Art: Trail #4

I visited my last venue on Tuesday.

If there had been better organisation I COULD have finished this on Sunday but, in retrospect, this was the more mentally sensible outcome. The next step in the process has been to pick one piece of work per artist which I will ‘respond’ to. There will be an exception to this: the ‘collective‘ of six artists will all get an individual piece with a ‘group’ piece being added to the Official Companion [*].

I now need a break. The mental exhaustion is very real indeed. My notional plan is to do nothing to at least Monday, possibly longer, and then begin the process of completing a first draft. All things being equal, that should be done by the end of the first week of August. Then we refine, we get a mate to proof-read the whole shebang, it gets a cover and I have them to the Trail in September.

I also need a break from art and having to be a social animal, which I cannot do for long periods at the best of times. There is an end-of-trail party on Saturday night which I will attend only to pick up a couple of items I bought during my journey. Then we are going to do as little as possible professionally until the end of the month. If this happens again, the process would be significantly different.

At some point I also ought to be really honest with myself as to how this whole thing has made me feel. Undoubtedly, a number of the exchanges have significantly altered my own poetry journey. I cannot escape the debt of gratitude that exists to certain people, the continued kindness and openness that I’ve experienced. Do the negatives I’ve experienced get cancelled out by all that?

Yes, there have been less than optimal experiences to get to this point.

The biggest single success in all of this, undoubtedly, comes from me getting the gig in the first place. I’ve spoken to some people since July 4th who really didn’t have much time for me, if indeed they were interested at all. There have also been flashpoints that have reminded me of what happens when you walk into someone else’s house and their rules aren’t fully explained.

However, this is now no longer about what I think or feel. The biggest test will be the quality of the poetry, the reception that work receives, and who appreciates that someone turned up to hold a mirror opposite their processes. Hearts and minds simply by doing the legwork. It will be the words now that matter above everything else.

Let’s see what happens next.

[*] I feel a Zine coming on to fulfil this task… :D