Why?

photo:AB

For the last few years of my practice as an artist and working in Arts Education, I have grappled with the commercialism and ownership of ART. Having become a mother of two young children (5 and 1 year old) it has opened and reinvigorated my eyes as to the deep expression of the world. It is not strangled by business or by trend, and it is not digging its own grave in a pit of Art History and the weight of fame. They express because it communicates, it is fun (yes, art is fun) and it is the concentration of anger, love, compassion, hate and all the other labels we put on the emotions that we all have as humans. Expression can communicate these and we can all express if we let ourselves. It is a journey into the sublime of the deep world and it is awesome.

So this is why I deleted my website www.marydalton.co.uk. Check it out if you wish, its got some cool blank holding page. I no longer wish to own what I do or own the things I make. As soon as I own them, they have become a procession, therefore they have a value, therefore they are a commodity, therefore they are trade-able, therefore they are business. They are not business. They sing and once they are made they are free from me. They are them.

It is very exciting really. And by no means does this mean I am not making any more. In fact, far from it. I am making with more vigour and joy than ever because a weight has been lifted. I certainly am not selling work, and I refuse to attach a price tag to it. I would rather give it as gifts or exhibit it for the sheer joy of discourse and fun and then compost it. But own it, possess it, market it, turn it into business, a commodity, a thing that is enslaved within greasy hands of rich art collectors, exclude it from certain people because they can not afford it? No. That is not my style and that is not me.

And this decision is not because I have been unsuccessful at selling work. I have been highly successful at selling work and have made a regular income from it. It is also not a stab at artists who choose to sell work. And by no means do I judge them and their practice. We all need to make a basic living to pay the basic bills. But we do need to SERIOUSLY see what is going on. And SERIOUSLY see where it is steering what we call art. And are we content with this? That is a question we need to ask ourselves deeply and truly. Because art is the inside of the world and for the sake of our world's children, whose expression is free and honest, we need to start making a change.

This blog will follow the new direction I am making, and the compost bins I will be creating. Compost truly is very important. I can not yet think of another term for artist or indeed Art, because I feel both have been overused and work like an old bike chain going round and round then finally got stuck with grime in the cogs. How we fix it? How we give it new life? I don't know. I am full of more questions and no answers. But that feels like a good place to be. So here we are.