10 days to go

After a week on crutches there's a lot of catching up to do, but I've had some amazing friends stepping in to help out. Doing everything from being honourary carry monkey to priming and painting my degree show space (the person who had it last year left it a lovely shade of dark red, and I need it white.)

So today my parents came in to feed me and help with the last coat of white paint (although it looks like I got more on me than the walls) leaving me freer this afternoon to do the final touches on a couple of films.

The subject matters of the films are quite emotive, but it occured to me that my relationship with them is quite detached. While listening through the final cut of one film in which an old fisherman talks about the loss of a friend of his (along with several other men) in a lifeboat accident, I suddenly became very aware that other people are going to be watching this, some of whom may be familiar with the event, and almost all of whom wont have the same amount of detachment from it as I've had. I must admit to getting a little emotional when I watched it through today and got a little freaked out that I might make someone cry. While on the one hand, it's not nice to make people cry, the relationship of trust between artist and viewer is one that has always fascinated me, and that I've been thinking about a lot this year, so I think it might be quite interesting to see how people interpret what I'm showing in that respect. Whether some people might feel a little exploited (although I'd hope not, since that was not my intention - although it had crossed my mind) or if they'll get it and realise that it's about more than just representations of moments of 'life' (or death.)

It's all a little daunting right now with so much work to be done that part of me wishes that I didn't have to go through with the whole thing, but thankfully that part is well overshadowed by the rest of me that is just really looking forward to showing work that I actually enjoyed making (to a point) and getting a major sense of relief that (hopefully) I've achieved something.