working the shells

 

i’m processing being successful again.  i must be successful at being unsuccessful as yet again i find myself being unsuccessful.

my practice doesn’t really want to cover being unsuccessful however i do seem to avail opportunities for myself to practice it.  i don;t really want to practice it as i don;t really want to get better at being unsuccessful.

 

part of my processing has been to eat well.  whenever i’m unsuccesful i find eating makes things better.  i’m no less unsuccessful, just less bothered by it.

 

 

it’s a while since being unsuccessful so today having a chance to be unsuccessful has made a change.

 

 

before eating, while really embracing the unsuccessfullness ness i took myself outside.  while i was there i captured a few moments of what  my unsuccessfulness ness felt like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

this morning i sit and stare through the newly created gap in the curtains.  a bus route goes past our window.   before the next bus, i study the distant tree.

my meditation is broke by curtain opening and puppy jumping onto the window sill.

during the first two months of the year i almost marked each day with a longing for sunshine.  my vitamin d levels becoming noticeably low.  each day staring out of the window at the monologue grey sky.

while i stared i forgot about the daffodils.  i did nothing and still they appeared.  their appearance exciting me at the prospect of things to come.

the puppy doesn’t notice me staring out of the window.

 

 

 

my view through the window makes me smile today, bright, sunny whisping clouds tickling the tops of the trees accompanied by all the best of female composers on radio 3.  a good day to be sipping tea and considering a blog post.

my week began with finishing off the re-iterteration of my practice website.  i made it live on minday and have been tweaking performance settings since then.  i think today i’m about done with the speed optimisation.

it’s something i’ve learnt about over time and i’ve seen how google especially has done a lot of work on providing analytical tools to help see where improvements can be made.

the website relaunch comes close on the heals of being featured by a-n on their instagram feed as a featured blogger.  when i was putting the week together i managed four images reasonably easily as it told a storey.  for the fifth i made an image specially for that day and i’m so pleased to see how that image has become the most liked of the week and is still receiving likes.

i’ve combined the week on instagram into a post on my site so it is with great pleasure for the first time to share both my week on instagram and my newly re-iterated website …

http://www.andrewmartynsugars.me/03/2017/featured-blogger/

with the site up and running and flying solo i can turn my attention to a new project.  well i say new … it’s one i started last year and put to one side while making things for the silk mill.  with the website complete and other projects still in the germinating stage i see the opportunity to reconnect with the idea.

its my idea of making a clock from the windows on one side of the ground floor of the silk mill museum.  for now i’ll make a maquette.

this morning in going back to the idea i have realised that i need to be more considered about the object as i’ve learnt that the window shapes are very fragile when cut.  when last working on the project i got as far as making a prototype of the idea for he construction of the clock.

 

as well as gazing out the window this morning listening to music i have actually been busy getting all the pieces of the project together.  looking at the above image has reminded me of the sticking point i arrived at last year. i want to embed 5 leds per window bay and how to mount them remains unsolved.

this morning has also flagged a newly unsolved problem, that of how to make the clock so i can store it safely.

another sip of tea and a quick consideration of what else i need to write down today …

i’m good.

 

 

a short month, so a short review ? we’ll find out shortly.  with external projects in various stages of beginning and waiting to finish my main practice focus for the month has been to re-iterate my practice website.

informed by my on going experience at the derby silk mill museum of making, i came into february with the intention to place all in one place the nature of my multidiscipline practice.  i’ve maintained my own site for several years  and over the years have had a lot of different looking sites.  this iteration talks much more neatly about my portfolio of interests both at work and in play.

at the beginning i had great ambition and i can admit now that what was on paper at times did seem unachievable, simply because there was so much to do.

i’m happy to report my small amounts of work done often strategy has got me to a point where the site is about 75% complete as i write today.

 

the hospital project i’m working on with the silk mill has had an interesting bonus feature appear.  the arts organisation on site at the hospitals in derby is celebrating it’s 10th year anniversary and the arm at the london road community hospital have chosen the museum in miniature project to represent their work during this time.  the exhibition will feature 10 objects with selected stories from the the wards visits before christmas.  i’ve had a lot of joy working with assistant curator eilish to take photos of 8 of the objects for the exhibition.  the feedback from eilish and chris at the museum has been over whelmingly positive.

https://twitter.com/andrewsugars/status/831861099175751681

(apologies for not being able to fully embed the tweet with timelapse experiment from the photo shoot.)

the third image related endeavour this month has been to prepare for my week as a featured blogger on the a-n instagram feed.  i found the opportunity an interesting challenge and look forward to how the week unfolds.

 

 

this post has been written either side of eating dinner. it’s a post about recording something of the last few days.

the cold of the previous post has peaked and today i’m in a lot better health.  rather like playing 52 card pick up, i feel like i’m putting me back together.

something i’m noticing is the impact of feelings on my life.

how i feel directly impacts upon my ability to do work within my practice.  working outside of it with others on other projects i feel amazing about completing the work.  so what’s different within the practice ?  my reflections today lead me to believe it’s a case of belief.

connected to belief is how i feel about myself.  for sometime now i’ve been adjusting to a different mindset about what i do.  i was reminded of this last night when visiting quad in derby to listen to will hurt give a talk about his practice.  i’ll return to that presently.

i had worked shown in quad in 2010, part of a group show entitled future focus.

i pause a moment and collect my thoughts.

thoughts happen so quickly, often too quickly to be able to contained to write them, to make sense of them.  feelings are slower and because of this affect how i feel, think and do.

i’ve eaten now and the earlier wave of enthusiasm gives way to tired contentment.

picking up the earlier thread of will hurt, i’m pleased with myself for getting to hear him speak.  listening to other artists is something i’ve been neglecting to do.  listening to his practice journey thus far reminded me of how non linear my practice seems to be, yet clearly is linear as everything i do next is connected to the previous.   once again this is where how i feel returns to the enquiry as it’s what drives what comes next.  there is a danger with this though.  i get part way through realising the feeling and the thought hits me that the intellectual position of the thing is not very strong.  this affects my belief about how it looks.

something in my mind recalls the conversations i was having on the a-n platform during my degree.  they were about the state of art education.  listening to will last night he’s so on the money.  he was able to show exactly what pieces of writing or images were the starting points the next leg of his journey.

i’m becoming more able to accept who i am.

wow ! a random statement ?  maybe not.  let me hold your hand … walk with me.

i have a disability.  the potential i demonstrate falls short in certain circumstances.  this for a long time was unmanaged by myself.  it meant for almost everything i did an inner monologue told me that someone else would do it better.  this inner monologue is becoming less frequent and less loud as of late i begin to do things i really enjoy and see success and peer support for.  i’ve learnt that inner monologue is know as imposter syndrome.

as a motorcycle racer works with his team to find the optimum set up to achieve the fastest lap time, i work with myself to find out who i am so i can work at realising my full potential.

i think seeing a friend from school on linkedin today has made me realise that i should be proud about what i have done and what i’m still to do.

i have an idea that i’m going to trail for a while.  its connected to writing of proposals and ideas.  when i speak to someone i’m able to connect to my feeling about what i’m talking about and this passion helps to drive forward the conversation.  in writing i’m going to trial writing as though i was speaking to someone i know.

like the racer,  i strive to improve what i do.

let’s stop walking for a moment.

yes the nature of practice is to do and put back in what is learnt through doing.  however when did i make it competitive with myself ?

i stand here and now and from what i see, see that my practice doesn’t need to be a competition.

it’s an enquiry, a journey of curiosity, a melee of feeling.