Basically, there are a few questions…. Speak from the top of your mind, I’m recording… So, lets start.
Can you tell me what are your most important desires?
My most important desires, well that's very intimate, my most important desires? I guess I just, to.. euhm. Can you define desire or no? No, there is no definition.
We can take it for later also, it is a kind of opening question which is a bit euhm…
Ok I heard recently that there are three things that drive people: it is power, money or sex, and mine is sex. So there you go. That is my answer.
How do your desires relate with your dear ones?
With my what ones?
Dear ones, persons close to you.
Oooh, how does my desire relate to my dear? I guess at times they conflict but at times they coincide, I think. Yeah, that is my answer.
What bothers you?
What bothers me? Hmm, I guess, things about myself bother me. Things I would say like you know you get plagued by self doubt and these sort of things, so that's what bothers me, I would like to not feel that way.
Now to change a bit. What can you do to contribute to the future of our world?
Well, I make art and I guess I do that because the way that I feel when I experience art, that has changed me in my life so then I help to put that back into the world. But then I know that it is all really just like ego and all these things so then I guess I just want to exist and not be harmful. Yeah I just don’t want to harm people or things.
What are your limits and what are you absolutely against?
These are very intense, my limits, my limits. Limits. I don’t know, nothing comes to the top of my mind immediately in terms of limits, I guess I like to be visually entertained so I don’t want to be bored by something that's boring to look at, but that seems very superficial. And what was the second part of the question?
What are you absolutely against?
I just really hate how like, I don’t like when you watch movies or tv that it is just the same like all the other movies or tv. I tried to watch the two popes last night and you know I'm very catholic, any way that doesn’t matter, I tried to watch this film and 25 minutes in and I was like, I can’t commit to this I can’t give this two hours, you know this is not, anyway. So, I am absolutely against things without the perspective, I feel like many things that we experience in the world are just, you know, the perspective of others that are being, . . . , coalesced into some, oo this is for you like thing, anyway, sorry, yes.
So, now we go a bit like, since you already mentioned you ‘re an artist, so, the next couple of questions are basically around this form of: like an artist, how do you work in the world and all these things. So, what are the conditions for the realisation of your artistic practice?
I think I have to have a clear mind, I have to be in a place where I can be inviting things, where I am able to be looking at things, where I am able to be open. So that is the number one condition: openness
What do you produce?
I make ceramics, sculptures, drawings. I think that is the most immediate to my production is forms, so sculpture, those are the most figurative.
And, sorry to ask, how do you make money?
O, I teach. That's the only way I make money, really.
In the same field?
I used to teach art when I lived in New York and then I moved to Brussels and I teach English now, which is like a shift. But I also teach four year olds, so it's also like teaching art all the time because they are just like art conduits, they are very open to the world they don’t have any hang ups and they experience everything, maybe not the first time, but still in ways that it is amazing to them. It is easy to, it is easy enough.
What do you want to do with others?
Like, I guess love them and exist with them, give them things. Yeah give and receive whatever they have to give and receive.
How does your day and week look like?
It is too busy right now. It is, I don’t know there is not enough time to work. Like I was saying the condition is to be open and to be receiving and to be able to be present in the world but that also requires time. So maybe the number one condition is time, because when you have time you can get to that state. But yeah my week looks like I don’t have enough time. I work from 8:30 till 15:30 with babies and then the rest of the day I take, at some point I take a language class, sometimes I go to yoga. There are not enough hours in a day. And then I love to sleep also.
That was it, do you have other comments or questions, or thoughts?
Sarah Whicker: Well I want to ask you all these questions in return.
Stef Meul: I can give you my replies, I did the interview with myself, maybe we don’t need to record, or yeah lets go on. Euhm what did I write?
sw: Some of them were, I wasn’t prepared, so I’ll just go on.
sm: Me neither, this was just the beginning for myself, but I don’t have them with me here, I only have my questions. So, ok maybe you can run the interview on me again and then I will reply to you if you feel like.
sw: Yeah that's fine.
sm: Ok then we turn the tables, so you take my seat and I take yours and we start.
sw: I feel very authoritative.
sm: I think I have notes on the second part of the interview, so let me cheat here.
sw: Ok, can you tell me what are your most important desires?
sm: From the top of my mind I had a desire to like kind of hmm. Yeah I have been going through a lot of time that I have been single or in a half relation… (this interview continues in the next publication)
Interview with Sarah Whicker was recorded in Brussels on 25th of January 2020. Image source: esbeebernice.com