Working in the Uncomfortable Middle

Studio notes from Fragile Futures

As I move deeper into Fragile Futures, the studio has shifted. The work is no longer about producing objects that sit comfortably within familiar visual context, its about staying with questions that resist clarity.

This stage of practice asks for a different kind of commitment—one where certainty gives way to invisible forces and acceptance, and progress is often internal before it becomes visible.

There are ongoing tensions that accompany this shift.

Some are practical constraints within galleries:

• I find myself weighing whether the context of the artwork will be read, understood by curators and audience.
• And not every gallery is able or willing to hold contextual artworks, and choosing where the work belongs has become as critical as the making itself.
• Pricing raises its own set of challenges: how to honor labour and conceptual depth without pushing the work beyond what the market will bear.

Others are embedded in the studio rhythm itself:

• The repetition of prototyping, again and again, until a work feels visually and  conceptually is resolved.
• Decisions around limited editions versus unique works, where circulation becomes part of the meaning, and effort is rewarded via multiple editions
• The tension between revealing process through social media and holding work back until exhibition - debated among artists.
• Sustaining a long, two-year vision without regular validation, while continuing to produce other work to support the practice.

There is also the quieter challenge of capacity:

Juggling multiple bodies of work at different stages of resolution can fragment attention, yet abandoning them entirely is rarely possible. The desktop becomes crowded; focus must be actively defended.

And yet, this phase carries its own rewards.

The motivation is deeper and more insistent.

I feel compelled rather than random. 

My central question—consumerism versus conservation, and the irony of using contemporary industrial materials to speak about ecological fragility—continues to sharpen rather than resolve. And, when a work finally settles, the satisfaction is not just aesthetic. It feels ethical - like a temporary alignment between intention, material, and form.

Recent exhibitions and sales have offered moments of affirmation, even when those works sit within a more recognizable or “safe” zone. They matter to others and to me, this sustains my practice ... but they are not the endpoint.

This stage is uncomfortable, slow, and uncertain. It is also necessary and its a stretch where my artistry either sharpens or retreats.

For now, I’m choosing to stay with it.