A personal account of South Africa, Berlin, mental states, the many selves inside an artist life, and updates from THE FLOOR.
South Africa, then Berlin
I came back to Berlin from South Africa about three weeks ago and immediately had to catch up. In Soweto, I told people I was an artist looking for other artists and soon found myself in a van heading to Lucky’s jam night in his garage. He had started it 15 years earlier because apartheid and its history had left a shortage of supported creative spaces. I also met street artists at Track Side Studios.
I toured NIROX with a South African organiser from the music scene and thought of Storm King Art Center in New York. At Wild Spirit along the Nature Valley coast, I stayed a week among locals, visitors and artists. Back in Berlin I looked for clients, went to the “Jesus in the Desert” performance by Berlin burlesque Softy, visited Ohr’s launch at the Orangerie in Neukölln, painted a section of the old Berlin Wall with Lulu from Limerick, and went to BAR TAUSEND to hear Natascha Roze.
The selves I carry
Carl Jung’s anima and animus describe unconscious qualities of the opposite gender within a person, at least according to the Wikipedia definition I found as a child of the internet. I was asked what I do to balance everything I do, and I still find the question confusing. Art is not an outlet I selected. It comes out of me like hair grows.
I move between the crusty artist, the bougie gallery artist, the business person, the vagabond traveller and many other versions of myself. The business side and the art side can balance each other, but I still need to pay the bills. The weeks alone in nature helped me remember that.
When the feeling goes quiet
The highs are brief: good weather, money in the bank, an open road and a soundtrack. The downs can become depression, an overload of heavy feeling followed by numbness. I know I have to start clawing myself out and walk the line again.
Creative people often struggle with depression, perhaps because we absorb so much from bodies, places and other people. That sensitivity can make the world ecstatic and overwhelming. Then the work starts, not as a choice but as a way to put outside what cannot stay inside. That is why I say being an artist is simply what I am.
THE FLOOR updates
THE FLOOR is my co-living and art-residency project in Berlin. Applications ran through its open call, and the monthly salon dinners bring creatives, thinkers and builders together around a theme. The first salon had already happened, and the next idea was a conversation about technology, AI and creativity.
The next resident was Theodara, a musician and poet from Greece, arriving April 1st. Lulu, the previous resident from Ireland, is a street, visual and tattoo artist who painted many walls in Berlin and planned to return for street-art jams. I also reopened commissions.
Originally published on Substack