Threads

To be honest, I can’t wait to get in amongst it.

It’s all there, just waiting now.

The work is trotting along nicely for “ONE” next month; A small group of Junction artists and I have a month at Wolverhampton Art Gallery next year; The funding applications and work for the trip to NY in April is bubbling under; and at some point, I want to get myself over to Bulgaria… all the plans for the project there are in my sketchbook just waiting to happen.

My fingers itch with the thought of it.

There’s a countdown going on in my head (think Thunderbirds, not NASA).

You see, right up to the point where we open the doors on “ONE” it will all be of someone else’s making. Or an assignment. Up until that point it’s just Rodney and Del Boy saying “This time next year we’ll be millionaires!” It’s all a fiction, a figment of my imagination.

At the point when that door opens on October 28th it’s real, and it’s me.

There is of course, an inherent stressy panic thing going on…

Occasionally though when this thought catches me unawares, I am electrified by it. It zings through my head and shoots down my spine. My hands shake and I get a bit giddy. I giggle a little bit… teetering on the edge of hysteria maybe… I have used the words obsessive, and addictive, and engrossed… It is a good job it is only occasionally, because it is quite overwhelming.

I can’t believe I have spent such a long time NOT doing this! What happened to all of these thoughts when I wasn’t doing this? No wonder I nearly went bonkers! I have these thoughts, they mill around my head until my hands find a way to express them, make them known. And now I am expressing them, I can put them up for people to see. Some of it comes from a very personal place… some of that shows, thankfully most of it doesn’t. But whatever ends up on the walls or hanging from the ceiling or piped through to your ears… it is the contents of my head. It took me a long time to get here, and I’m not a young woman. I also look at all those much younger artists around me: Do they appreciate it? Do they realise how amazing it is to live like this? Or is it just because I am older, and it’s taken me a while to get here that I feel this way?

So, when I am being a moany, cynical old blogger, point me back to this post. I hope I never lose this feeling of excitement and possibility.

I like my blog.

I can write how I speak. I can prattle on a bit, go down cul-de-sacs, take a tangent or two, and meander slowly back to where I started…. Or not!

It’s when it comes to “Important Writing” I have problems. I write essays like an 8 yr old… or at least, I think I do. Other people’s writing is always more intelligent, cleverly structured, properly argued. I always feel mine should be peppered with “yeah, but” and “ ner ner, told you so” and “I think you’ll find I’m right!” and even the occasional “oh f*ck off” when I encounter a standpoint I don’t understand.

So the funding application process is fraught with danger. I have no confidence that what I am writing makes any sense to anyone. I am convinced I am repetitive, leave out the important bits, presuming the funder is psychic.

I was the same with the essays for my MA. Backwards and forwards they went, till they made no sense to me either. I don’t think I learned much about the process of doing it, despite the best efforts of my tutor.

Last night at this year’s MA show at Margaret Street, I met a few people about to embark upon the PhD option… I truly and deeply think they are mad. I wondered about it for about a week. Then I said “I have to read HOW MUCH?” and “I have to write HOW MANY words? No thanks. The thought of juggling 50,000+ words when I have trouble getting to grips with 500 brings me out in a cold sweat.

I admire these people greatly. They are doing something I feel I am never going to be equipped to do.

But I bet they can’t do a decent French Knot for toffee!

It wasn’t so bad.

The day started with the predicted ire about other people’s rubbish, but I have come to expect it, so just got on with clearing it, before starting my own work.

I also handed out some flyers for ONE. These were met with curiosity, surprise, bewilderment, and also, satisfyingly, a few people seemed impressed. These people I work with mostly don’t see me as an artist I don’t think. That is because when I started working there I wasn’t really. My steady development as an artist over a ten year period has largely gone unnoticed. I think this has been of my own making, as I wasn’t ready to have it questioned. Now that I am, to them, it must seem like a sudden change. So I started to look back upon those ten years after work yesterday. How was I when I started?

I was grateful. I was on the verge of going mad. I had thankfully been offered this job at a point when I felt totally trapped by my teaching in FE, trapped financially, professionally backed into a corner I didn’t want to be in, but it had happened so gradually I hadn’t noticed till it was too late. When I started, I just wanted to feel I was doing something creative again – anything. Therefore, my price was low, and I wasn’t worth much to be honest. I was a bit of a liability, emotionally fragile.

The first two years were therapy. I did as I was told, followed the scheme I was given – occasionally with misgivings, but followed it anyway. I got stronger, and having been given a creative lifeline, wanted more. The Artist Teacher Scheme was a life saver the first time I did it. I signed up a second time, and it changed my life. Again, I don’t really know if anyone noticed. I saw a different me emerge. A me that probably hadn’t been around for 20 years or so. I recognised this person, not new, but awakened. A gradually building confidence allowed me to finish my degree… thanks to the also therapeutic, supportive nature of the Open University. (It is so sad their costs have sky-rocketed, as what was available to me then, would now be totally unreachable). The ATS awards masters level points… it took me quite a while to convince myself I could do it. So having had my brain changed by the ATS, the MA hauled me up by my ankles, slapped me, shook me by the shoulders, told me to pull myself together. It filled me full of the tools to carry on. It gave me reading to do; art to look at; gave me people to talk to, work with, and those people told me when I was talking rubbish, unafraid! They told me when the work wasn’t good enough, or didn’t work how I was wanting it to. They did also tell me when it was getting there. They asked the right questions. And in some cases, laughed at me and took the p*ss. In this, made sure I didn’t take myself too seriously. Far from putting me down, this process built me. Because when the week before your final show, when the person who has been telling you the work isn’t quite there, isn’t quite hitting the spot, suddenly says “Yep. Pretty good.” You feel like you can fly.

There is, of course, the inevitable post-MA slump. A year on, I now see it for what it is and am moving out of it… if you have been reading this blog a while you’ve probably seen it for yourself.

So I no longer feel I can fly, but I’m skipping along quite nicely, thanks. I feel good about the work, and feel good about where it is taking me. I am no longer emotionally fragile. I have challenged much of the teaching I started with. I do things differently now. I do things as an artist now. I’m worth more now.

I’m back at school on Monday.

I have to remind myself that having inset on the first day, then not seeing the children till Thursday when I’m next in, is a horrible way to start the year. This is because I am already in the “I don’t want to go back” mood, and will not be reminded why I like it until the children are in. Undoubtedly, having cleaned, cleared and prepared my room in July, all and sundry will have used it as a half way point to the skip in the holidays. Out of sight, their rubbish will be forgotten until I scream upon entering the room.

I try not to talk too much about my teaching here, because that’s not what I do this blog for. But now and again, its effects are undeniable, and need acknowledgement.

I have spent the last six weeks working towards ONE – the joint exhibition with Bo. I had to do this because October will be here before I know it, and there is little time to decide what to show, and to get the work showable! Consequently, teaching is the last thing on my mind, the artist takes over completely, I am pretty content, the trials of the artist being so much more preferable to the trials of the artist teacher. I feel totally me. To the non-artists, that might sound quite selfish, and to an extent it is I suppose. But the artists know that this is the BEST state… creativity whizzing between eyes, fingers and brain, total absorption. This is like the talk of an addict perhaps. Towards the end of this six weeks I resent totally the need to return, longing to hand in my notice, to spend all of my time in the pursuit of art.

The M word.

Money.

I am supremely fortunate, my rational brain knows this, that I can afford to only work in school two and a half days a week. I have to be reminded that what this gets me is creative freedom. I don’t have to make my work fit anyone else’s brief in order to make money. So instead of whinging about having to go back to school, I need to plan my time carefully, and use my days off to the best. I need to make my school life feel fulfilling, do it to the best of my ability, so it doesn’t become a millstone around my neck. I need to prepare work to inspire the children, get them thinking, make them laugh. Then when I leave the building, I can become the artist again. In the meantime, I can plot and plan, for that glorious day when the artist jobs and income streams become more, and the teaching income becomes less, and then perhaps eventually I can give it up.

Dream on……

Just a short blog, with a few photos, to share my excitement…

I thought it was going to take weeks to source this item for my piece to make for New York, but I found it!

It is a 1940 British Infantryman’s greatcoat. I have spoken before about how things speak to me in junk shops… well this was a risk, this was eBay, I didn’t even get the chance to sniff it before I bought it, but it is perfect. Worn, stained, tatty and torn, moth-eaten. There is so much evidence of the man who wore it, and the life he lived in it. I am quite emotional about it really.

I will need to clean it up a little bit, a brush and a sponge down here and there, and I will perhaps steam it a little so that it hangs better for exhibiting purposes.

Then the stitching will begin.

An act of love.