Restarted

I had an email off Elena Thomas the other day regarding comments on all of our blog posts.  Not realising they are there that is.  I hope that now that Elena has intervened and queried the problem, the matter will be sorted.

Anyway… it prompted me to log back into a-n as I’d been taking a break from it.
I don’t mean that I wasn’t interested in what people were talking about , I just had other things to occupy me.

By that , I mean that I’ve been in a lot of pain.  My hip joint has deteriorated.

I knew it was starting to fail last year, so I crammed in as many trips , exhibitions and social events as I could , while I knew I was able to.

I’ve been here before, so I know the stages, I know how long I’ve got left before I can’t walk even a short distance without doubling up in pain.

Don’t even get me started on what it feels like to go upstairs ( yes, I feel for you Elena!)

Because of that, I’ve  had to prioritise my activities. I’ve seen as many exhibitions as I physically could and I’ve met up with friends ….  while my own work has taken a back step .

I’ve cancelled workshops and taking part in group exhibitions. I wanted to take part, or at least visit friends who are exhibiting at Platforms project in Athens again , but I just can’t .  I know that I’ll be stuck inside for a bit so I can catch up later.

I’m sure if anyone is reading this, they won’t be interested in hospital procedures, so skip this bit if you want …

At the end of July I saw my GP, who promptly sent me for an X-ray , which confirmed severe osteoarthritis in my hip. Shortly afterwards I received a letter asking to choose a hospital for my treatment ( yep, it’s that quick here!)  I chose one that had the shortest referral time and had the highest rating .  I had an appointment at the said hospital and was told I was fit for surgery.
They gave me a date – 13th November and asked if I wanted to go on the cancellation list. I said yes. Consequently, my date was moved forward to 25th October.
My pre op assessment is this Friday . If all goes well – I don’t suddenly develop high blood pressure or have any other infections or whatever that I don’t know about , I’ll go in next week.

I want to work again, but my mind just isn’t in it. My aim at the moment is to just get through each day .

What’s Anish Kapoor got to do with my life you may think.
Nothing … and a lot actually.

I went to see his exhibition ‘Monadic Singularity’ at Liverpool Cathedral last week.  Consisting of several sculptures , 2 ‘paintings’ ( which I didn’t like) and the massive structure , which really only could have been shown in a building as large as the Cathedral. Absolutely fabulous to see it all .

While in the cathedral , I met a friend and fellow artist -Christine O’Reilly Wilson , who I hadn’t seen for such a long time . We had a really nice chat and it got me reminiscing over a few things.

We exhibited together in a group show (4 of us) is 2010. An incredible 14 years ago.
I blogged about it on here, but I hadn’t looked back on anything I’d written until this morning.

Fourteen years of blogging on here. Crikey.

I seemed so full of hope and enthusiasm in those early days .

I’ve ‘restarted’ so many times in those 14 years.  I’d start a blog, then life will take over and I won’t have time or the inclination to carry on.
Then I’d start again with another blog, new title , new optimism… rinse and repeat.
Sigh.

I think this week, I’ll re-read all of my blogs from the start and find out what the trigger point was for giving in and starting again.

Im pretty sure I’m not the only one after seeing all the ‘restart and new beginnings’ blogs on here.

I’ve just sent off a reminder to the museum about the invoice I sent to them on 26 June  for my workshop .

I have done several workshops for them before and have more in the pipeline, and as I haven’t had any payment problems before, my email was quite polite.

Two months wait though – that’s ridiculous isn’t it?

If anyone has had similar problems with payments or can offer any advice , please let me know.

Update.  The payment has now gone through . Phew. Panic over.  

It’s been a slow 10 days or so.
My cold dragged on forever and although I tried several times to start new work, I couldn’t find the energy to get anywhere with it.
I forced myself to go across to Liverpool to pick up my work from the art fair. A day late, but I noticed I was far from being the only one .
Thankfully my work was small, so I bunged it in the bag I’d brought, without removing the screws from the mirror plates. I’ll probably regret that later.

The next day , my work arrived back from Sluice . Next week, I’ll pick up my work from Convenience Gallery . That’s it then – after exhibiting continuously since January, I’ve got nothing else .
No plans. I’ve not applied for anything .

I do have a workshop at the museum next month though – which reminds me , I still haven’t been paid for the one I did in June.  It’s normal to wait 6 weeks, but this is just getting silly . Another thing to add to my list.

So despite feeling like hell last week , I had to do my babysitting duties on Friday …

The week before, we went to the museum to see the story of Bees . I enjoyed it , the 5 year old didn’t.  Sigh.
So we headed to The Bluecoat … I like galleries and museums rather than play areas, and I like that distinction . It’s good to show that art can be fun and interesting.  The Bluecoat’s exhibition was : Roxy Topia and Paddy Gould: Let Your Ideas Come Back As Children .

Visually , the exhibition looked really good.  Bright colours , fun shapes…. Find the weird little figures.
Did it work for children ? No sorry. It was too … clever ? Too … I wouldn’t say intellectual, but it was over the heads of young kids, despite the look and feel of the exhibition ( which was actually designed for families)

Young people are used to going to soft play &  they’re used to interactive games so trying to explain that this only has elements of those things … and is actually only meant to be just a visual thing was difficult .

I sometimes wonder if the people who  commission these things  have children of their own ? Or have they actually worked with children before?  Is that not a criteria ?  That’s not a criticism of the artists,  more so the galleries themselves .

I’ve been to exhibitions in there before, with foam bricks piled high – which children do love to climb and bounce on … BUT , they’ve been placed on a hard stone floor.  Honestly – my heart was in my throat .
There’s a dividing line between what looks good and what is safe !!

Please galleries – when you run these commissions , Health and Safety is a priority. …..  whether it works for the actual audience it’s designed for – maybe that’s second on the list.

Last week, I went back to Chester Cathedral for the first time since I did my installation there.
I love the way these massive spaces show larger artworks and because of this I had Chester , plus Liverpool Cathedral  ( showing Anish Kapoor) on my list for the summer.

Chester was showing two installations by Liz West.  I used to read about West all the time – whether it was on here (a-n) or on many social media outlets , but then all seemed to go quiet.
I assumed then that she had decided to call it a day. Life is hard for artists and all that.

It was only afterwards that I looked up her back history. She hadn’t been idle at all but was working on international commissions.
Of course I’d seen the rainbow installation outside Paddington  station , I’d walked past it often enough …. and of course I’d walked under the triangular structure at Salford Quays. Both in places where I’d be passing through , not lingering. But why oh why didn’t it twig who had made it?

I feel so annoyed with myself for just dismissing these public sculptures, thinking that they had been made by some architect / town planner to brighten a space up.
I should know better.

It pulled up the question for me then – should we keep shouting about our work to make sure people know who we are ?  Or just sit back and enjoy what we do, not caring what others think ?

This afternoon, I have to pick up my work from The Liverpool Art Fair . I didn’t think it would sell as they were probably too expensive. The Art Fair take a whopping 50% commission so everyone had to double their prices.

I was supposed to go yesterday , but I felt really ill. I’d been to a baby shower on Sunday afternoon and I had a burning headache and streaming eyes then. I just put it down to hay fever though.
When I got home though , I was shivering so went to bed early. I slept most of yesterday, waking to ring up asking if I could delay picking up my work.
Thankfully they’ve given me another day, so I’ll drag myself across later.

I so wish I had a manager to do these things 🫤