I am at the studio after having spent my first night in my new apartment in Uppsala – not that I have properly (actually?) moved yet. I got the keys to the apartment on the 6th September but won’t move there until 14th October – it was only on Tuesday this week (20th September) that I sold the apartment in Enköping. I could not think about moving until the current apartment was sold (never good to show an empty apartment to potential buyers). Now the contracts are signed and the new owners want to move in one month! I was expecting at least three months – which is usual here – and to do some decorating before I moved however a faster move has serious financial benefits so I am not complaining!
So, here I am having enjoyed cycling through town to the studio this morning – such a different experience to cycling in Enköping – feeling very happy and content about living here (albeit more like camping at the moment), and thinking that I would write a post about the show in Enköping closing or perhaps something about Brad Pitt’s exhibition in Finland … however …
Just as I pulled up a clean page to begin writing my telephone ’pinged’ – a message from the head of education at the Uppsala Art Museum asking if I am interested in some work there. She had mentioned the possibility when we met at Klas and my opening in Enköping, it seems a curious coincidence that she gets in touch on the first day that I am ’living’ here – something in the air?
We are going to talk more this evening after the presentation/discussion about the artists’ club that I am taking part in at the museum. I think that I need a calming cup of tea … my mind is racing through all kinds of possibilities from a one-off workshop to being a part of the education team at the museum … all of it very exciting and rather unexpected despite it having been vaguely mentioned before.
I must not jump the gun but it is very interesting to wonder whether I might soon be leaving Enköping entirely. My plan was to settle in here, then look for work opportunities while continuing with my position at the council in Enköping. With the impending economic crisis and likely shift to the right in the local council (election results are declared but the composition of the council very unclear) there is an inevitable question over whether or not the long awaited Culture Centre will go head. And even if it does get approved it will take two to three years to be complete. I also have quite definite views about how the Creative Workshop should be run – starting from an all encompassing concept of sustainability. That should be a given but I am already aware that I will meet resistance from certain factions. Nor I am interested in it being kitted with 3D printers (as has been suggested) which are neither appropriate nor environmentally friendly in this context.
I would love the opportunity to teach at the museum and to work with both the collection and temporary exhibitions. I like and feel at home in the education rooms at the museum, they are pretty well resourced and ordered but also sufficiently chaotic so as to feel that anything and everything could happen there. It would be the natural next step for me in terms of my pedagogic work.
