Romance

“…if you want to talk romance, I could talk romance… all day long.”[i] It was important to me that Bella Milroy’s episode was the last of the season, not just to preserve some chronological order (broken up by the Whitechapel Gallery recording), but because the many things that Bella and I spoke about in our conversation were the things that I wanted to leave on. 

         Bella wasn’t the only one to talk about romance this season. I talked about it with everyone in different ways, sometimes talking about the romanticized representation of artists, sometimes speaking about the process of making in terms of love and desire, and sometimes speaking about the stability and perspective loving another person can provide. I know that love and romance aren’t the same thing, and neither are relationships and joy, and so I wanted to write an essay connecting these related things because, like I told Leah Capaldi, “…whenever I think about how fucked up our world is, or like, how no one's ever gonna pay me any money to do anything, or how I'm never gonna get anywhere. Like, the thing that brings me back are these, these best bits.”[ii]

         One thing that Bella said that I have written on my whiteboard next to my desk and that I carry around with me in my heart is, “always trying to fall for myself in those ways”. To provide more context the full quote is,

I think you could say the romance of talking about that kind of thing disregards the practical, and, you know, structural problems with all of it. But you know, creativity is absolutely romantic. Like, I think for me, one of the things I'm always really excited and interested in is like romancing the kind of things I'm thinking about and feeling around that. Particularly because, so much of my work is interrogating aspects of my life lived with illness, and what that means. And so much of that life is kind of drenched in discomforts and difficulty and challenge like that. And, for me, my creative approach to it is always trying to, like, find moments like that, and kind of trying to fall for myself in those ways.

You know, ways that the world says are gross and horrible and uninteresting and unimportant. Like, those are the kinds of things that I want to look at and feel, and hold, and be able to, like fall for, you know?[iii]

         I connected to what Bella said and responded by reflecting on having to fall for myself as a Black woman often in majority white spaces, and what it meant to do things to push up against, “the things that I should be doing to try to, like, you know, like, squeeze myself into this person that I can never be.”[iv] I asked Bella about her project Mob Shop, because I knew that she used similar language around offering “new and better alternatives”[v] to the mobility aids and mobility shops available, and she said, “I don't know about you, but for me, they've always felt quite instinctive in terms of like taking agency and autonomy over these things.”[vi] Bella noted how liberating that can be as well as, “just how draining and exhausting that squeezing yourself into places that actively work against you”[vii] can be. I do believe it is liberating, and it is about taking agency and autonomy over oneself, and one’s body, and one’s time, and one’s life and one’s things, but, like Bella says, it is also draining and exhausting and it is not an option. It is a necessity in “places that actively work against you.”[viii]

         I spoke to Gregory Bae about this process of reclamation in the context of one’s experiences in the majority white context of Art School, particularly the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where we both attended. I would argue that this too is a kind of romance and love. Greg said,

I don't know if you remember this, but like, even back when we were in grad school, which was like circa 2011, around that time… I recall that there was a sort of palpable discourse that was really really about form specifically… And I do remember, like, kind of thinking, man, can we like… kind of start to get into content a little bit, but like, the thing that everybody was reactionary against as people of colour was about playing the race card. That was like something that you did not want to do. Like, you didn't want to, like rely on like, you know, who you were as part of your work, which is... is really odd to think about now, because in every other aspect of life, these things, in terms of systems that are being played out in the world are disadvantages, right?

In art, though, where you can talk about content, exploring things, it's the only time where it is actually something you can use. And to kind of put that down or to be afraid to use it, I think is incredibly misguided, you know? It’s absolutely wild and insane to think about. … why you were kind of afraid to like, ‘pull a race card’ was because you don't want to be seen as… like you want to be, you want to be legitimate, you know? That's kind of like a thing that is in your head, which is like, man, it's weird, because you kind of need to put [Sigh] a big part of yourself aside in a deliberate way, not even, like in a   subconscious way. Like it's, a situation, I don't even know what to make of it, but not that every, you know, person of color artist needs to be like, making work about you know, race or something, or every queer artist needs to be making work about being queer, that's not what I'm talking about.

But if there is something in there, like, there's something about this experience that kind of drives content to a degree and, [Sigh] man, I, at this point in my life, I don't see how I cannot because it's a part of every experience that you have no matter what. You know, there's going to be something in there, there's going to be a kernel in there that needs to be explored.[ix]

          What does it mean to be and learn in spaces where you are afraid to use aspects of your experiences? Experiences that in life are treated like systematic disadvantages, but in art could be something you could use and explore. And to not be able to do that means in order to be in these spaces you have to put, like Greg said, “a big part of yourself aside in a deliberate way”[x]. As we see more clearly the things we have been taught and the systems we live in, how is it that to understand this setting aside of oneself as wild, insane, incredibly misguided, and near impossible reflects having gone through a process of falling for oneself.

         Both Nicole Morris and Leah Capaldi mentioned the desire, engagement, and love in making. Nicole spoke about the hope of an exhibition, that it could be,

… the moment where you're going to share everything in your work, and, and in those moments of like, total, like, you know, it's like, it's like... what's it called, when you're like madly in love? Like, you know, it's not desire, not, I can't remember the word... Anyway, it's that moment, and you put it out there, but actually so much is missing. There's a reduction that happens in that process.[xi]

Nicole and I spoke about the reduction that occurs in exhibitions, partially out of necessity and partially out of the fact that exhibitions (particularly solo exhibitions) have their own form which is not allowing; but here I want to focus on that feeling, that word, that moment in which you think this, this is my moment to share, and how much love and desire and generosity is within that moment.

         Leah spoke about the two best bits about making, saying,

…the best bit is when I've made the work and I've installed it and that moment just before private view when I've had all these really intense, like, conversations with the curator or working with the gallery really really intensively and we've probably remade the show like 15 times. And then this kind of moment happens where it's like, just about to open, and you kind of walk in and you see it fresh. You see it with all the space, you see it with the anticipation of what it is. You see it clearly, because it's separate from you. And I love that. I absolutely love that. Because you recognize something in yourself, and you recognize this other, this other thing that you've made. It's, that's incredible.

So, it's like being able to recognize it because it's out of the studio, but then, like this other thing that happens in making where time leaves you. You don't have time, like there’s, like, new stuff that you're developing, new stuff that you're learning about how things come together, how ideas and materials come together. And, and it's, like, you recognize yourself and you recognize your interests. You made like 10 things in one day, and maybe you only like one of them, but you recognize it. And that clarity of, like, the recognition of your work, I love that bit. I love, like, recognizing what I'm interested in and being really, like, delighted and really sort of satisfied by it, you know? Really kind of like, ah, like... literally, like, it fills me, you know? And it makes me feel excited for the next day and thinking I'm going to pick that up again, like I'm going to re-edit that thing again, because now I know that the shape of it has changed slightly. I'm going to work with that silicone again or something, you know? It’s a new knowledge, it's the only way I can really describe it, like a new knowledge of how things work. Like those are the two best bits in my opinion about art, about making specifically, is that discovery and then the recognition.[xii]

         I replied, “I feel like we're talking about such salacious stuff”, and she replied, “Oh my God, yeah. It feels really erotic, doesn’t it?”[xiii] I feel like it was particularly salacious and erotic because both of us didn’t have a studio space or exhibition opportunities at the time, so our best bits had to be played out in conversation, which is its own form of deliciousness, but different. I interviewed Leah in March 2021, after a year of having been in and out of several lockdowns, and then I asked her for her edits to our interview in December of 2021, when we were facing yet another lockdown due to the Omicron variant. Leah got a Developing Your Creative Practice Grant from the Arts Council England to build a studio in her backyard, and I have been able to move into a studio provided for me by my PhD program. Things have changed since our interview, but I would say we are both still working our way back to these best bits.

         Nicole also spoke about falling in love in terms of her daughter Ula. She told me that,

… having a child I think it is actually one of the, like, it's like the most incredible thing. And I think you can totally keep up a practice. It's more challenging, but it's worth every minute. It's about seeing it as this longer thing because you have this new relationship. It's falling in love, but in like, the most incredible way. And every day something grows, and it's worth it. And it's worth being on the outside because the outside is way bigger, do you know what I mean? It's like, it clears that tunnel vision, it clears it.[xiv]

        In my conversation with Nicole, I reflect on a lecture I went to in London with an art historian who, at the end of the lecture when asked about any career advice said, “fall in love”. Only now I realize that he didn’t say in which direction to fall in love. Fall in love… with yourself… with your materials… with your experiences… with your artistic process… with someone. We love and desire our work and we build relationships with one another and feel a sense of joy, and all of this is not only important, but critical to being able to create, and also in being able to survive. I’ll bookend this essay with Bella who said, “I think we kind of miss that bit. Like we're doing it because we really love it, don't we? Don't we? Don’t we love this thing? Like, I love it.”[xv]

 Kelly Lloyd

[i] “Interview with Bella Milroy” Kelly Lloyd. May 8, 2021. https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/bella-milroy

[ii] “Interview with Leah Capaldi” Kelly Lloyd. March 3, 2021. https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/leah-capaldi

[iii] “Interview with Bella Milroy” Kelly Lloyd. May 8, 2021. https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/bella-milroy

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Bella Milroy, Mob Shop, https://bellamilroy.com/mob-shop (accessed March 18, 2022).

[vi] “Interview with Bella Milroy” Kelly Lloyd. May 8, 2021. https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/bella-milroy

[vii] Ibid.

[viii] Ibid.

[ix] Interview with Gregory Bae” Kelly Lloyd. https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/gregory-bae

[x] Ibid.

[xi] “Interview with Nicole Morris” Kelly Lloyd. February 25, 2021. https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/nicole-morris

[xii] “Interview with Leah Capaldi” Kelly Lloyd. March 3, 2021. https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/leah-capaldi

[xiii] Ibid.

[xiv] “Interview with Nicole Morris” Kelly Lloyd. February 25, 2021. https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/nicole-morris

[xv] “Interview with Bella Milroy” Kelly Lloyd. May 8, 2021. https://www.thisthingwecallart.com/podcast/bella-milroy