Truth To Power

There was no need for a year planner in the studio in 2025 because there was no plan. Completely pivoting your work takes time everyone says and they’re probably right. I became so anxious at one point by the size and emptiness of the calendar abyss that I caved and committed to myself that at some point before the end of the year I’d invite some respected, creative people to my flat and show them a few of the things I’d made and talk about them - which in art-speak these days seems to be called a “Salon”.

At least that would give me something definitive to get stressed about and offer a bizarre pinnacle to a shapeless twelve month nothingness with an indefinable outcome that nobody cared about.

Writing this takes me back and I realise how hard that felt, Jesus….!

Looking pensive in the studio, 2025

I hadn’t been aware how much validation I’d got from exhibitions and fairs and busyness until that wasn’t there for the first time in decades and it’s been a rough passage this year; my ego’s been dealt a slow but catastrophic puncture rather than simply a death, which would’ve been kinder. My art practice as it was functioned well in the world, it was respected and collected, it paid for my life. I was saying goodbye to it. People asked me through the year, was I sure ?

I’ve worked hard on trusting myself more this year but we all need to feel seen by others. I tried to wriggle out of the event a few times, I was really pretty scared. Networking is not an activity I know or do. It seemed like as someone who now had basically nothing in the diary, even this, which didn’t look like much on paper was too much to cope with.

But a couple of weeks ago it happened. I gathered a group of women in my flat, some I knew, some I didn’t but I had a feeling the people I’d invited would really get the themes in the new work.

With dear friend and journalist, Alison Campsie I talked about how it had felt to dismantle my established practice; how it’s felt to unleash a voice that’s been quiet for a very long time and to understand the rebellion that’s starting to pound through my new work. To have truly, deeply figured out where that’s coming from and the clarity of purpose it’s given me has been my massive win of 2025.

I can’t remember a time in my life when I have felt powerful, it’s not a word I’ve ever thought of in connection with myself, but that’s how I felt when I spoke that evening. Truth to power. Honesty to foster change. I’m struggling to recognise myself with this chat but I think that it’s growth!

Talking about myself and my work isn’t something I’ve done very much of despite a long career as an artist. It really started in earnest this year on Substack through writing. It feels somewhat cringey and self-indulgent and even more so when I’ve invited people to my own home to listen to me talk. That’s a lot of me. You can only hope that what you’re doing as a creative is that you’re laying out what your experience has felt like as openly, honestly, soulfully as you can and that it’ll chime with others. That, after all, is what art’s about; to connect emotionally with other people, to hear how they feel it, to know it’s relatable in its humanity.

The Salon felt like a different way of doing things, truer somehow, less tied up in the usual pressures of exhibitions and openings. Nothing was for sale, nothing was being pitched. The work was half-baked, some of it stuck on the wall with masking tape. My perfectionism was rearing its ugly head of course, but it did genuinely feel like it was about being witnessed without needing to shine. There’s a strength that grows from speaking plainly about hard stuff in a room of like-minded women and from showing new work in its raw state. The 2026 calendar is currently an aching vacuum but I think I’d like more of these, maybe with themes and guest artists?

I’m very proud of how far I’ve pushed myself this year and predictably it’s been tough AF. My comfort zone is currently a tiny speck on the horizon behind me. I still don’t really know where I’m going, but the work has taught me that I can express myself honestly and effectively through instinct, so I’m going to try to move through the world that way as well.

Moving towards more truth, connection and the steady, unexpected power that comes from speaking as myself into next year.

P xo

The salon of invited guests, brilliant women from across the creative industries, who came to listen to my story and share ideas around my new direction.