Five Years (...and counting)
On Friday I had a big shipment arrive at my house, a pallet jack had to be used to get it from the truck to my front door. Shrouded in an obscene amount of plastic, a few dozen boxes contained 350 books that are the culmination of five years of work. Shakily I opened a box, took one out - it's so small, light - it's crazy, in a way, that such a long amount of time ends up distilled into something so specific and, in a way, condensed. I love the book, I really do. I'm immensely proud of myself, but it's incredible - over 1500 days end up being able to be refined into something really unique.
Five years ago, in 2017 I started thinking about Eagles. I saw someone else's photos and thought 'hmm I want to do that with Wedge-Tailed Eagles'. The first picture I ever took of an Eagle was during a spring drive home from a hike with my girlfriend, it was 2017 and I was captivated. She was irate, I was pulled over in the middle of a dirt road on a mountain, she was worried we'd be cleaned up. Always the worrier, that one.
In 2018, things changed. A big court case broke about people murdering eagles. Something inside me collapsed. I'm usually a really hopeful person and believe most people (99%) are just trying to live a decent life, but there was something so fundamentally upsetting and challenging about learning of these crimes. How could someone do that? How could they look themselves in the mirror, or go to sleep at night? Where's your heart, your head, your soul? From then to now I've been working to build the project that is now The Killing Sink.
Five years is a delicious round unit of time, but for someone like me (a spoon, not a fork) there's almost nothing I've done for five years. I've never had a job for five years, haven't lived in the same place for five years since I finished school, I think I have a pair of hiking pants that are five years old, I've been with my girlfriend for 7-8 years and I've been trying to make great art for 10 years now. I think those are like the only 5+ year milestones, which is amazing. I'm writing these figures because I'm sort of amazed I stuck with something for five years. It's such a long period of time for me, I'm so wildly unfocused and energetic I stop-and-start rather than see things through. But I saw this through.
Five years of art work is also a bit of a deceptive lie. The bulk of the work was 2019-2021 - where the research, photography, editing and weekly inputs were much higher. Before then I was just working out what the fuck I was doing, after that the book making process was glacial. I'm not the same artist who signed a book deal in 2020, I wouldn't do things the same again. That's fine, no sour grapes, just an appreciation that things shift and I've grown.
Five years focusing on something changes me. I can't not see Eagles everywhere I go. Street art, car stickers, eagles in the wild, eagles on wine bottles, eagles on tattoos, social media, TV. Eagles, eagles, eagles. It's like I've trained my focus to snap on to anything remotely eagle-y. I still bring long lenses with me in car rides, just in case, but I haven't pulled over on the highway to photograph an eagle since November 2020. I still love the animals, more so now then before. When I see one, especially in Gippsland, it's a joy born of defiance. Go, I think, show those fuckwit farmers that you're still here. Living, sometimes, is a sort of resistance. Well, not that Eagles understand that, but it's something I feel now.
When I look at the book, holy shit, I did it. This has been an aspiration for years, I've always wanted to do work to a standard where someone else looks at it and goes 'yes, that's worth putting our name behind and making'. There's always a risk that when something is 'done' you can feel a bit empty - you've got there, and THIS is it? But I don't feel that way. I feel fucking great. I am proud, I am pleased, I am stoked.
Some notes for you:
Come to the book launch/solo show on July 1st. It is here, I'll be there from 5PM till late. The show will be up 1st-10th of July. I will be in the Gallery 1st, 2nd and 3rd. So if you can't make Friday come on the weekend and say hello, please. Bring a friend, fuck it, bring TEN friends.
If you dig the work let me know - it took me five years guys!!! Is it good? Do you like it?! What do you think!? Is it a bad one!?
Have a great week all,
Matt