ahead of our de-brief meeting i’ve been reflecting about the steam powered maker residency at the silk mill in derby.
to help me through the process i’ve begun making a maquette of an idea i had in the first few weeks of the residency. i’m interested in how 12 windows might be used within a context of a clock.
today i’ve been working on the arduino code of the project. by lunchtime i’d managed to create a solution to a problem and loose it again while trying to refine it. as i prepared lunch i reflected upon the amount of failure i experience while coding and how in the past an accumulation of code not working has left me with moods that i have had to manage while i work towards finding the solution to the problem.
today i impressed myself with the no drama way with which i dealt with the realisation of the fact that my code did not work.
is this new ability as a result of my residency at the mill?
i’ve certainly enjoyed leaving the house to go somewhere to make. i’ve enjoyed being around others and sharing their making experiences along with my own.
being a steam powered maker gave me time off from my art practice. time off from looking rigorously at myself.
i have started to gently reconnect to how i might express something…
working at the mill has showed me to importance of somewhere to go to work. somewhere laid out that things to make with are to hand. somewhere where there are spaces in which to make. somewhere where there is space to walk away from the make.
today i’ve been working inside my comfort zone and i’m happy.
during the residency i experienced times outside of my comfort zone and was still happy.
tomorrow i’m back at the mill for a meeting and a workshop and i’m really looking forward to them both.
