blog…

I have had the dreaded lurgy- chest infection and all. Thankfully after Christmas, but am only now beginning to feel human agin. Sadly with it comes the realisation that I am now behind with everything , but still lacking the energy to really tackle it all full on.

Everything seems too much effort. Today one of the speakers for SVAF declined for next month and it just seemed a mountain to climb to sort it out again.Ridiculous really.

The main thing that has happened is nothing. No drawing, no blogging, no progressing anything……….

On the no blogging front I didn’t even have the energy to report that an anonymous ‘confessional ‘ letter has been left in the Collection Plate.

Not something I had expected.

I wondered if the ecumenical white cloth or the religious connatations of the collection plate may have illicited it. Maybe the fact that the collection plate was obviously a used and legitimate ‘public space’ beckoned.

” I often feel unable to explain how I really feel. When the time comes words become so hard to use. Empty is the only word and it still leaves my mind blank.

When I am sat in the back of the car I imagine cars coming towards my side of the door, where I am sitting, without a seat belt, at full speed, only hurting me.

i have recently cut myself , on my left shoulder. I was in a very different mood when it happened. I scratch myself , pull my skin until it looks raw. I can’t control myself………….”

” ….punching hurts my head. I can’t stop. I want to obliterate everything, everything in my way, everything in my head. I can’t be given responsibilty although I crave it”

The note shocked and saddened me. Interestingly the author has succeeded in laying some responsibility my shoulders.

I thought around the possibility of acknowkledging the note by writing my own and leaving it the bowl. In the end I did not. Not because of the art work but because I felt I might be offering not just contact but hope of a healing conversation and I didn’t feel qualified to start that……..

Well now.

Christmas table laid and presents wrapped and feeling quiet smug. Kids returning on planes and trains tomorrow night and I can’t wait.

I love Christmas and our very old beamed house lends itself to it. Deep red and green and gold – it glows in the firelight.

Every so often I come back from somewhere spartan and cutting edge and wonder to myself about dressing the whole place in cold twinkling silver, but somehow I know it wouldn’t work.

Today I went to talk about an open submissions exhibition we are organising for Sevenoaks Arts Forum -a group of 50 professional Kent artists that I facilitate. One of the Kent arts officers will be choosing the work for us and the hang will be co- curated with SVAF. We are aiming for a spare, curated, professional show – we have great talent – so why do I feel responsible for the content being good enough?

I visited my collection plate en route. Interestingly all the money has been left and it’s the items that have been swopped. The plate now boasts a plaster, glasses lens, bus ticket, rubber and a dried flower. The blue baby mitten has gone.

Interesting. Has the fact that it is called ‘Collection Plate’ made people feel that the money was sacrosanct and not to be taken?

It still has a week to go and it will be fascinating to see when I go to photograph it at the end if all the coins still remain.

I am embarrassed to tell myself that since returning from Burma I have managed to do next to nothing towards any of the show commitments I have for next year..

My elderly mother has been in hospital and that plus Christmas preparations seems to have sapped all my creative energy.

Nothing there…..quite unlike me. A bit scary.Odd.

I have made myself a lovely drawing space in the new room – with good light and loads of table top space to stretch out on..I am nesting quite happily in it using the computer. From where I sit I can now see the sky, a garden and birds and squirrels. Quite wonderful after my big studio without windows.

I seem to have that December feeling that you get about weight or exercise; I’ll just wait until after Christmas and then I will begin to draw again……….

Ros Barker and I have started the second phase of the Farningham Hobby Horse Project. We have had stands made for all 120 of them and are now seeking inside venues between now and next June.

The project has been invited to show in a local gallery for one week in March. A great chance to hold a private view for the village, and to reconnect the horses and their makers. We are intending to photograph both together as a historical Kent document.

What else I have done since returning:

Arranged the room into a drawing studio. ………………… Sorted my paints and given away a load of textiles and threads to another artist…………………… Organised the Art Forum that I run and held a speaker meeting and an annual wash up meeting. ……….. Started talks with another artist in my block to swop my large studio for her smaller one……………….

Somehow now I write it all down it seems that I have achieved more than I thought. Just not the drawaing.

Hey ho……….

………….and back to Margate again last night for the Private View.

I got to Margate early to visit ‘Scotts’ – a huge warehouse of antiques and curios. I was hoping to ferret out a butterfly box, a display cabinet or anything that could be used as museum style installation furniture for my solo show next year. Nothing.

Still, I like a good ferret about – what my husband calls my truffle mode- nose down, tail up………..

Meeting up with people at the Private View was fun. The fourteen printmakers all know each other now and it’s good to catch up. When I go to art things I always find I come away with at least one new contact that I am excited about.

Last night I met a temporary installation artist who is planning to be involved in a project that I have also been asked to be join. I do hope the project comes off – talking with him was fascinating and inspiring and I would look forward to working with him.

So – it’s time to turn my attention back to my moths………………..after three weeks holiday abroad and immersing myself in the maps I feel quite distant and unattached to the moth work; it feels just like something that needs to be finished.

I have started so I will finish………. like work.

Tomorrow I will set it all out again and hope that my interest will return. It will be a struggle to get the facility to draw so small and intricate back again. Drawing like that but still having immediacy and sponteneity in the line seems to come from hours of practice. And I am out of practice.

Back to Margate again today- to invigilate the gallery all day on my own.

Twenty five visitors, ten of which said ‘What did this place used to be? I love the wall/floor/ tiles……’

Its called the Pie Factory – Doh!

Sorry – reading my book for hours on end has made me feel like I’ve been on a long haul flight. Tetchy.

And no sales.

Two interesting photographers, a woman who puts art on melamine table mats and a sad couple who wished they had stayed in Bromley and never moved to the sea………such is the minutiae of Life.