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If I were 22: Terence Wilde

“When you gonna love you as much as I do?” Artist Terence Wilde offers some gentle guidance for himself at 22.

Terence Wilde
5 min read

It’s the early 80s, I’m on a foundation course, there are maybe 60 of us. Some appear confident and self-assured, there are a couple of mature students, and the rest of us look like we’ve come into the wrong room but decided to stay. A few of us are put under the spotlight and asked to explain “why we deserve to be here?” I sink as far as I can into myself without disappearing and several sensitives take the exit.

Fast forward 30 years and I’m on a collaborative artist’s residency in Kentish Town with a 3rd year BA student from Central Saint Martins. We are being tutored and I feel it’s now the right time to ask “Is it OK to not know what you are doing?”

I think I already know the answer to that one.

If you should go down the road of exhibiting your work with galleries, being part of group shows or selling through agents, then I suggest that you like those people. Your work is a very special part of yourself, so you need to be careful who you trust with it.

I say this as I’ve both listened and not listened to my instincts. When I ignored my gut feelings, my textile agents at the time literally ran off with all my designs and money they owed me – vacated their Kensington flat; gone.

And I’d bet I wasn’t the only naïve artist on their books.

When I did trust my instincts, I met, showed and sold some paintings with an authentic gallery. The owner was busy on the day I went into speak with him, so I waited awkwardly by the postcard racks before introducing myself. He seemed to find my unpushy reserve refreshing and offered me a month’s slot.

Learning to love yourself is a tricky state of mind to achieve for most of us and needs constant maintenance.

It’s easy to lose track of yourself, especially in the art world where you’re not only as good as your last painting but also your last witty remark or shirt that you’re wearing. It can be ruthless out there when you’re a player who’s not well equipped for playing. Some acting is required, involving a good hard skin that you can remove at the end of each day.

I went with a friend to see Tori Amos at the Royal Albert Hall a few years back, who quoted a line from Tori’s song ‘Winter’ – a line she’s told me a few times: “When you gonna love you as much as I do?”

You can’t really ignore that sort of thing.

Studying and living away from home for the first time is an ideal time for experimenting with life’s important evolutions of image and identity. I’m sure it was compulsory when I went to art school, much like the five GCSEs you needed to get in with at the time. Whether you went blue or blond and dyed all your clothes moss green, the rules were simple: you pretended to read Berger’s ‘Ways of Seeing’ in the holidays and saw The Smiths at the student union.

I think it is essential to follow your true nature in everything personal to you, especially things you love and help get you through life. You are the judge of you, whether people think you’re cool or not.

I currently find myself showing ceramics as part of Pallant House Gallery’s ‘Radical Crafts’ exhibition, which funnily enough shares floorspace with a retrospective of work by John Piper, beloved decorative painter to many an aspiring textile designer. In the second floor print studio at Winchester School of Art, us JP enthusiasts could literally feel the disdain from the real artists above.

Because life is like a carry on film.

“He has the ability to carve out a satisfactory career in administration.” If I’d listened to my insightful educators I’d probably have a reasonable pension and at least two holidays abroad each year by now.

I decided to carry on with my art regardless of opinions, bouts of depression, periods of unemployment and technology taking over the traditional hands-on approach to design. You have to keep going and create work even when you think no one is interested and haven’t sold anything in over a year. It’s all or nothing a lot of the time. It’s well worth photographing your work and sending it out for open submissions even when you can’t be bothered.

A compromise is OK and essential. If it’s art related that’s good, ‘cause you have to pay the bills. And if you can survive with your artistic integrity intact that’s a bonus.

I really would just carry on regardless.

Terence Wilde teaches art, pottery and textiles at the Bethlem Royal Hospital. His work can currently be seen in Outside In and Craftspace's exhibition Radical Craft: Alternative Ways of Making at Pallant House Gallery until 12 June 2016.
terencewilde.com
http://www.outsidein.org.uk/outsider-craft