I was at a short film night the other day, and one of the directors shared a great quote (I naturally forgot almost immediately who by and exactly what it was) to the effect that artists should create work without fear and without hope. The simplicity of this appealed to me, the implication being that we make our work on its own terms and for its own sake, for no other reason than that it demands to be made. It’s a rejection of the immediate gratification we’ve been brought up to expect in this country at this time, which drives us to act not for the act’s own sake but with a hope- to achieve, to be recognised, or to gain- and with a fear- of failure, of not realising our desires, of being judged and found wanting. As a mantra it demands a truth to self: we do because we do, and we are because we are, which must hold a resonance with any artist who, like me, has been brought up to worry that they won’t one day have a mortgage, or a pension. If there’s not an alternative choice, then why should we worry about it?
It’s a pretty neat summation of the point at which I’ve recently found myself in my own creative practice. After graduating from drama school with a decent degree, I spent a year trying to make it as an artist. What did make it mean? Simply, to be able to make work, and to support myself doing it. In this quest, I wasn’t entirely unsuccessful; through a combination of writing commissions and teaching in drama schools and youth theatres, I managed to make ends meet. But the constant pressure to make work that I thought would meet the criteria of the funders and the ongoing battle with my overdraft proved overwhelming for a young artist still innocent in the brutal ways of the arts economy. I gave up and got myself a day job, because it turns out publicising theatre is a lot better paid than making it...
Two years later, I’m over that first shock, and back to making work again, but this time, purely because I want to make it. Of course I care what the powers that be think of my work- after all how many artists have you ever met not driven to some extent by ego?- but I’m not making the work for them. I am making it because it fascinates me, and because, I feel, I can’t not. It’s not created entirely without fear, and it’s not created entirely without hope, but it certainly has a lot less of either.
At the same time, I’m conscious that allowing myself to work ‘without fear and without hope’ feels, sometimes, like a bit of a betrayal of my community- and one of the conversations that began this document did identify artists as a ‘marginalised community’. On the cusp of funding cuts and a greater demand than ever in my lifetime to justify the value of the arts, I’m aware it’s never been more important to project our sense of ourselves as artists beyond the realms of the work itself: to articulate our hopes and our fears loudly, abruptly, and in inappropriate places. To get political.
So I took up the challenge to participate in this articulation of longings, in spite of my battle wounds from the past. The location was well chosen. Over three hours from the mad theatrical market that is the Edinburgh Festival, from whence most of us had come, somewhere in the depths of a forest, we found ourselves in a space beyond the clutches of mobile phone reception, where the only sounds were the gentle chug of the generator and the crackle of the wood burning stove. A place where, if we were ever going to truly listening to our longings, they had a pretty good chance of being heard.
This collection of writings intends to communicate what we discovered together that weekend, and the journey we began. I don’t think we necessarily defined a shared understanding of what longing might mean, but in my notes from the weekend I’ve scribbled down in huge letters ‘TAKE THIS LOOOOOONGING’, and I think the clue to the word’s meaning lies in the name. Your longing will be with you for a long time; in fact it will probably be with you for a lifetime. Sometimes the component parts might be small- a bit of money, a bit of space, a bit of time, a bit of an opportunity were all mentioned in the depths of forest- but they all connect to something bigger, a desire related to a sense of self, that it is this that drives me. I long therefore I am.
But significantly, what I discovered through the process (and perhaps more important than the longings themselves) was how to listen to my longings again.
So, if like me, you find the voice of your longings is easily drowned, follow these five easy steps:
1) Find a quiet place to listen. Better if it’s in the countryside, better if there’s no mobile reception or wi fi. Pick somewhere where you can stretch your legs and stretch your eyes. A wood burning stove powered hot tub is not entirely necessary- a large table, pens and paper probably are.
2) Find some sympathetic people to take along with you. You may find it easier to talk frankly with strangers, but either way they must be people with whom you have a sense of be- longing: this is about identifying yourself with a community and figuring out what, collectively, you want and need.
3) Talk. And listen. Walk, cook together, chop logs, drink wine, talk some more. Talk beyond the point of exhausting the subject. And listen.
4) When you discover your longings, declare them, write them down, tattoo them to yourself if that’s what you need to do to stop yourself from forgetting them.
5) Keep your longings close to you- somewhere where you can’t ignore them. Keep them in your sights, and give chase.
Paradoxically, I think a lot of great art work is borne out of frustrated longings. It may be that part of the journey of understanding our longings is coming to terms with the fact that the true value of them may be the struggle to reach them. Part of me suspects that my true, deep longings are like the soap bubbles and the butterflies: beautiful and mysterious as they float just out of my grasp, but bound to fade as soon as I touch them. And at risk of a slight betrayal of my community again, there’s something perversely thrilling about belonging to a world that’s so vulnerable, shifting and uncomfortable.
So, I’m going to end this introduction by offering my own twist on that half remembered quote from the film night, and suggest a particular strategy to longing that may be useful to the artist in this moment, and that’s to long without fear, and without hope. Which is to say: don’t be afraid to long for the impossible.
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