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?
The main thing that I realised whilst doing Kinetica last week was the range of interpretations and assumptions that people put onto your work.
I have difficulty in understanding this as I come from the stance that ‘if I know it – you know it’ and therefore my work is so completely strightforward that no-one would ever need to ask about it. How wrong I am.
This is however, where the fun lies, and having work that is basically reconstituted laundry, brings about far more interesting interpretations than most.
As my ideas have developed over a very long period of time due to lack of making time (thank you small children) and the fact that I seem incapable of making anything simple and quick, my work does contain quite a lot of diverse reasoning. It is funny to realise that people come to some very simplistic and comical responses, which to be fair, so would I if saw someone exhbibiting pulsating socks with udder-like contraptions hanging below them; a depressive inflatable woman and a promotional leaflet that would get you arrested if you wore it on the bus home.
Please feel free to put your own analysis on these pictures….
KINETICA Art Fair is over. I’ve collected my work and now have to reflect on the whole amazing experience.
What a fabulous week. I expected to have a very boring time sitting by my work for 10 hours a day but far from it. I have never had so many very funny conversations with lovely people who were genuinely interested in what I was doing. All the other exhibitors were wonderful and offered lots of helpful technical advice (always great for a technophobe with interactive work). I was amazed at the diversity of practice. Everything you could think of was represented – lego that played music, legs that walked alone, holographic mermaids, music box PCs and the man who invented the bouncy castle. What more could you want?
I have never been to an art fair before but what everyone tells me is that they are generally rather dull, you never get to talk to the artists and if you don’t have a big bag of cash then the dealer won’t give you the time of day let alone talk to you about the work. Kinetica is the absolute antithesis to all these things.
The main thing I have found from the whole spectacular is that to stand infront of three pieces of work, having to justify what you have made, and to explain the ideas behind it to 12,000 people for 10 hours a day is a very clarifying experience. This is made even more interesting when the work you are representing is made solely from holey old socks and raggedy clothing.
To have made so many people laugh and then look with wonder and ponder at my SOCKPAINTINGS and inflatable WORN woman made from discarded clothing made me realise that I really am, finally doing the right thing.
