Rest has Become my Creative Process
As I sit and write this we are just over a month away from PROSPECTS. This week also marks one year since my family moved to Manitoulin Island and the initial bits of ideas for Water Body started to come together and take root.
Water Body is an autobiographical work that tracks how my body image and relationship with self has shifted over my life in parallel with how my relationship with water has changed. These transitions are rooted in my memories with the waters in the four areas I have called home: Adawe (Ottawa), Camosack (Victoria), Tkaronto (Toronto) and now Mnidoo Mnising (Manitoulin Island).
When I applied for PROSPECTS I had a clear plan for how the creative time leading up to performance would look. I had spent the past ten months in site-specific research and intended to dedicate much of August and September to focusing on in-studio creation. Today, none of what I had set out to accomplish in the past few months has gone as planned. But, as my work discusses, one of the biggest lessons water has taught me is that life cannot be contained by expectation.
The beautiful thing about the creative process for me is that often in the crafting of the messages I set out to share, I stumble upon new lessons about myself. This year, one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned is that the not doing of the work is the actual work that needs doing. That rest and rejuvenation is the true work of life. It prepares us to better show up in the world.
This weekend I collected all the little bits I’ve been saving for Water Body in “preparation” of making something. Here are some things I’ve collected over the last year:
Voice Memos on my phone from when I was out walking and bits of stories came back to me
A series of poems I wrote about what nature has been teaching me about myself
A list of songs I keep coming back to move to. Interestingly, many of them have lyrics about water in them
An instagram account of my land-based improvisations and choreographies I made into short dance films
Photos from the hikes we’ve gone on this year - many featuring water views or crossings
Articles I wrote for The Dance Current: one about moments of body shame I’ve experienced in dance environments the other about the rural dance artist experience
Quotes about body image and nature from books I’ve read
A phone note full of choreographic and design ideas
A series of embodiment exercises that have been shared with me by trusted teachers
Sketches I did during my two weeks leading youth programming along the Kagawong River
A notebook full of journal entries about my memories of water. Many which resurfaced during the dips in the lake I took this summer
What I realized, is that I have already been creating Water Body. Mostly in the moments where I wasn’t trying to make anything at all. I think it is this not-working-work that makes the life of an artist hard to explain or justify to the world at large. How do you explain that no amount of sitting in the studio “working” would create anything you wanted to share? How do you explain that pushing to “make something” wouldn’t lead to making anything at all? How to you help people understand that resting is work, but to fully benefit from resting you can’t enter it with the intention of having it lead anywhere.
What Water Body is teaching me is that not only can art itself be an act of resistance but so can art making. Choosing to create slow, take time and follow your internal desires - be that stepping into the studio or stepping away - is choosing to do something different; you are resisting the capitalist pull to prove your worth through placing value on busyness. And maybe that is how you explain to people the value of artistic life; by showing them that this way of living is what we all need and deserve. Just show up and rest.
- Candice Irwin