in the throes of norovirus. We all dropped like flies, first the youngest two, then myself and my daughter. Beforehand, I had planned to do the 100 Day Project, which starts on 22 February. This year I wanted to approach it differently, without sharing the work on Instagram with the obligatory hashtag. The idea was simply to make work for 100 days, painting, drawing, research, whatever form it took, and to document the process for myself.

When I mentioned this to my husband, depleted and a couple of pounds lighter, he said, “That’s a really bad idea. You should be putting yourself out there.” The voice of reason and practicality, and in one sense, he is right. Not sharing feeds those fears of not being seen, not achieving, your work going nowhere.

But I have been thinking about this. Recently my son gave me a drawing of us as parents. We stand there, boxy, arms open at our sides. In fact, in all his drawings we stand this way. Arms open, as if always giving and always receiving. It made me wonder what it would feel like to live in that suspended state of constant giving and receiving. Hollow and full at the same time.

In some ways, this is what it feels like to share work on social media. You hollow yourself out, offering it up, hoping for eyes and engagement. At the same time, you are flooded with other images, endless styles and personas, a steady bloat of paintings, photography, whatever the algorithm decides. I value seeing what my peers are making, but I also feel the lack. There is no face-to-face exchange. A glance at my work for one or two seconds probably won’t help it grow, nor will my hunger for validation. What I want is time with other artists in the same room, hearing them talk about their work, the exhibitions they have seen, and what they do when they are not being productive.

I cannot promise these 100 days will be productive. In fact, always aiming for productivity may be the problem. A friend once joked, “You are a hard worker, Nikki, you must be from a Protestant family.” It made me laugh. I watched a video of Philip Guston in which he says, in his truculent way, that he does not want to fully understand the process of making. He is not a psychologist, after all. I love that answer. He talks about how the first thing always looks good, and then doubt inevitably sets in. Perhaps analysis is not the point. Perhaps it is the doing, the thinking through making, that matters. I need to make more time and space for this doubt.

In 100 days it will be the end of May. My youngest will have turned six. In Winnie the Pooh, this is when Christopher Robin leaves the enchanted forest. Those were more austere times. I want to believe we can remain active and visible within a space of our own making, our own enchanted forest.

When I lived in London, I used to go to band nights called Upset the Rhythm. A song by American punk band Japanther’s stayed with me: “I wanna, wanna be, a part of something, revolution baby, I need something to fight for, I need something I need more, this constitution leaves me hungry.”

I still want to be part of something. I do not say this lightly, especially after moving from the UK to Ireland and having to build new friendships. Being an artist can be lonely, and generosity matters. But I am beginning to wonder whether the generosity we expend online is misplaced. What might happen if, collectively, artists stopped giving and receiving on Instagram for 100 days. What if we upset the algorithm?

‘Listen to the silence, let it ring on.’ (Ian Curtis)