January Recap

The arts start slowly. The beginning of the year is a collective shuffling back into action for the various companies and organisations that make up the creative infrastructure of Scotland. As a freelancer this means that January is a quiet month with little movement on projects while the gears creak back into motion and the decks are set for another year of manoeuvring.

It also creates one of the most important assets for any artist - time. Shorn of deadlines and a diary full of gigs, there’s space to explore new ideas and get some much-needed writing done. Particularly in poetry and theatre - the two forms I’m most involved with - there’s a circadian rhythm of prolonged writing periods followed by intense public sharing of work. I’m definitely locked into a seemingly endless wave of writing at the moment and I’d be lying if I said I was entirely happy about it…

Ask me what I need at any moment to successfully do my job and I’ll likely reply ‘time to write’, but the reality often feels quite different. The solo nature of creating new work and the isolation required to do it well can really test the limits of your self confidence. Without the validation of publicly sharing the work or getting instant feedback from collaborators you’re instead forced to trust your instincts and have faith in the work itself, in the hope - not knowledge - that it will be appreciated by a future audience when the project reaches fruition.

That level of confidence burns energy. It requires a constant supply of ‘you’ve got this’ to keep going in the face of stony silence. The truth all artists need to brave is this: if we don’t make the work then no-one will mourn. There’s plenty of art out there to be consumed, us failing to add to the ever-expanding slagheap of content would be no great loss - indeed no-one would notice if we quietly slipped away and donned a snazzy tie for our new office 9 to 5. Instead it’s our own belief in what we’re attempting to create that helps bring it into existence despite the seeming indifference of the world to which it’s born.

So it is with my current project - a collection of poems inspired by brutalist architecture and social housing. The niche subject matter has led me to ask ‘what the fuck am I doing?’ on a near daily basis. Even if I finish this manuscript to a satisfactory degree, even if I find a publisher mad enough to put it out in the world, who exactly is going to want to read it? And it’s in times like these that you need to remind yourself that you’re not in control of the outcome - it’s all about the quality of the work and trusting that great writing will always find its place in the world. But again, confidence costs energy and that’s a finite resource - particularly in the gloomy days of January.

Thankfully I have a way of refilling my tank of positive perspective. Providing me some much needed social sustenance is my weekly workshop with the Greenock Creative Recovery group at the Beacon Arts Centre. I’ve been facilitating creative writing classes for a diverse team of new writers who are all making their way through the half-lit corridors of addiction recovery. Their openness, camaraderie and boundless creativity has been a highlight of my week.

Finding the balance between the ‘selfish’ act of locking yourself away to work on a project that may only be of interest to you and being present in and useful to your community is one of the key lessons of a freelance arts career. Fair play to the people who can batter out new work on a loop without looking up, but I believe we need to interact with the world around us and be of value to each other as well as fulfil our personal ambitions if we’re going to be our best selves.

Life often demands you pick a side, but there’s far too much of that going around already.

Where can you find me in February?

6th Feb

I’ll be hosting the next edition of Speakeasy Stirling, the monthly variety night I curate on behalf of Creative Stirling. We have a fantastic bill including Kathleen Hughes, David Kay, Kieren King and Jo Mango.

Speakeasy Stirling #7 — Creative Stirling

CLICK HERE TO BUY YOUR TICKETS ABOUT THE EVENT Join us for the next in our regular monthly cultural nights Speakeasy Stirling celebrating the best of contemporary talent. Each night features a mix of performance, live music, and spoken word, programmed in collaboration with Kevin P Gilday

22nd Feb

The fantastic participants of the Creative Recovery group mentioned above will sharing work they’ve created as part of the Beacon’s brand new book festival. Come check out the culmination of their hard work before you catch some of the country’s top authors.

Work in Progress

Every month I aim to share a bit of work in progress. This could be a poem, a section of a play or just a snippet of writing I find interesting. This month is a poem from my new brutalist collection. This one is inspired by Glasgow’s Met Tower, or as some of you may know it The College of Building and Printing. Sitting in a prominent spot beside George Square the tower has been abandoned for many years with various schemes to regenerate it falling through. Here’s my ode to the crumbling edifice.

From the Archive

The music video for A Sensitive Man, taken from the album Pure Concrete (Iffy Folk Records, 2020).

Thanks for subscribing to my newsletter, please feel free to let me know if you enjoyed it and would like to see more/less of anything in particular. I’ll be back with another update next month but in the meantime you can follow me on social media @kevinpgilday - with instagram being where I’m most active nowadays.

Have a great month, brighter days are coming.

Cheers,
Kev x