I have focused all of my attention of late on moving forward with the Displaced artist book. I’ve decided to apply for a RACC (Regional Arts and Culture Council) Project Grant. The application is due in a few weeks and I’ve been working frantically trying to secure all of the requirements needed to be competitive. The reason why I’m applying is because the grant would essentially pay for the full edition of books, the number I’m aiming for at this point to be fifty. This would include the letterpressing, printing, paper, binding and marketing costs. Knowing that the entire project could be paid for in winning this grant is too tempting to ignore, so I have thrown myself into the process. I’ve never written a grant proposal before, so I’m trying to avoid the inadequate, insecure feelings I’m having and just keep moving forward with it.
The grant application has raised some good questions about who the target audience is, how I’m going to market this and what my true goals are. It has provided me an opportunity to reflect on the work as a whole and figure out how I can reach beyond the photographic community and open the book up to other groups of people who might be interested in this story. It got me thinking about how therapeutic this project was for me. It was the most difficult period of my life, no question. But picking up the camera, and being able to immerse myself in the art, in another country, in an imaginary world, helped me in ways I never would have dreamed.
It got me thinking about the larger audience I’ve been continually striving for. I’ve reasoned that there are two groups I want to approach to talk about the work and how it helped me get through this time… one is people coping with separation or divorce, and the other is people advocating for or contemplating art therapy. I didn’t intend for this to be some kind of therapy, yet I experienced first hand the powers of delving into something larger than yourself, the search for visual perfection. It was a complete escape and something I would like to encourage other people to do. I’ve never have felt like my life experiences would be worthy of sharing. During the few exhibitions I’ve had, there have been instances when someone has approached me to express how meaningful the pictures were to them… that they related to what I was going through and saw the sadness, felt the frustration, and remembered the feelings of displacement that they had in their own life. I’ve realized that there could be opportunities to help people with this work, to share my experiences working on this and encourage others facing similar challenges to find some kind of artistic endeavor to delve into.