I never used to have much time for Tracey Emin (now Dame Tracey Emin.) I liked one or two of her early pieces - such as her bed
and I like her neon signs, such as this one at St Pancras station
but I don’t “get” her paintings, not really.
But my attitude to her personally changed a couple of years ago when I listened to her being interviewed on the BBC Radio 4 programme, This Cultural Life.
You can find the interview here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0011467?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile
I highly recommend it.
Half way through the interview she talks about her experience of having bladder cancer that was so aggressive and fast moving that only radical surgery could deal with it. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy would have been too slow. She had several major organs removed and now has a stoma.
She said that accepting the likelihood of death liberated her to live, and she approached her life and her work from then on with new verve. I hope I have given an accurate summation of what she said - I do recommend the interview to you.
Anyway, it reminded me of an excerpt from Quaker Faith and Practice that reads
Are you able to contemplate your death and the death of those closest to you? Accepting the fact of death we are freed to live more fully.
Until about ten years ago I didn’t understand this. Now I do.
Dame Tracey Emin is an impressive person with her Foundation in Margate supporting artists.
Why am I writing about Tracey Emin on New Year’s Day?
Because last night Dave and I went to bed as per normal (we ignore the whole midnight thing) but I couldn’t get to sleep and after fighting the bedclothes for a couple of hours I switched on the light and completely rearranged the bedding, sprayed my pillow with lavender, read Samuel West’s loving obituary of his father Timothy in the Guardian, and then turned to Instagram (which I am on for paintings and nothing else- well OK, also the occasional Victoria Wood sketch*) and I saw this entry from Tracey Emin.
She sums it up for me.
Am I downcast this morning? No.
Best foot forward as on every morning. Dave and I are going to walk through wind and rain to Hassop Station for breakfast, and we’ll take the New Year from there. It will be more of the same for both of us. You know what we’re about by now.
Oh, you know how I said Dave spent Christmas Eve reading Ted Krasinsky’s manifesto? Well…I have been wanting to paint some interiors, so I tried to paint him reading. It’s not turning out how I wanted it to. I wanted something like a Dutch interior with strong light and shade, but this is where it is at at the moment:
I’m not happy with it. That whole end of the room with the Christmas tree should be in deep shade. The walls are white and the curtains are cream in real life and I thought I had made them “shady” enough, but not so. It needs so much more work, and is rather daunting, but…onward and upward. I need to keep trying.
That will be my motto for 2025 in the face of all the darkness out there…keep trying.
*if you need cheering up, watch this sketch. I watched it three times in quick succession and laughed every time.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DENBPGYtv1T/?igsh=dmc4cGt2ZDRlMWRm
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