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I suspect, but have no evidence to back it up, that this might be a gender thing. Or maybe men just do it and don’t discuss it so openly?

I’ve been having a conversation with a couple of people on and off, separately, for a while now about my new-found ambition. I’m not used to it. And until now, I never even had a work ethic. I’m 55 for goodness sake!

The task that has prompted this train of thought is my occasional habit of CV weeding.

About ten years ago, If I so much as showed someone a picture of my work on my phone in a pub, I called it a pop-up exhibition and put it on my CV, just so there was something on it, just so it looked like I was actually a real artist, doing something that counted as something.

As I went on, and collected slightly more professional looking things, the pub-type gigs got dropped (as much as anything, out of fear if someone actually checked, they weren’t that real!) So that was an easy “weed”. As I have collected events that are more widely recognised, it has become more difficult, a moral dilemma occurs. There are some things on my CV that, at the time of doing them, I thought were brilliant – they were – but now, they don’t really say anything about me, or my work, or where I want to be, or how I want to be seen. An artist CV isn’t like a clerical worker CV, or the sort of CV that requires an unbroken employment history.

I have likened this to the wardrobe sort-out. Get rid of anything that doesn’t fit, is the wrong colour, doesn’t suit you… even if it was expensive when you bought it, and went with those proper girl-shoes you bought for a special occasion. I’m grateful that I went to the special occasion, I have fond memories, but I’m not going to go to another.

My moral dilemma is this: people that I know and love are involved in the things that I am weeding out. I have to decide if this is misplaced loyalty… I still love these people, but my professional path I think, should be elsewhere now. I have never had a professional path up until very recently, so I don’t really know how to cope with this. I don’t want to piss people off that I am grateful to, and I don’t want them to feel I am belittling their work in any way, because that isn’t what it is about… but it REALLY looks like that… doesn’t it?

Ambition then: To be ambitious, you have to sell yourself, present yourself as the person you want to become… almost inhabit it beforehand in order for it to become true. Fake it to make it? Possibly, which is another dilemma, I have always felt I am an honest person in the way I present myself. This becomes, then, about self-belief. If I don’t believe that I can get somewhere, then the presentation is false. I hate that. I’m not blowing a trumpet that doesn’t exist. I’m even starting to think that writing this blog post might be a way of justifying my deplorable actions… I expect someone will tell me. They usually do.

I have a bunch of really close art-friends who are honest and open and we talk about each other’s work in an open and honest way. I know when I’m not doing a proper job, because, in case I hadn’t noticed, they tell me. Or at least steer the conversation in a way that I notice all by myself! Hahaha!

They tell me that it is OK to be ambitious. But other than the CV weeding, and the mad scramble to apply for things I will probably not get/win/participate in, I don’t know where the “somewhere” is that I want to get to.

When I took a leap of faith and threw myself back at my fine art practice about ten years ago, I had a list of things I wanted to achieve. At the time I thought them ridiculous, funny, mythical and totally unachievable. Unbelievably, I have done them all, and more. What I could do with now is a new list. This new list at the moment is cloudy and unformed, and I could probably do with some help forming the list, let alone actually achieving it!

I also feel that by saying all this, and publishing the list, that I’m really sticking my head above the parapet…

 

The new list involves:

*wider recognition for the work… across a range of platforms…

*a decent solo gallery exhibition, that gets a good review that people see…

*being able to earn a living…

*a sort of breaking-out… I don’t know what from, or to…

*a really big project that means something to other people, not just me, that might leave some sort of trace… fuck me… a legacy even!

*a bloody studio!

 

 

I have no idea how to get any of this. It all still looks ridiculous, funny, mythical and totally unachievable…The first list was easier… or maybe that’s hindsight talking?

 

 

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I am a great writer of lists.

In this period of uncertainty, disappointment, and yes, lets be frank, horror at the behaviour of certain human beings who would, if asked, consider themselves cultured and civilised…. in this period, my natural optimism has been tested.

When things go wrong I have a tendency to spend an amount of time brooding, swearing, arguing and so on. The amount of time spent doing this depends on the enormity of the event that has to be dealt with. I have explosive tendencies too. I can be nastily sarcastic and mean. I stomp about. I slam doors. And then I am mortified, apologetic… (but I don’t hold grudges…often)… I express myself verbally, to those closest to me usually, and rather more politely on social media. And then, when I’ve left people reeling, I’m ready to move on, and quite often unfortunately, having felt assaulted by my instant volatile reaction, they are not. I’m sorry. I’m always very sorry. While I was at work in a proper job, I learned to curb this a little. Now I don’t have a proper job I think my social skills have reverted to those of a recalcitrant teenager.

It’s probably a good thing that I no longer work in an environment where there was a closet Farage supporter (I learned this on my last day and was rendered speechless). This week, I would probably have been instantly sacked.

Anyway… while this is all going on, I don’t feel able to work on anything.

But afterwards, when my own personal dust cloud has settled, I have discovered I am at my most creative, and possibly my most emotionally vulnerable.

There is a decisive “RIGHT THEN!” and I dive back in. The events have an effect on the way I work, and what I work on. I work through it all. The hatred and venom are filtered through the fabric. The hot air balloon of indignation is punctured by my needle. The words of spite and cruelty and injustice are scribbled onto a page. (I have been asked by people who don’t know me, how someone as jolly and positive and fun-loving as me can produce work that holds such bitterness and misery… well that’s how.) (The people that really know me, also know that the jolly, positive, social me costs my energy stockpile dearly)

 

(A side note: actually, at first glance the work can also look and sound jolly… it is those people who dig deeper and look closer and listen more keenly who are rewarded with the bitterness and misery)

The “RIGHT THEN!” generally precedes the list-writing.

The list has everything… the things currently being done, and currently in exhibition status… to remind me that I’m not just sat here. It contains the things that are in the pipeline, that have been submitted and hold possibilities. It holds the future projects and proposals. It holds the things I might actually earn some money from (expenses are a dark and different list).

The list then gets pinned up, and I kick back the chair, put my feet on the desk (currently the dining table! scutter!). I drink tea and I ponder the possibilities.

 

The next bit of activity might be either a big bit of paper, coloured felt pens and words… or there might be a tipping out of work and materials to be sorted… This time, I think I’m going for the materials. I’m sorting out my apron collection (currently stands at 11) some have been worked on already, some are just there. The apron seems appropriate. A garment to protect, keep clean, be busy in.

 

Right then….

 

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When I first started this blog… unbelievably just over five years ago… among all sorts of pronouncements of intent I promised music. At the time, I wasn’t aware that quite a lot of the music would end up being of my own invention. But, I forget sometimes to mention in passing what I’m listening to, and how it holds an important place in my work, as a background, but also as a thing of focus. Lyrics worm their way into my brain… my own lyrics sometimes answer them, agree with them, or say the same thing, but in my words, from my own unique angle. The rhythms aid stitching, also a rhythmic thing. Depending on the speed of my stitching, I change the music. Like a jogger. (yeah right!).

I am sometimes aware that either the path of my stitched lines is defined by the topline / melody… or that my choice of songs is defined by the path of my stitches. Some people are astonished by this, but it is a meditative thing almost… my body sways in my chair and my fingers push the needle in time… my brain meanders around the lyric, explores the pictures in my head. In the Songwriting Circle, we often talk about what we hear first. Other than the secondary choices of rhythm/sewing… if I’m just listening, it is always the words… always. But beyond that I can become obsessed by small snatches of a recording. There is a section of piano in Villagers’ track, “Dawning on Me” about one minute in if you are that interested… which makes me groan in a rather disturbing way… it connects with something in that gap between the physical and the emotional… I just love it.

 

So while the world goes to Hell in a Handcart, I have made a (metaphorical) den out of deckchairs and blankets on the back lawn. I have hit Amazon big time… Radiohead… Ray LaMontagne… Kings of Convenience… and a book on Frida Kahlo… and I’m staying in here with my sewing until either it all goes away, or I gather the mettle to cope…

 

…the good news is I will probably emerge with some new lyrics, and a sketch book with new tangents to explore…

 

Villagers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4EOvMQoW4k

 

and there’s a wonderful live acoustic version with harp instead….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLJYp7ICFRI

 

Radiohead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTAU7lLDZYU&list=PLPy9EgpSI-411GhcaTb1-WXxojxAuRY5D

 

Ray LaMontagne: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IqCD7oNcQ4

 

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I’m an emotional human being. I react strongly to events, people, music, art.

This week has been tough. I am overwhelmed by my own responses. In order to cope without lashing out verbally in a way that’s impossible to pull back from, I withdraw from company. A few people have had emails or texts. But that’s about it.

I am, thankfully, also optimistic generally. Sometimes it takes me a while, but I get there.

Art is the route through. Work. Repetition. Simple haptic reward. The state of flow. A piece of work that takes time, concentration, but no decision making.

A linen apron. Linen threads I bought in Stockholm. Lazy daisy chain stitches and French knots. Mindless, and mindful. This is my chosen language. I am fluent in stitch. It absorbs, rewards, soothes the fevered brow.

This old apron, thin in fibre, but heavily starched is my metaphor. Delicate, fragile, but shored up by artifice. I stitch onto it to fill it. I cover it. I will keep going to the point of exhaustion and possibly pain… Although I do try not to go that far these days. The flowers and motifs I stitch will be cheerful and bright… Another layer to throw you off the scent.

I am a loud and brightly coloured human being.
Don’t be fooled.

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I have my own little in/out struggle going on. How to make another leap of faith, when the obstacles are mainly within myself?

I’m kind of stuck.

Because I presently have no studio my work seems to have halted in some aspects. The idea I was working on no longer seems valid. No other idea has taken its place. (Worth saying though, songwriting is thriving)
I currently have no income… End of year sessional visiting lecturer anguish. If the students don’t sign up there isn’t a course. If there isn’t a course I don’t get paid. Simple. But I cannot financially commit to a new, lovely big studio without the income to pay for it.
Thing is, in the scheme of things I know that it is a small amount of money, this is a good deal… If the money was sat in an account somewhere I’d have already said yes and I’d be in by now.
I’ve been told off by the usual special friend who tells me off. I’m a spoilt brat who is whining and moaning and I should just say yes! Say in! And get on with it. I think he has more faith in me than I do. (In many other respects too I suspect)
So, having been told off, I come home and brood a bit. I would rather swear at him and have a bit of a strop. But I have learned that even if it makes me angry, even if I ultimately decide he is wrong, he usually has a point. And sometimes he is playing devil’s advocate just to make me see it. Anyway I digress….

In a different part of my world, I did say yes to something that now, I see I perhaps should have said no to. But I don’t think I would have seen that had I not said yes. Seeing it has been useful.

I’m in some sort of mid art career crisis. Is this a thing? The sort of things I am able to do easily are no longer the things I want to do. I moved out of my old studio because it was no longer the place for me. I had done everything they could conceive of me doing… The things I wanted to do next I think worried them. I have ambition (scarily, I think that is what it is I feel). I didn’t need more square feet, just more space. But in my stroppy tantrum spoilt brat way, I walked out without another space to go to. This is a bit of a habit. I don’t intend it, but that’s what happens.
So far, it has worked out. But one day, maybe this day, it might not. I might have shot myself in the foot one last time…although I have thought that sometimes someone else has handed me the gun and ammunition.

So what I’d like to ask, if anyone is still reading this, is how do I do the next bit? How do I move from the parochial, the hire space, the local….(I’m not counting the very occasional group project that does marvellous things and gets me to foreign climes….)

How do I get further? I’m stuck.

Looking back, which I have been able to do from quite a good vantage point this week, I’ve come a long way in the last six years or so… But it’s not enough. I have more to do and more to say. And I want to do so in places which broaden and deepen the audience… Which would challenge my internal and external discourse and would make the work stronger.

Am I stuck?