Researching, mentoring and making

There’s a saying about certain plants – first year sleeps, second year creeps, third year leaps. This process has been a bit like that and I’m currently in a leap.
Which is a relief.
Last week I had an email from the librarian at Leeds Armouries about visiting in person as it’s now open only on Thursdays. This is brilliant. I’ve struggled to get around with the restrictions as daily life is now completely different to when I started, but I’ve enjoyed the time it’s given me to make work with less travel.
The print-making is almost underway – I was meant to go today but my tutor had to re-schedule to next week. I’m itching to get on with that part, as I have many ancillary things that go along with it (which I can’t yet share as it’s part of the big reveal).
I am also building more of a relationship with one of my mentors in particular, who I am going to visit when I go to the armouries. This has also been difficult to plan as the lifting of restrictions, which got changed this week by the government, impacts that. I think what is hidden is how much artists eek out budgets by help from people – in kind or otherwise – where you go and stay at someone’s house or get a lift somewhere, and that has a real-cost impact on how you carry things out. Leeds is a relatively long way from me in Bristol and the train-fare there has gone up over the pandemic. It’s ludicrous, so I’ll have to drive. I’m trying to turn it into a trip where I can do several things at once and have a really deep mentoring session as part of that where I lay everything out on the floor and look at the whole lot. I think that doing that kind of work out of the studio – out of the home as well – will be critical to seeing it through someone else’s eyes. It’s difficult to do that when you have been working on it for five years….