March has disappeared on me, gulp! I have been working some extra hours in my job (computer game art) because of ongoing milestones. This means early mornings and leaves me rather tired for working (on my art) after the kids have gone to bed. We have also just been away for a few days so my list of work I wanted to get done for the open studio will have to be reduced. I can’t believe it’s just over one month away now and I still don’t know what to put in the exhibition!
I am going to try and get my studio space sorted this weekend as Mike my partner has just finished a cupboard he was building for me. I should also take some bits in for framing.
I won’t get much time next week as its Easter holidays but the kids are going to their grandparents the week after which will give me the “whole” evenings and maybe one whole day! As for the kids I got an email from Andrew Bryant yesterday asking about art and parenthood and how this impacts my career/practice. Well they do impact everything greatly. As you can see from this post already any time I have to make art has to fits around them. My, kids, my art, my partner, my job it all has to fit and it’s difficult, but the edges blur and I find it’s more a case of weaving it all together rather than trying to keep things separate.
I could moan on about lack of time and if I read my entrees back I probably do but the truth is, before the children came along I was so absorbed in my career in computer games that I wasn’t making my art at all and it was burning a hole in me. It was on maternity leave with my second child Frankie now 3 ,when Mike and I both got made redundant that I started again. When I did go back to my job after my first Molly now 6 I dropped to a 3 day week. After the redundancy and 17 months off with Frankie I got the job I am in now doing 4 days a week (I would have liked 3). The reduction in my hours at work mean I will probably not and don’t really want to progress career wise in my job. I will stay in the position I am in, a 3D Environment Artist rather than a lead which I used to be or a management roll. With the career path heat off my job, I can carry on pushing that drive and effort back into my art my ideas my painting, printing, sketching, my kids, the big passions in my life. Having the children has made my time so precious I just have to try to manage it well.
