I’m planning on applying for Arts Council England’s Developing Your Creative Practice fund. Recommended to me by my mentor, this funding would act as a support for this “Wasted Time” research I’m doing as well as help accelerate it. And it would accelerate me as an artist, as well.
I have struggled to see where I fit in in the world of art. I make pop music. I write poetry. I want to make audio programmes. I love academia and researching. I want to help educate. I want to tackle big ideas. I want to make something rich and mysterious and layered. But I also want to make things which are catchy, easy, joyful. How can I do all of that?
The Tiny Songs Project has helped me re-brand myself as an artist almost. I went from gloomy, self-centred songwriter to happy, weird, music-maker and image creator. It’s also changed the way I dress myself, too. I wear a lot more colour now, or am drawn to it at least (don’t really have the budget for a wardrobe overhaul at the moment). See the above photos for the difference.
The DYCP application requires me to plan out what I would do with the fund, who I would get in touch with, what milestones I would aim to reach and how I would measure my progress. I’m not sure at the moment what any of that would exactly entail, but I have some ideas. Here they are in note form:
MY MAIN QUESTIONS
How can we make the idea of "lost time" less negative?
How can our planet help our perspective of time?
Can pop music & the culture surrounding it be a vehicle for solutions to these questions?
AREAS OF INTEREST
I would like to network with people, organisations and places in these areas
the arctic
the ocean
geology
astrophysics
indie pop and punk music
audio-making (like Transom for example)
Norse/Celtic myth and folklore
MEDIUMS TO WORK WITH
music — writing an album or an EP
podcasting/audio
written blog
visual diary/sketchbook
diagrams or maps
performance
workshops/teaching
animation
ACTIVITIES TO DO
geological exploration of a place
stay somewhere remote up North
collect oral histories around nature and myth of a place
create a series of deep time event reconstructions
create a podcast from the information I research or an enriched audio piece by including the songs I write
pop album pop concert zine for geological events, merch for geological events or areas so we can care about them like we care about our favourite band