Birthday Tears

One year ago today The Smokehouse, Ipswich was flooded with people attending the launch event for Guy Cry Club. It was an overwhelmingly positive response to the birth of this platform and to this day it astounds me that so many of you came along to support it. Unfortunately i’ve not been able to organise a real life event to celebrate the club’s first birthday. The global pandemic has cast a shadow over any plans i did have and i couldn’t see any way of translating those plans into a virtual event without making huge compromises. Some things just have to be experienced in real life. Plus getting back to my full time job after being furloughed has been exhausting. Physically and mentally i would not have been able to curate an event to be proud of. However, to make up for this gap i’ve been running a special call for art, appealing to visual artists to respond to the theme of ‘Sad Boy Birthday’. Find out more here. This will build up to an exclusive publication reflecting upon Guy Cry Club’s first year of existence, with artwork, artist features, interviews and more. I cannot wait for this all to come together.

But back to today… I have a spent probably too much time thinking about how to acknowledge the Club’s birthday. Do i post a load of stuff on social? do i write a blog post? do i film myself on Instagram stories being like wow we’re one year old?… Without any one thing to attach to it feels very anti-climatic. But i also feel a similar way about my personal birthday. I don’t tend to celebrate it, i barely tell anyone when it is and even so i don’t expect anyone to actually remember. So in some ways trying to come up with ideas to speak about GCC’s birthday just felt a little… disingenuous. I am so proud of this platform and all the connections i have been able to make with real life people along the way. I want to encourage more and more people to use creativity to express their feelings, specifically surrounding masculinity and mental health, but also just generally! And so yes a 1 year anniversary is a milestone to acknowledge and be proud of. But there is much more work to be done and i’m ready to grow, learn and evolve.

To everyone that has shown their support to me and this platform… Thank you. The conversations i have had, the artwork that has been shared with me, the trust you continue to put in me is a beautiful beautiful thing. This only works because you have all been so willing to share a little bit of yourself with me. Words cannot express how grateful and appreciative i am. The more we share our individual perspectives, the more we all grow.

All the loves,

Ben