07:37

07:37

A trace has not been made for days. The other day I began writing one about invitations and recognition and what’s it’s clearly not, and I have returned to it several times but still not managed to finish it up.

So now I will share another wonder with you. This is about the paradox of money and innocence. Conditioning too. I have never had an interesting in money which has made me struggle a lot as bills still needs to be paid somehow. Money has probably been one of the biggest worries in my entire life. I live alone, have to be able to manage on my own as there is no other income than me to rely on. And I have never in my life had a steady monthly income before now. I have been living from hand to mouth for a very very long time. Never knowing when money would come or how to pay my bills. Which is an exhausting thing causing lots of stress, constant worries, endless sleepless nights and stomachaches.

I’m a visual artist by profession. I have been driven by rabbit holes and whatever curiosity that came my way in order to understand this odd world we are living in. Using my hands to produce has been my coping strategy to avoid my mind, to escape this terrible mental tiring glue I was stuck in, my entire life. Working madly was my way to survive.

And so I have been producing a lot of works throughout the years. My studio shelves are piled up with them. But I have absolutely no interest in doing the actual effort that is required in order to try to sell any of them. It requires documentation, marketing (a word that makes me itch immediately and clearly something I’m allergic too), all sort of admin, very boring stuff actually, just like you as an artist also have to do the bookkeeping, write a lot of applications first for exhibitions and then for project support and grants, figure logistics and all this stuff that is so time consuming and taking away the time to make the actual works. I think that I used to spend eighty five precent of my time on everything else but the actual making and creating.

It’s not that I don’t want to sell, I would love for the works to get out in the world, to eyes that would appreciate them, bring joy to people. It would make more sense than all of them just lying on my shelves collecting dust taking up unnecessary storage space. As soon as a work is done I’m finished with it, have nothing entangled in them, I can easily let go, get it out of my way as I know something new will come next. I’m not connected to them in that way. I have been giving a lot of works away throughout the years as happy eyes from people who like them are still better than dust and storage space.

And so when the one one and I the other day talked about how to find the needed funds so we can go join an immersion I saw how my mind immediately went back to the usual trap of “I must produce something” a physical thing to sell, in order to find the flow of money we need to cover the expenses. Why would anyone support us without getting anything in return? Nothing comes free - or so my mind is conditioned to believe.

This world is so tangled up in a strange marketing-selling-game that I just don’t know how to deal with. Or honestly; I just don’t care at all, can’t see why I would even try getting my self into it. I’m so used to the fact that you have to make an effort, make, create, produce in order to get something or somewhere. Basically; you need to work hard in order to survive.

Talking about options for what we could do made it very clear to me that my body doesn’t have that pull or energy at all, to stand up and get itself in to a sort of work that would require labor in order to make it possible. And now my mind is getting worried about the future to be honest. How to survive in it, if my body is no longer willing to work the way I have always done and are conditioned to. My mind tries to convince me that I have to do. But then I look down the body who is cliff stiff now moving at all. It just doesn’t care.

We do trust the universe will make the immersion happen if we’re meant to be there, but my mind does not understand how the universe can send us the needed support without us doing something to get it, my life has never proved that to be true or happening as I only know the part that involves labour.