Back from hospital after my operation. Was lucky to have a room to myself and free TV. Don’t know what I did to deserve it but anyhow it meant I watched too much TV, although by the last day I’d had enough and read all of Brief Lives instead.
So home and back to work. Submitted a funding bid yesterday to Screen South. They have a good system of a panel to discuss the bid with you and in this case give some advice on tweaking it in time for the final decision-making panel. I tweaked it as they suggested but didn’t reduce the budget as much as they wanted. Just feel they ask alot for their money. If we don’t get enough to run the project, we won’t do it.
Submitting another bid tomorrow for “New Recipes” funding from the Kent Arts Development Unit. Won’t hear until end July whether successful.
In the meantime we – that’s DAD – have interest from Saga in our Watermark project. We suggested that not only the former Buckland Mill employees but also we fall within their target population!
Still working on defining my practice, especially with the thesis behind me. Did this drawing today – very much work in progress. I’m thinking of working with text too.
So nice to get a comment from Becky Hunter. Makes me feel connected.
I haven’t written much in this blog about how I’ve managed to keep busy. I got distracted by Facebook which I joined because I thought I was going to be completely out of it most of the time. Fortunately though, despite the fact that the chemo knocked me out every three weeks, the feeling of being totally incapable of anything at all only lasted a few days so I had about two weeks out of three where I was able to work at almost full energy levels. So I kept on writing, and rewriting my research paper and working on DAD stuff (Dover Arts Development). Joanna was great – she’d say “come on Clare, you’ve got chemo in 5 days so do it now!” It has been really important for me to have that kind of support. Realistic, upfront and not treating me as ill except when really I wasn’t up to it. My partner has been fantastic in the same kind of way. And it has been important for me too to learn to let people know when I’m not able to do anything and when I am. Admittedly I haven’t been out much – no trips to London to see work for fear of catching a cold on the train, but I’ll soon put that right. Staying in control of my own activities has been the most important thing over these past few months.
I managed to finish my research paper and submit it on time. The marks will be carried forward till next year when I present my studio practice.
My chemo sessions are over though the whole course of treatment isn’t. Next stop hospital for an op.
Anyhow, now that I am not writing and rewriting and editing and checking my bibliography I’ve got some time to play. I’ve been looking at medical imagery and think I might pursue this a bit, though this drawing/collage looks a bit too much like a plate.
Back again. I’ve just sent a second draft of my research paper off for feedback. Let’s see what comes back. It is now much more analytical than in its first incarnation.
One good thing about deferring till next year is that I can experiment when it comes to my practice and give myself more time to get to the heart of what that practice is or might be.
I’m currently making a book of sorts. I can’t sew and I’m not dextrous, in part due to arthritic fingers, so the sewing feels like hard labour. Sewing also relates to my mother, whose stitches are neater and finer than machine made ones.
Still writing. It’s strange but having read through lots of theory vs practice huffing and puffing on various a-n blog pages I am now realising how a really close engagement with theory is actually really exciting. I mean close engagement as in trying to read a few lines really carefully as opposed to trying to catch at all the bits of theory that come one’s way. My own subjective reading of artworks is coming together with the theoretical in a way I hadn’t expected and it is impacting on how I think about my practice.
On we go! Have done about 6,000 words now. I’m not sure if I can submit this year as I’m not officially enrolled but if I can get the writing done, then next year I can just hone my practice. CSM doesn’t give separate marks for the research paper and the final work, so it’s just about practicalities in terms of time really as to whether I submit in May or not.
