Networking.
I’m not the biggest fan of it, yet it is one of those necessities of my field. I think it partially comes from the fact that, seeing as I was kind of an…eccentric, weird kid growing up, my social skills edged very close to the “oh yeah, no, this person definitely has no interest in speaking to me about my interests” territory. Thankfully that’s abated somewhat – who knew that all it took was surrounding myself with other people who liked the same things I did – but that little tinge of anxiety always comes up in one particular situation: sending emails.
And yet, here I am sending out emails to people I hope to speak to about my project, patiently waiting for a response all while wondering whether ot not the lack of one means I came off like some kind of idiot in my message. There’s a term for this…oh yes: imposter syndrome.
Yes, once again that…thing…rears its ugly head.
Thankfully, though, there are ways to distract from it, at least momentarily. One of these ways is stopping into the Musée d’Orsay for a bit to check out the exhibit Degas Danse Dessein. Hommage à Degas avec Paul Valéry, which examines some of Degas’ works through the lense of writer/poet Paul Valéry – who coincidentally also published a book on Degas after the latter’s death in 1917.
The exhibit was centered primarily around the close friendship between Degas and Valéry, one that has apparently almost been forgotten. Interspersed amongst the Degas works on display – the majority of them being works in process, or the stages of a process rather than ‘completion’ – , were fragments from Valéry’s 1937 text on the artist (and whose title the exhibit borrows for its own). Fragments conversing with other fragments, medium complementing medium, each one revealing more of itself through its attachment to or bonding with the other…there’s a certain intimacy that arises from the realization of exactly how much one person permeated into the works of another.
Tomorrow will be a day of preliminary Christmas shopping/scouting, closing with – finally – another night of theatre. Oh, and packing. I’m off on a quick adventure this weekend. More to follow…
Scènes sur Seine 