cutting the grass at Wild Networking
15 June 12

the abject object

the simultaneous amalgamation of opposites to equal one and three.

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22 August 13

This being the school summer holidays, I have been somewhat absent from these pages for a while (did you miss me?) and have just snatched a small second of time to write this inbetween well, I won’t bore you with domestic drudgery and family histrionics but I’m sure you get the picture.

Following on from the story so far….

My REview bursary jobs list is (slowly) kicking into action. The primary thing I think was to change my mental state. Tick box.

Second in the priority stakes was my website. A couple of years ago I was delighted to get a grant to make my site but I didn’t really know what I wanted (or needed) so I sort of worked with what I had at the time. In retrospect I think I should have been a little more forward thinking, but that is easy to say with hindsight.

I am now grappling with making what served one purpose, serve another. Am I just fiddling while Rome burns, and arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic? – maybe. But it is the best I can do for now with the major part of my brain held hijack by three little darlings.

At any rate, looking at it with my new (super-specked) eyes, I can see, and know in my bones, how it is supposed to look – so that is half the battle won.

cutting the grass at Wild Networking
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20 July 13

I’ve been a bit blogfree recently both in reading everyone elses and in posting my own – this is a very busy time of year. However I have missed it greatly. Just the process of writing is very clarifying to a muddled mind.

As usual it is the issue of TOO MANY THINGS TO DO that causes the major cockup. Today as a result of a frantic week, I blundered big time and completely forgot that my daughter’s friend was supposed to be coming over to ‘hang out’ (teenagers) this afternoon whilst her parents were at a wedding. In my franticity of trying to do 1001 things all at the same time in the 2minutes I had spare, I happily agreed to the arrangement (she’s a lovely girl) on the Monday, then promptly forgot all about it. Until tonight at 7.30 when her mother called to ask where she was. Oh dear.

Anyway, a happy end to the story was that her granny saved the day (hurrah for lovely grannies) but the moral of the story is……….

(please repeat my mantra – I am getting it tattooed on Monday)

LESS IS MORE (and write things down)(and remember to look at the list)

and this mostly applies to my work; how I make and how I describe it – enough said.

(with thanks to Emily Speed – for reminding me of this again – in pt. 2 of my LIFE CHANGING REview bursary)

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28 June 13

Delighted to report that this week I have embarked upon my REview bursary having the first meeting with the fabulous Freddie Robins.

One of the ‘challenges’ that I face with my work is that by it’s interactive nature, it is very hard to describe and acurately portray without experiencing it. I also have a LOT of it, spanning over a decade and it is LARGE. Additionally, most of which has been hiding in storage since creation.

Luckily Freddie had agreed to come to my studio to see it all.

It was only when I began to dig everything out and put it all together in one room that a lot of things made sense. And made sense in a way that you can’t really appreciate by looking at a website or a list of what you’ve done.

When talking about diverse bits of work from over such a long period of time it is very hard to know where to start. It was a very enlightening and revelationary day.

One of the reasons that I chose Freddie as an advisor was that I feel we have lots of similarities in approach – primarily, I love the humour within her work. Also, as an artist working in textiles in a sculptural way I knew that she would undestand what I was trying to do.

The main thing emerging from the day, in a nutshell is: LESS IS MORE.

I have been trying to conquer the world using too many methods, weapons and tactics. I’ve ended up tired and confused by it all. And have ended up stuck in a country I really didn’t intend to defeat at all. And as ever, I am speaking the WRONG language.

I have been frantically digging (unpaid of course) myself into a big hole of my own Sisyphusian making. I need to stop and look at the mound of earth around me.

Quite why I was doing this I will have to ponder in depth but without doing so I will get nowhere.

This revelation feels strangely and amazingly liberating.

With the risk of repeating myself when I first started blogging on this site – I need to formulate a PLAN; and this time it is going to be one I want to do.

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