Reading Elena Thomas’ latest blog posting:
www.a-n.co.uk/p/1322260
has made me think about how and where I work best and somehow I find that my studio, home and mind all seem to be inextricably linked. All seem to be full. With little room to manoevere.
I have realised that my ideas for work seem to pour forth at times away from these places – mainly driving in my car between home to studio. Most days, the 10 minute journey provides at least 3 pages of sketchbook scribble as if it is all saved up ready to emerge, fully formed, during the process of driving.
This is making me reconsider the plans to build a studio space onto our house so that I can work from home – is this a bad idea – will I be forced to drive pointlessly around the block for inspiration or will some other mind displacement activitiy take the place of a drive? Is it the separation from real life – a 10 minute limbo – that provides the clarity essential when your life is brimming with stuff and noise?
I’ve been suffering from an extreme case of ‘overload’ today – with the resultant symptoms of ‘headless chicken’ and ‘rabbit in headlights’ lack of productivity.
Keen prioritiser that I am, I decided to do a bit of therapeutic/meditative label sewing instead of all the urgent jobs (along with stuffing some unopened bills under the carpet).
Here is a picture (kindly taken by studio assistant/father – who has taken a week off from helping me to fix MANY bird boxes) of me stabbing my fingers and getting cross when labels somehow manage to unstitch themselves (HOW?).
897 labels to date.
Bit of a breakthrough today on my new GYO*BYO project and it now seems to be coming together really well. The donation of a enormous bag of coloured hosiery has cleared the way through to solve some of the materially technical problems that I was struggling with last week. It is amazing how materials can either make or break an idea. Particularly when they are required to ‘do’ something.
It is scary how much time I spend in pondering the minute details of workings – how do you find something to do the job which has been made for another purpose all together – and can you get enough of them to do it. Usually my first port of call is my local (and also my not so local) scrapstore. These two Aladdin’s caves of junk have provided more solutions and ‘eureka’ moments than I care to remember.
So for anyone with an idle moment – my current problem needs something that is:
a lightweight, 90 degree angled, rigid structure of about 2 cm one way and a bit more the other way. I need a bigger version of one of those indoor ‘golf ball catchers’ – any ideas?
As 29th Feb is a special day I feel that I really should be doing something different and just a little bit monumental today.
Having just stupidly nearly incapacitated myself trying to demonstrate a tricky yoga pose whilst at the same time running up a hill, I am now somewhat curtailed by having to apply RICE (rest, ice, compression, elevation) to my poor knee.
The good news is that my ‘My Name is Earl’ period of indecision is over and having collected a large bag of hosiery offcuts from a lovely and helpful manufacturer yesterday, the next GYO*BYO project is hotting up.
There is NOTHING like a bag of brightly coloured nylon to fire the imagination.
I started off today trying to remember to remember to plan… which went quite well for a little while.
The trouble is when things aren’t quite working, it is very hard to stick to what you are supposed to be doing. I can get very easily distracted when demoralised by practical problems.
I am now even boring myself with the perpetual chant of ‘why don’t I make things simple’ I think it must be written into my geneology to complicate things and always ‘bite off more than I can chew’ When things are going simply I can always find a way to throw a spanner in…..
Not being blessed with a mechanical mind I am, by necessity, forced into a positon to love the low-tech. And this is good, for I hate it when technology gets in the way of a good idea, or exists in place of a good idea. The problem comes when a good idea needs just a little bit more ‘workings’ to help it on its way.
I wonder, does Amazon have a copy of ‘Hydraulics for Dummies’?
