THE ARTISTS WAY
BY SIMON J LAMB
14 OCT 2024
“I was always trying to make something. Lego with my brother, or forts for the ants in the garden. My Grandpa bought those variety packs of cereal for us, so we would make boats out of cornflakes boxes together.
There is no roadmap for getting older, so my Grandma has been a barometer for me. She helps me to piece it all together. My parents are so instrumental that they end up being a bit too close, while she is a little further up the hill. When I have been struggling, there is an inclination to think ‘I’ve been that person and now I am this new person,’ but she doesn’t see that. She shows me that I am still trying to do what I did instinctively aged 5 or 6. Following the simple joys, when there was less pressure on the making.
I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but when I came out of architecture and into my creative process, I was trying to shake off the rigidity. ‘If I do this, then this will happen.’ That is very much the architectural way. It was actually in those conversations with my Grandma where I understood that I have always been drawn to fluidity. The kid with the cereal boxes was totally fluid.
I have this image in my head where through the darkness there is this glimmer of light. Sometimes it is narrow, sharp, and focussed. Like the iris of a small camera. Other times it is foggy, and you lose sight of it. That’s when it is difficult because you find yourself wondering ‘was that real?’ ‘Did I imagine that?’ ‘Is it an illusion?’ A friend of mine called faith a ‘celebration of creation,’ and I like that idea, that everything is always evolving, and I am just a part of it.
It is hard when the shifts are internal, because that voice on the shoulder – and society also – doesn’t care. It tells me that none of it matters. That it hasn’t translated into anything tangible. Into cash, recognition, or enough people saying ‘brilliant, I love that, keep going.’ But when I look back, I see huge steps.
I set things out and try to be ordered, but my best work comes through chaos. Through urgency. Grabbing a tool and beginning. It is messy, with the table filled with shrapnel of clay. Then it is over. I pause, I sit, and the light lands. The scene looks like reach and reaction. I remember in my first studio – the three walls of the neighbour’s barn that I commandeered – the evening sun would come in, and it would be that golden hour. I would have a beer, and play my favourite song at the time. In that moment, I know exactly where I am, across the whole journey. Charged, connected, and at peace. It is a beautiful state, better than anything I could ever design.
A work is only finished when it meets people and place. They give life to all that exists beneath the material. There was a moment of alignment recently after I installed ‘bark’ on the wall of a young family’s home. It was grey and overcast as the first nail went in, but after it was assembled, and as a small clan of friends gathered, the light broke through in this perfect golden glow, landing on the wall. There was nothing I could or needed to say. I was a spectator, and a dancing curiosity filled the room. Each eye free to discover what it saw. For that perfect, fleeting moment I was neither behind nor in front of the work, I was beside it.
I laugh with my friend Ezra because his role – as a material scientist – is about getting rid of variables, while I am trying to put them in.
I make the tool out of layered card so that I can be closer to it, but also because it creates the stamp of time. The card has give – it has wear and tear – so it degrades, and the edges become inconsistent. It reminds us that we cannot create things that last forever. However much we pretend, we cannot override nature.
Previously I was physically a part of the world – in where I lived, and the work I did – but emotionally and mentally I was nothing. I was no part of it at all. Now I feel incredibly connected to the world, but I am physically separate. All my energy is in pursuit of closing that gap. Finding more shared tables to be around.
It does feel like base camp is being edged slightly forward, and unsurprisingly it is the same group who have always been there. I am striving to find my place in the art world, and it feels a bit like going to a new school, and trying to make new friends. It can trick you into thinking you need to transform – a new haircut or colour – but actually there is a thread. It is this vital circle of people who remind me that art is a great part but it is still just one part of me.”
Simon J Lamb
From the Series: The Artists Way