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I love and hate creating things, and that hate is down to that perfectionist tyrant squatting in my brain. It says things like, “You don’t know enough about the subject, so you can’t.” This is hard to argue with without the necessary facts, so I’ll research and research and research. There’s nothing wrong with research, of course, unless it threatens to snuff out that spark that made the original idea exciting. It’s also tricky to know when to stop, because that voice never seems satisfied. My tutor told me my MA dissertation bibliography was closer to one you’d find for a PhD. It’s so hard to know when to stop (but then, knowing which brush stroke, note, word, etc. is the last is a mystery too).

If a friend was talking to me about this, I’d tell them ideally the research and the creation takes place side by side, complementing and informing each other. This is good advice that I’ve received before, but has personally been impossible to put in practice. I wish I could put my finger on why it feels dangerous to start working without an exact map: here there be dragons. I wish the saying “You can’t make an omelette without breaking a few eggs” didn’t sound so sinister, like a line in a mafia film. The momentary pleasure and satiety an omelette brings doesn’t feel equal to permanently destroying an egg. What if it’s a Fabergé?

Really, with this mindset, creating art is like life. The process is all about postponing the end. The planning, drafting, sketching is all about postponing the process. If I never start working, I’ll never have to finish. Crisis averted, and I’m immortal now. I certainly don’t miss the depression that would set in immediately after performing a work I’d spent months putting together with my performance troupe. I seem to have learned the wrong lesson from this experience, that it was teaching me not to make at all. If I stand perfectly still, I won’t get eaten. Another lesson is, if I stand perfectly still for long enough, I will be clad in springy moss and lichen and bird shit. Arguably I would be art, but I couldn’t accurately be called the artist. I would also be covered in bird shit.

So. This is a little manifesto for myself, possibly just for this month if this proves unbearable. I will let myself get messy. I will venture down the unlit path. I will stop sniggering when Bob Ross mentions “happy little accidents”. What’s the worst that could happen (the second-funniest epitaph after “I told you I was ill”)? NO. No epitaphs. No one is dying here, except that bastard squatter who owes me years and years of rent.

I crack an eye open on the fifty-sixth notification and regret it. A groan escapes my face, I burrow into a pillow. My ears are covered but I hear, as though underwater, “Charming way to greet your wife.”

I manage to turn over without vomiting, but end up on plush hotel carpet after misjudging my position in bed. I suavely scramble to my feet, yanking the t-shirt that has ridden up to expose my tummy in a very cool and very sexy way. My wife stands by the window, dressed, putting earrings on. She’s smiling. I’ve got myself a smiling wife.

“Good morning,” I try again, the light too light, the air-conditioning not conditioning enough. “… who the fuck are you?”

Apparently I’ve got myself a wife who smiles with mouth and eyes. “Told you! I said this would happen!” She’s enjoying this. I look at her clothes, they look… croupiery. There’s a too-yellow band on my left hand. Will probably leave a green mark. Disappointing choice.

“… roulette?”

“Mmhm, but I was on five-card draw. I came to see Tiff when I’d finished and… there you were.”

“How much did I win?”

She’s laughing for longer than strictly polite. She checks her phone, shrugs, and perches on the arm of the chair. “I’m a sucker for an underdog.” I rub dried saliva off my cheek, she catches me. “I was thinking about this – it’s kind of like an old-fashioned marriage.”

“Of course it is. What the hell are you talking about.”

“Marrying someone before knowing them. An agreement between our parents, perhaps. Your father, old money sort who’s run out of old money with an impressive surname.”

“Your father, a new money sort after the Gold Rush.”

“They make a deal, Daddy comes home and tells me I’m to be wed, one week’s time. He says the magic words: money is no object. How exciting!”

“Father comes home looking old and pale. ‘I know your feelings on the matter, my girl, but nothing doing. One week: wedding. It could be worse, she’s fabulously rich.’ ”

My wife grins, finds a half-empty water bottle in her handbag. I have a wife who drinks water. “Beautiful dress, waist could have been taken in a bit more. If we’d had more time – never mind. The organist begins, and I walk down the aisle to my new life.” She stands and walks towards me.

“I fiddle with cuffs, check my breath, shift my weight from one foot to the other. Mother is crying, again. Father stares ahead.” She is in front of me. “My wife. My radiant wife.”

She offers her hand, which I bow to kiss. She giggles, smoothing my sleep-creased t-shirt. “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Ronan.”

“Under the circumstances, you can call me Monica.” We grin. “I’m sorry: how am I to address my blushing bride?”

“Brandy.” I blink. She taps the name tag on her blazer with a manicured nail.

“… oh, that won’t get old.”

Today (like most days) I don’t feel able to fix anything, let alone with my art. I’m not sure art is for fixing, though, I think it’s for connection.

I think I’m being woolly-headed today, but I’m struggling to think of what art could fix. The most literal is when artists paint over potholes – the art draws attention to the hole for the driver which may not otherwise be visible (a short-term fix), and can prompt the local council to fix it quicker than it would have otherwise, because it’s a visible implication that the council is neglecting its duties (long-term).

In a more profound sense, I thought of contemporary explorations around the maid depicted in Manet’s “Olympia”, particularly by black feminists. In a revised edition of “The Painting of Modern Life”, T. J. Clark quotes a friend’s reaction to the original “Olympia” write-up: “You’ve written about the white woman on the bed for fifty pages and more, and hardly mentioned the black woman alongside her!”. We now know the model was a woman named Laure. We have an awareness that Manet may have been incorporating (deliberately or not) the “Mammy” stereotype. There’s discussion about the gaze and how it works here too: the eponymous figure stares at us, and Laure looks at her. Does this mean Laure is the viewer? Are we Laure? Does this give Laure power? Ultimately, do these discussions ‘fix’ anything at all? At least Laure has her name back.

There’s also ‘fix’ as in to make permanent, a frozen moment. This also seems like a fool’s errand. The recent restoration of a church fresco in Rome included an angel painted to resemble the prime minister, Giorgia Meloni. Today it has been reported that the angel’s face has been removed. To claim any artwork of any kind is permanent is a bold one: admirable confidence, but perhaps misplaced.

I’m not sure art can fix or be fixed in either sense, but I think it’s this that makes it even more important: meanings and symbols change but only through conversation (perhaps exchange is the better word as it may not involve words). The exchange is the important thing. Humans always seem to want immortality, but this is just a putting off of the inevitable. Art reminds us that the only certainty is change, a memento mori in itself.

“As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.”
~ Virginia Woolf – I mean me. Definitely me. Don’t Google it.

The above quote sums up my feelings. Another is “Imagine there’s no countries/It’s easy if you try”, some lines from a song I wrote after leaving the Beatles. From an aesthetic point of view, it’s just disappointing how dull the majority of flags are. The biggest tragedy of all is that one of the loveliest, the flag of Wales, isn’t incorporated in the Union Flag. Booooooooo. What a missed opportunity.

Pirates used flags in the best way (a very polite warning that you’re about to get all your stuff nicked) and had beautifully morbid designs executed simply and effectively. Usually a very simple, but contrasting, colour scheme. The Jolly Roger is a classic, but give me Blackbeard’s devil skeleton, having a relaxing class of wine as he stabs a bleeding heart. In terms of form and function, you can’t beat a pirate’s flag.