new PLAN FOR WORLD DOMINATION

Every day, when my children come home from school, I ask them ‘what did you do today?’
The answer is always
‘stuff’

So in the long absence, with a-n beautifying itself (ooh you do look lovely), I have in short, been doing stuff.

Good stuff, bad stuff, mostly irrelevant stuff, but a small bit of stuff that feels like it is finally the real stuff.

So back to long ago.  The need for a plan.  A proper plan.  A grown up plan.

A BIG plan.

There are some wise words from Mr Albert Einstein that say

the definition of stupidity (or is it insanity) is to do the same thing over and over again and to expect a different outcome

in other words the wise learn from their mistakes. But, a bit like with drinking too much grog, childbirth, eating Macdonalds meals and The Silence in Dr Who, once its over, it is very easy to forget the truth.

So again I have failed to see the most important bit of a whole load of hard work and have concentrated all my efforts on DOING THE WORK completely forgetting why I was doing it at that particular time and in that particular place. (MAKE MAKE MAKE MAKE MAKE MAKE) (no time for thinking) *banging head on table*.

So, I have some work in the Changing Places pop up gallery space in Cambridge…… but nobody knows who it is by, what it is called, or anything whatsoever about it…… because in my rush to get it installed I didn’t have time to get my name, work or any detail whatsoever in any publicity for the event. Clever huh!

I also went to the private view, intending to take lots of useful documentation photos…… (you guessed it)

So, if you happen to be passing by the Grafton Centre between now and next Thursday – do pop in, and if you see a tantalisingly un-labelled work – you now know who.

Its funny how things happen without anyone noticing. Like children growing up; one day there in nappies and the next doing their GCSEs. I still think I’m in the first flush of youth but I think I might just be deluding myself….

So thinking back to this time last year I when I was just about to have my first REview bursary session with the wonderful Freddie Robins, I realise now just how far I have travelled, mentally, in relation to my work since then.

Just like when you are little and you think that you can do all the stuff that grown ups do but find out that it’s not really that simple, I think I was really expecting things to happen that I just wasn’t really ready for. You can never realise that at the time though.

So it has been an eventful year and I feel much more aware of what I’m doing now and more importantly much less willing to chase things that I really shouldn’t, such as jobs that pay, just because they pay; opportunities that I really have no hope in the world of getting.

I am also much more aware of what I should be doing – and what is a waste of time and money. Somethings, however good an idea they are, should be avoided – it’s a hard lesson to learn.

Still, as I write this, I am sure that in another year’s time I will think how ignorant I am now – I recently likened this blog to my teenage diary – I’m really not sure I dare look back.

This week my long established need to make things more complicated than they should be continues. Why take 5 minutes to do something when it can take 5 hours?

I have been casting my family fingers in wax. Laboriously in the same way that I made the bottles for SAUCED using both microcrystalline and glass wax. It is extraordinary how different the two materials are, as they are both essentially the same thing. They require very different handling and I think I am getting a little better at judging the temperatures and the manual dexterity needed to produce the effect I want. I find them strangely compelling and have spent several days just making and making and making them – each is completely unique though comes from the same mould. I also know that if I drop the box on the long walk home, my day’s work will be wasted. This seems to make them extra valuable somehow.

I have also made lots of small female figures. This is more of a straightforward process and I feel less emotionally attached to them, although when pressing them out of their silicon beds I feel a need to apologise if I accidently break one’s arm off or have ineffectually poured the wax and accidently made her legs a little wonky. At this rate I will have to give them all names.

So having given up on failure and taken up with SUCCESS I find myself at a loss at what to write – a fish out of water, lost in a new land…….

Briefly I must introduce my new career as ‘the hostess with the mostess’ on board Sally Lemsford’s FS2 bus for the Flaming Skirt Festival 2, which took place last Sunday.

I have decided that success lies in the wearing of a uniform (preferably red).