Today my head is full of project proposals and language.
Im torn between the excitement of ideas and the development of my work and the necessity of writing proposals that are written to pursuade people to support you in it.
However, I am finding that if I stay true to my interests and to where I feel my art may go, letting go of the worries of the details and allowing for the fact that occasionally everything changes – then it really is OK!
It’s funny to me that I am exploring language in my Art, and I’m now at a stage where I am having to use language constantly to tell people about what I am doing, what I am planning or how I am going to take the next step. It makes you rethink how you use language. I find myself considering every sentence… Which isn’t the way that I actually feel free. I feel freer when I just let it flow! I may want to heavily edit it after (!) but at least it has come out and it’s been me.
I think this has to be how I take it forward too. How we talk about ourselves, our communities and what we do is a powerful thing. The language we use everyday informs not only others but our own self about what and who we are. This is in fact for me the most important element as what we feel about ourselves affects the whole of our lives.
This in a language context actually seems to be very important in proposals too – although admittedly it varies greatly depending on where/who you are proposing to! But if you are able to clearly talk about what you are doing, what you wish to develop in your art, that you believe in this and have faith in yourself, then those reading it will too believe you and have faith in you. Surely??
So on this note, look out for my next projects, if I am successful in getting them accepted it will be because I have stayed simple and me and I hope to have a hell of a lot of fun developing them too!
There are loads of sites that explore project proposal writing. I’ve searched a few but I love this book for anything to do with art and writing. ‘How to write about contemporary art’ by Gilda Williams