Tidying up and reflections

The fog of fatigue is clearing from yesterday. Sometimes fatigue is useful because it stops me from overthinking. Thought is pared back to the necessary level to undertake a specific activity. This works if I am drawing or sitting at a particular activity that is meditative or focussed. It doesn’t work in situations where I would want to be ‘firing on all cylinders’. Assessments are such occasions. Mental agility is at a premium when talking about my artwork and ideas. Luckily I recorded my presentation so that I can listen to it and plan to improve on delivery in the future. I notice that the sense of satisfaction at actually achieving a respectable display of work against all of my own predictions, leads to a sense of complacency when required to talk about the work to an audience. I wonder if this is akin to Tim Ingold’s Aspiration/Prehension shift. The lesson implied is that forcing myself to commit to finalising the exhibition of the work with rest time scheduled before presentation would enable me to move forward to the next cycle of aspiration in advance of presenting which would inevitably lead to a more skilled and more engaged presentation.