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Heart and Hope

I think there’s a point in any project where you reach a plateau, turn around, sit on a bench and look across what you’ve done. From there you assess where you are, turn 180º and look across what has yet to be done.

I also think it’s important to do that, and take time to enjoy the moment and not just sink into exhaustion.

And here I am.

I should have brought a cushion. The bench is hard. But never mind, I haven’t got long to sit

This point in proceedings can be busy, so it can be difficult to sit awhile. I’ve got three exhibitions in my head. One that I am waiting to collect work from the framers for, to be delivered next week. Two small pieces, well framed, and reasonably priced in hope of a sale. I’m spending a lot of money at the framers, so it would be nice to recoup some of the investment.

The second exhibition is the one at Royal Birmingham Society of Artists for their Candidates Exhibition. I wasn’t going to blog about it in case it all goes pear-shaped, but you know what? I told you about the six ACE rejections, so this is OK. Rejections become easier when you’ve had a few of them. They become easier to brush off, and you get over them quicker. The work for this is larger scale, and unlikely to sell, as they have pretty big prices on in the scheme of things. And they’d be rather large in a domestic situation.

Unless you have a really big house, in which case why not buy a pair? 

But even if unsuccessful, I have the opportunity to show work in a really great city centre gallery space. Not to be sneezed at that’s for sure! And I can always try again!

I’m having these dry-mounted instead of framed. This will be cheaper (except I’m getting loads done) but they look really crisp and sharp and fresh – love em!

This is for the beginning of July.

The third thing is the exhibition for the Facebook group I started during lockdown. The Drawbridge.

This one, while I’m not doing all the admin, I shall be co-curating, collecting, invigilating etc. That’s from the middle to the end of July, and overlaps the other.

Anyway… from my bench I can see all that I have done so far, which is fantastic, and a huge amount… but also what I have yet to do, which is also fantastic but a little daunting. I have a note book and lists… so I’ll be ok.

The songs are coming on a treat! A couple are finished, or at least parked until the others catch up. A few are very nearly there, we know what needs doing so we can pick away at those. Then there are a few that need more attention, we will deal with those after these we are working on are parked.

This afternoon I found myself getting a bit wound up about stuff to be done… so I went for a walk down into the town and mooched along the high street. As I approached the entrance to the shopping centre I was stopped in my tracks. A Busker. A Lone Busker. Singing loud reggae and playing guitar as if his life depended on it. JOYFUL. I can’t tell you how this made me feel. The first live music I’d been in the vicinity of for 15 months. How my heart leapt! It was fantastic to hear. I scrabbled in my pocket and gave him all my money. (well… all the real money I had with me, a few quid) If he wasn’t in the middle of a song I might have told him I loved him.

I’m skipping all over the place in this post… but there is a point to it…

I’m also preparing for a radio thing…

When I got back and made my cup of tea I made a list of the new songs that I would like to play when it happens. I had a quick listen, so I could jot down a quick sentence of what each song is about…ish. This is for my own mind, not for any explanation for others. I started thinking they might be a bit grim, miserable… but as I listened I realised that what most of them were about was hope… and having heart… an inner strength to cope with the grim, and triumph even! They might sound a bit sad, or dark, but they’re really really not. I am eternally optimistic, and so it seems are my songs.


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There are good days and bad days, but most days are a combination of both. Some swing wildly from one extreme to another.

The project is going well, and for that I am grateful. Chuffed to have had the Drawn In exhibition at Glitterball Showroom, and to have it so well received…especially the songs! Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to listen.

Work in my studio is going well. 

I’m not having a moan, but I am observing that just when I need my body to feel fit and well, it does not (yes, I know it could be worse, but it is what it is). I am exhausted by the constant activity in our new house since we moved in at the end of January. Gardeners, decorators, electricians… blah blah… an imminent load of carpet and flooring to be fitted means loads of boxes have to be shifted from one room to another then back again. And yes again, I know I am fortunate, but acknowledging my privilege doesn’t make my body work any better. It might be tiredness from all the activity, or the getting up early to receive the workers, or the fact I’m not eating properly because half the time I can’t be bothered to prepare properly, but my arthritis is bloody shocking at the moment. Anyway… I’m not saying this for sympathy, I’m fine… 

I’m saying it because it is having an effect on the way that I’m working. Unrolling the large paper is difficult and painful, so I have ordered some large flat sheets instead. It’s also having an effect on the colours I’m choosing. In the last couple of weeks I’ve moved away from the soft and smooth Payne’s grey watercolour. Instead I’ve been using ink not just to do the drawing but to lay down some initial colours too. I’m using leftovers (hate wasting materials) so the ink is smelly and bitty and grainy. It feels appropriate. The gritty bits feel like the bit of floating debris in my joints. I draw around them, draw attention to them. The colours feel right too. Yellow ochre mixed with black to give varying tones from the sharp but dirty yellow through a sickening green to grey and black. Today I have a selection of jars filled with dilutions of carmine and black. The colours feel sore and inflamed. Bruises. Today I am using large brushes to sweep these branches of colours over wet paper, then half dry, then completely dry… my painkillers kick in as the paper undulates, then starts to dry and straighten out. In about twenty minutes I will be able to hold the slender pen to dip the nib and draw some lines and marks…


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I mentioned in the last post that I was about half way through the project and that I had done some stuff. Today for some reason I feel the need to quantify:

I have some drawings, about four quite large scale, several smaller ones, and a some very small ones that have been edited out of larger ones. In these drawings I do start to see the seeds of change germinating.

We have about half a dozen songs that are nearly there, and available to listen to (see below).

In terms of audience, contrary to expectations I do feel there has been some growth here too: 

Drawn In is an online exhibition hosted by Glitterball Showroom from Enköping, Sweden, curated by the marvellous Stuart Mayes who has been enormously supportive of my work for years now, and he asked me to open this run of online exhibitions. It seems to be going well, has attracted some wonderful feedback and a great review from Sarah Goudie on a-n reviews. As part of this exhibition, four of the songs are being previewed, as works in progress. If you feel inclined to pop over to Soundcloud, feel free to like/add a comment. The playlist has had loads of listens, but people do seem reluctant to comment… I do understand though… I’m a bit like that… but it is nice to get real words from real people.

I’ve joined The Creative Community too which is a bit like Linked In for creative professionals, except it works, which I find Linked In doesn’t very well… certainly didn’t for me. It’s new, and growing steadily, the networking feels natural, and friendly (again, unlike Linked In).

And last week I was invited to attend an online Discussion Festival run through Platform 7 events. This is really great. I’m sure there’s lots of backroom Oomph going on, because it’s brilliant, and not like zoom at all… if you are Zoom Fatigued, and would like to do something that feels more like chatting in the pub, this is the thing. This week I got to host a “table” and I’m doing it next Tuesday too. You can register for free, and then if you feel you have had a great night, make a donation afterwards, or you can pay a little in advance… whatever you feel, or feel able to do. (Free is ok too) I’t hard to explain, but there are lots of “tables” and you can freely hop between them, listen to what’s going on, or join in if you want. My discussion, prompted by the Drawing Songs project, focussed on the merging of art media, and asked can a song be a drawing and can a drawing be a song? It was a really interesting night, so I’m looking forward to doing it again. I’m adding loads of links in this post, so you can go off and discover for yourself.

Things have gone well so far, but I am straining at the leash, as I’m sure many people are, to get back to real people in real rooms… once we can do that, I will feel I’ve got some definite rock solid progress going on.

But there are dates in the diary for real human contact… meetings over coffee, studio visits, rehearsals… it feels like a blossoming… let’s hope there isn’t a late frost that kills it off…

I’ve spent an hour or so looking at my budget (on track) and my time plan… which has swayed a little in the covid breeze: some things have had to be cancelled, and will now not happen, but the things that I have done in their place I think have been better, more effective and have accidentally reached a wider audience that my planned activities would have done. So I’m happy with that.

Onwards …


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Each time I get some funding from Arts Council England (or elsewhere) I find something odd happens to my attitude towards the work, and myself as an artist, that each time is unexpected, but I have noticed a pattern now…

I do feel an obligation, as I have said in previous posts, to deliver, as it is public money. A responsibility to make sure I spend the money well.

But it is more than that. Making sure I spend the money well isn’t the only thing. I feel the need to spend the time well. I feel the need to “get somewhere” to prove to myself that it was worth all the effort!

If I potter on by myself, in unfunded periods, that is what I do, I potter about. (There is huge value in periods of pottering too, but that’s for another post.) But having a budget, a time plan, and a list of people to work with and so on, gives a purpose and direction to a project. For the worlds biggest procrastinator, this is actually hugely valuable. Running in my head is a sort of script that goes “By the end of this project I want to be/ to have done/ to have worked with/ to have seen/ to have made/ to have met/ to have been to…blah blah…

This ensures that by the end, I DO feel I have accomplished something that wouldn’t have been done otherwise. I’m not just talking about doing the project, yes of course I want to have successfully achieved what I have said I will do, but there are extra things. I want to have worked in different ways, with different people, expanded the audience, shown work in different galleries and non-galleries maybe. I have in the past increased my online stats… that seems to be happening this time too. A gently, but undeniable growth of people that are interested in the work I’m doing.

Having funding undeniably gives you access to things and people you wouldn’t otherwise have. Not just the money in itself, but the fact that ACE have deemed you worthy of it seems to be like a rubber stamp to get you through to the VIP tent… well… maybe to the place where you can see the door to the VIP tent…

The growth isn’t just about the places I can get to and the people I can meet and the “stuff” I can buy. It is that almost imperceptible shift in my sense of self. My path to being an artist and feeling like an artist over the last ten to fifteen years has been a bumpy road, and I often fall down potholes. But I am undeniably an artist. I don’t do anything else now. 

Fifteen years ago I was calling myself all sorts of things to skirt round the fact I didn’t feel worthy of the word. Artist seemed such a HUGE word. I felt almost embarrassed using it. What the fuck was that all about eh? But I can remember the feelings… I can feel that growth in my bones.

So… I’m about half way through this project. I’ve done a lot of drawings, they’ve changed a bit. I’ve written and recorded a few songs – remotely – haven’t got myself in the studio with my co-producer and co-writer yet… but the dates are in the diary. I have learned a lot from the process.I have met new people and I have shown in new spaces, real and virtual. I’ve worked with new people… I’m getting there. It feels like a gentle upward spiral. I can now look back and see the point I started at, and I can see progress. All is good.

In June I will have been blogging for ten years. I started on a-n.co.uk/blogs and more recently this has featured on my website too. When I look back down the spiral that far, I hardly recognise myself…


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Blogging is a weird beast…

Either you have plenty of time to blog, but nothing to blog about, or so much going on you haven’t got time to blog!

This afternoon I find myself with a small window of opportunity: I’ve done some things, waiting for other things to come back to me…

I’ve recorded some more things, some vocal re-recordings to be honest. I was not happy with the first lot. I find recording myself difficult. There’s so much to think about that it seems the last thing I concentrate on is my voice. Whereas when I am in Michael’s studio, he does all that, and I stand up to the mic and concentrate on the singing. Much better! We will be back to that arrangement soon hopefully.

Also, I commissioned the wonderful Simon Smith to play some double bass for me… deep, bowed, melodic and melancholic… to insert into the mid section of one of the songs. It’s as if there’s a breath and a heartbeat and a soulful longing in there. I can’t wait for it to be knitted into the mix…

There’s also that waiting that everyone is doing at the moment, waiting for things to open. For another step closer to normal life, or at least a life where we can be in the same space as other people, and talk properly… sing and play together again.

The online exhibition Drawn In with Glitterball Showroom in Enköping, Sweden seems to be going well… evidenced by loads of website clicks, and Soundcloud plays. Small, but gratifying clues to interaction.

 


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