It’s now the 8 January – a month since I last posted – and I’ve been ill again, since the end of the old year: not able to work, not even able to think clearly.
Just looked into a forum on work/life balance – lots of ‘cries de couer’ and I feel for all the artists who believe they’ve lost their way. It’s hard to keep going, especially if you have a family to divert your energy and talents.
There are all kinds of myths around being an artist – I think in the end you have to create your own particular myth, live it through and enjoy it (even if sometimes you have to ask yourself hard questions!)
Meanwhile, my hard questions are:
where had I got to?
where/how do I start again?
how am I going to summon up the energy and enthusiasm to finish three funding applications before the end of January?
and when will I be able to taste and hear properly again!
Tasks always work to get me back on track:
Task no.1. get some work ready for a spur of the moment exhibition at end of January-
that should do it!
And looking through my photos – lots of reasons why Turner loved Margate: two of them here
8 December – I seem to be falling prey to the cold virus that’s going round, that, and family responsibilities are keeping me from working. I was talking to a fellow-artist (what an interesting phrase!) about the choices we make, how we want to work but are constantly demanded to do other things by our family obligations. We could just say NO – but we never do – in the end family takes priority. That is why women artists, especially older women, find it so hard to develop their work. Virginia Woolf said (in A Room of One’s Own, 1929) ‘ a woman must have money and a room of her own, if she is to write…’ or make art of any kind, it seems to me. I don’t think it’s very different today BUT of course there will be lots of exceptions.
All I know is that if I had time and space to myself, to work unheeded, I might actually really discover what it is that I’m about!
Funny how Cornwall now seems a million miles away.
I was listening to a Radio 4 programme about Neuroscience, and how we may be ‘nudged’ into thinking a certain way because, apparently, it’s not our conscious minds, but our ‘automatic brain’ that does most of the decision-making!
Seems like the Emperor’s new clothes again.
After spending a week on my own, and being able to filter out all the everyday stuff that we’re constantly bombarded with, I think there’s a lot to be said for listening to the conscious mind.
In opposition to the ‘automatic brain’, ‘Mindfulness’ is the term used to describe paying attention to one’s resting physical state – for some reason they wanted to avoid the term ‘meditation’ as it sounded a bit ‘weird‘?!*
Well I’ve come back down to earth now. The last days have been grey, wet and misty, like being at the bottom of a pond – what a contrast to last week!
I’m sorting through my photos, and now and again give myself a quick fix by looking at my videos.
Now trying to figure out how to upload video…
