Conceptual Process – Anxiety
I don’t have any tattoos, but if I did it would probably be one of these lines, from my favourite band:
“Anxiety, a feeling that you know you can’t contain,
Anxiety destroys us, but it drives the common man,
Foundation of society, anxiety”
Points if you know the band. They’ve been my favourite band since I was 14 and they’d been already been going 18 years at that point.
Function
The last few weeks have not been good in terms of my anxiety. I’ve functioned, I have had fun, but often hours will go by, lost in anxiety, sometimes it comes and goes. Sometimes I forget its there but then suddenly it’s there again.
What triggered it was something that was so low stakes it proved to me that it was a left over from previous conditioning, a relic, a learned response to long term stress that was not the right response in the first place.
So, they say its conditioning, old wiring, it’s from way back when, its primeval, its an over reaction, its disproportionate. Anxiety, a feeling that you know you can’t contain, does not care for all of that and all you can do is to see it, recognise it and move on. It’s not easy and if you’re not in the right frame of mind it can be damn near impossible.
I am getting better at doing all of that stuff, that is for sure. Finding ways of making money that are not diametrically opposed to who I am, and eating right, help.
Performance
It seems my anxiety flows into whatever I do for paid work. I’m usually pretty chilled about life events and challenges in my personal life that may arise, including dealing with a chronic health condition. Work, however, gets in my head over things that really don’t matter. Some rich person doesn’t stay as rich as they thought they should, a giant multinational corporation may lose more money than they thought they would, some project lingers on for yet another month because everyone has far too much to do and everyone knows it and everyone doesn’t care.
Big fucking deal – it’s business – it’s a game
In my head though, it is a big deal. It becomes all consuming and recurring rumination and tension and worry.
Until the feeling is pierced through logic and soothing self talk and life becomes colour again. You realise you’re not in danger and you laugh at whatever it was that felt like an exestential threat and go and do something relaxing and/or fun.
Until the next time.
Anxiety destroys us but it drives the common man – I don’t think I would have got to where I am now or performed the way I did throughout my career at a high level without the anxiety driving me on. That’s why this song resonates so much.
Process
Now I have more time and I have been looking after myself I have developed ways and means of improving and processing and I was pleased to note that art is one of them. So I am working on a series. There’s three pieces that will be made within the next few weeks and I may revisit but these three will represent how this thing feels to me.
The first that I’ll finish is likely to be the heart – the representation of the physical feeling, especially when it’s not in control. I don’t know what battery acid falling onto your heart feels like and I’m sure it probably wouldn’t actually feel like my anxiety but I like the visual metaphor.
The second piece, illustrated by our two friends above is related to my world being in colour again. It will chart the journey between the worst feeling and the feeling of freedom and colour.
The third, I’ll be returning to Epoxy, it will deal with the regret of what you may have missed out on or did miss when the anxiety had a grip. It’ll be a fairly basic premise but again, a fair representation of the concept as I feel it.
These works are going to involve several materials and some experimentation. One of the things I’ll be using I found in a charity shop and will be a re-use of a bit of The Works tat which is quite satisfying. Upcycling in art.
So, that’s what’s in the works conceptual wise at the moment. I am continuing to build up the quick and dirty money making aspects I’ll need to eat but I am pleased to be getting to a few of the bits that are currently in my ideas notebook.
I’ll post an update when done of course as well as the portfolio being updated.
Read the rest of my stories HERE
See my portfolio of conceptual works, commissions and randomness HERE