Helpfully my dear husband has suggested a rhyme for my blog posting today. I share it with you here:
‘My husband told me to get a proper job but all I do is this silly blog’.
Not sure I can add anything after that – I’ll carry on colouring in.
With Kinetica and half term over, today I had to face my studio. As space is at a premium I had the usual task of infinate juggling -old work/new work – partly finished/resting work – stuff, stuff and more stuff.
I am currently sharing studio space with my ever patient father who is a retired graphic designer and portrait painter turned studio assistant at the age of 77 – for which I am eternally grateful. Despite the fact that we often do not see entirely eye-to-eye on artistic matters and the fact that he thinks many of my ideas are just plainly insane, he is always willing to help me solve the endless technical dilemmas that seem to beseige my work. I suspect that he did not expect this to happen when I happily trotted off to do a degree in embroidery many years ago.
The nature of my ‘time-heavy’ work is that I have collected a lot of stuff which most people would have long ago binned – and this makes up the core of my materials. It is a great child playground and my children are often rummaging around and finding long forgotten toys that I pinched from them when they were only ‘just a little bit broken mummy!’ This, combined with my love of the scrapstore means that my half of the studio is pretty much ‘standing-room only’. My poor father lives in constant fear that his side of the room (neat and clean) is gradually diminishing and merging into my side of the room (the opposite) and that he will soon be backed into a corner drowning under a sea of plumbing parts, old sacks and colour coded socks.
I promise…. I am trying to stem the tide.
I’ve been wanting for a while to write about support and how vital it is to actually achieving what you want to do (whatever that may be).
Doing this blog has been really helpful to me in that I suddenly do not feel that I am some lonesome little artist in a garret (a half decorated semi IS similar) working away pointlessly. And finding that there are other people out there having exactly the same trials and tribulations is a revelation. It finally feels as if there is a community I can actually belong to (even in cyberspace) who do speak the same language. Thank you!
I am also aware that I have been really fortunate in finding some key technologically able people, to help me. People who don’t automatically think that I am a complete madwoman. I am well acquainted with THAT LOOK – when you are in a shop (usually hardware) and the shopkeeper suddenly adopts a certain smile and I can feel an invisible ‘pat on the head’.
Thankfully my amazing electrician, may call me a madwoman, but is open to any bizarre idea and is willing to find creative solutions. He has saved the day more times than I can count.
Likewise at my local ‘hydraulic pump and hose’ shop (I know, I hang out in the coolest places) one of the assistants is amazing in helping me to facilitate my articulated socks – he tells me that it beats working….. and only partly has THE LOOK when I tell him that the socks ARE MY WORK!
Been thinking again about work/life balance.
Being the mother of three demanding children takes up a lot of time. I like to eat proper food (cooked from scratch, naturally), my husband has a very demanding, long houred job, my house is a bit of a wreck (after 3 years the neighbours must think I chose those curtains), I live a long way from everywhere (part-time unpaid taxi job). Where in all of this does it leave time for the ‘work’?
My solution, as I have probably said before, is to fit it in here and there and everywhere that I can – this may seem (to my family) like I am doing it all the time – but the reality is that it all adds up to very little but overviewed looks like an obsessive 24hour 7 day a week stint where I never do anything else.
As this is of course a vocation – does that mean it does not equal work as it is (or can be on a good day) enjoyable. I certainly never plan to ever retire – why would you ever do that? My husband is always planning and almost counting the days till his retirement – just making me scream – HOW CAN YOU TALK ABOUT RETIREMENT WHEN I HAVENT EVEN STARTED YET?!
The upshot of this is that work=life and it is not a competition or a balance. It can only be a whole.
(off to do a bit of wallpapering)
Tonight I am mostly planning to sort out the gigantic pile of receipts and papers l have been trying to ignore for the past month whilst having fun with socks.
I know that there are seveal bills in there somewhere and the last pile I had like this contained several unpleasant surprises so I am not expecting a jolly night…..
Why oh why does all this nasty stuff have to be done with all the lovely art?
Socially disengaged artist
