Its funny how things happen without anyone noticing. Like children growing up; one day there in nappies and the next doing their GCSEs. I still think I’m in the first flush of youth but I think I might just be deluding myself….
So thinking back to this time last year I when I was just about to have my first REview bursary session with the wonderful Freddie Robins, I realise now just how far I have travelled, mentally, in relation to my work since then.
Just like when you are little and you think that you can do all the stuff that grown ups do but find out that it’s not really that simple, I think I was really expecting things to happen that I just wasn’t really ready for. You can never realise that at the time though.
So it has been an eventful year and I feel much more aware of what I’m doing now and more importantly much less willing to chase things that I really shouldn’t, such as jobs that pay, just because they pay; opportunities that I really have no hope in the world of getting.
I am also much more aware of what I should be doing – and what is a waste of time and money. Somethings, however good an idea they are, should be avoided – it’s a hard lesson to learn.
Still, as I write this, I am sure that in another year’s time I will think how ignorant I am now – I recently likened this blog to my teenage diary – I’m really not sure I dare look back.
This week my long established need to make things more complicated than they should be continues. Why take 5 minutes to do something when it can take 5 hours?
I have been casting my family fingers in wax. Laboriously in the same way that I made the bottles for SAUCED using both microcrystalline and glass wax. It is extraordinary how different the two materials are, as they are both essentially the same thing. They require very different handling and I think I am getting a little better at judging the temperatures and the manual dexterity needed to produce the effect I want. I find them strangely compelling and have spent several days just making and making and making them – each is completely unique though comes from the same mould. I also know that if I drop the box on the long walk home, my day’s work will be wasted. This seems to make them extra valuable somehow.
I have also made lots of small female figures. This is more of a straightforward process and I feel less emotionally attached to them, although when pressing them out of their silicon beds I feel a need to apologise if I accidently break one’s arm off or have ineffectually poured the wax and accidently made her legs a little wonky. At this rate I will have to give them all names.
So having given up on failure and taken up with SUCCESS I find myself at a loss at what to write – a fish out of water, lost in a new land…….
Briefly I must introduce my new career as ‘the hostess with the mostess’ on board Sally Lemsford’s FS2 bus for the Flaming Skirt Festival 2, which took place last Sunday.
I have decided that success lies in the wearing of a uniform (preferably red).
