I am an artist

As I'm still struggling with words, let's do this bullet blogging style. I don't know why the words haven't come back I feel fine in myself, it's simply that I can't write a coherent sentence on here at the moment. I've been deleting drafts all month. Pfft. Whatever. Here's my world in all it's glory.

• I am an artist. 
• It does not feel at all real. I announce: "I'm off to my studio" on Facebook and fall about laughing. Yet, here I am arting away. Artist are as artists do.
• The session with Nicola, my mentor focused my work for the month. I had suggestions of activities I could try, as well as artists to look at.
• Nicola has got me rethinking artists materials and surfaces. I've put away my usual drawing pens and am now using a dip pen and drawing ink. Given my cartridge pen was taken away from me at school because I covered everything except my paper with ink, it's been a challenge.
• One of the suggestions was covering a 10m roll of wall lining paper with my stick forms. I've only managed about a meter and let me tell you, ten meters is quite a lot. 
• It turns out I like using dip pens and ink to draw my shapes. It gives me The Happy.
• I'm beginning to let go the idea of me being a figurative/representational painter.
• In fact, I'm not even sure I can call myself a painter...or that I'd even want to.
• I'm still getting used to the idea that what I'm doing now isn't so much about learning to be a better painter (which I've been working hard to do), but rather my challenge is to explore the length and breath of my artistic practice. 
• My work with Nicola isn't only about how prepare for my application to an Master of Fine Arts programme, our time is also about how I build a solid artistic career.
• I've known for some time that retirement will be something that other people do at the end of their working lives. I won't retire because I intend to create art and (hopefully) to write until I stop making sense or I drop dead. Whichever comes sooner.
• The lack of retirement means I am thinking about creating an artistic life from the foundations upwards. To this end, I've overhauled my morning routine of coffee, social media and squabbling with strangers on the internet. Julia Cameron, author of the Artist's Way strongly recommends doing Morning Pages before anything creative. I've taken this on board and have already finished on Moleskin notebook.
• I'm also working on my meditation practice. My sanity is a precious and fragile thing and daily meditation is beginning to help me keep my thoughts under control. 
• Yoga and daily exercise is a goal I'm working hard for. My physical fragility is a constant source of frustration recently. I want to be out there running and lifting weights again. I miss feeling awesome. It also means I'll be physically more robust in my later years.
• It turns out there's ten years of dust and cobwebs gathered in my brain. My ability to think critically (which wasn't all that great to start with) needs a good dose of WD40 and a massive wrench to get it going again. Anyone got any jump cables?

• I'm working on several projects at once. This gives me The Happy. I like having several different schemes of work to dip in and out of. It means if I get stuck in one, I can hop over to another, giving my unconscious time to resolve the issue. It keeps me from getting blocked.
• As well as preparing for the show next autumn, I've been invited to submit work to an exhibition at the end of April (this April, like April 2017). It's called Sardines & Beer and is being held at Thirteen A in Norwich. I'll be putting in three pieces of work. One is actually Dave's, it'll have an NFS sticker on it. The other two I'm working on now and they will be for sale. I've only got about ten days to get them ready as they've got to be framed. No pressure. No pressure at all.
• The exhibition next month means I've got to get other things sorted like: business cards, website...you know all the marketing stuff I should be all over, but actually have been ignoring.
• I am an artist.
• I've got to think about myself in the world in those terms and that's a bit scary. People believed me when I said I could do this and now I've got to get the mass of ideas from my head onto paper and canvas. Easy peasy.

• The chickens are still in lock-up. Unfortunately, with the warmer weather, they've discovered how to dig. Dave and I moved them to give that patch of grass a break, he glanced out of the window and called me over. On a totally fresh bit of grass, within an hour Scrabble had dug herself a lovely hole up to her chest.
• Bantams are brilliant for getting moss out of grass. If only they would stop there.
• Apparently, I'm feeding the pheasants too much. Dave says their obese. Nonsense. I say they're just puffed up!
• Jenga was kicking up a fuss, when I went to see, the massive cock pheasant was strutting around like he owned the place. I did try to get a picture, but he became suddenly camera shy. 

• It's definitely Spring around here, though I am deeply resentful of the hour lost to British Summer Time. I don't care what the clock says, it still feels like 5am when my alarm bloody goes off.

Well, that's enough for the moment. In my typical fashion, once I got going I was fine. Ah well. Let's try this again next week, shall we?

Soap Box

I am without an employer. For me this is an opportunity to build the life I want. I am lucky enough to have a couple of opportunities for World Domination which I am pursuing like a greyhound goes after a mechanical rabbit. But for me personally, it means more than that. There are two areas in my life which have sadly whithered over the last couple of years and I need to get my gardening gloves out to nurture them back to full health.

The first is my education. I am one of the biggest supporters of Adult Education ever. Simply because the best things in my life have come about from my love of learning. I don't have a first-class brain, I will be honest with you there. Having studied and befriended people who are scarily intelligent, who process information and ideas as easily as they chew a museli bar, I know I'm not the best thinker ever. However, what I do have is an enquiring mind. I'm interested in everything and I believe in my ability to learn. This is why I'm able to go from cosmetics to ground source heat pumps in a single bound.

I had a conversation with my ex-H today about the difference between training and an education. I was ranting before I realised how strongly I feel about it, and how our school system is letting everyone down. Our schools and universities are focussing more and more on job preparation and less and less about education. Courses are being created around work-experience and job related experience. Now I don't have a problem with that per se, however, one of the things that struck me in the art college was the students attitude 'why do I have to do this course?' when confronted with the opportunity to learn something completely unrelated to their degree. Because it's interesting, because it will challenge you, because you will have the opportunity to learn something that you wouldn't normally think about in your daily life now and in the future.

Training. The learning associated with a profession or a job. GPs are trained, not educated. Their time at university is focussed soley on their profession. Which is why they have no idea about the wider world. They do their GCSEs, A levels and go straight into university. Do they have any understanding about socio-political issues that surround their patients? These will be informed by the choice of newspaper they decide to read, if they do at all. Is it any surprise they have no social skills?

Education. Learning something because it's interesting, might be useful, has no relevance to the student. Thirty years ago, Latin was drummed into grammar school students. Boring as fuck I'm sure. But I tell you what, I wish I had that opportunity. Someone who has been taught Latin has the immediate advantage over me, because they have grammatical building blocks which allow them to deconstruct and understand other foreign languages. Which is essentially why, people who speak 2 languages are able to pick up others really quickly. Me? I like communicating, I have no grasp of grammar, so for me, I make do with a reasonable vocabulary and depend on my body language to fill in the gaps.

The next few years I want to hone my analytical thinking. I want to explore theories and ideas which have no relevance to my employment, but which relate to me as an individual. I want to do an MPhil. The next few months will be about me kicking my brain into gear again. I did an exercise over the summer and even though I didn't get it, the process of doing it brought everything into sharp relief. There's no two ways about it learning is a really, really good thing for me.

A few weeks ago, I sat next to my book shelf and picked up the poetry I submitted for my degree. I was struck with a sense of disconnection. Did I really write this? Can I really do that? Write? I am so far adrift from my creative self now, I barely recognise it or believe it exists. And when I write this, believe me when I say I feel a real sense of panic. I feel as every day drifts past that I'm losing the most fundamental part of myself.

I'm breathing deeply through the terror, trying to calm myself down. I tell myself it's a muscle that hasn't been exercised. I haven't lost it. It's still there, waiting to flex. All there is to be done is to start off slowly again. There are writing exercises that I can do, I have a great camera to take out, there are buses to travel on.

Maybe that's the place to start again. Good grief, I think I'm about to go round again, not in a circle, but in a spiral. Will you keep me company? Please?

What Plan?

It's funny really. I know exactly what to do in a crisis, I can problem solve for other people in a heartbeat, I can get on the phone and give Richard Branson shit for not sorting out my wretched box, or blast a solicitor for giving me 24 hours notice to transfer money across into their holding account. I'm just not very sure what to do when things are turning out well.

Life is so much easier, if you've got a Plan that goes tits up, or even occaisionally a Plan that goes right (though I've not had much experience of that one). I'm now sitting here with a vague sense of unease that something is about to go completely pear-shaped and I should be addressing it immediately. But I just can't figure out why. Yes, I'm procrastinating shouting at the tax people and I still haven't looked for my metres or sorted out my TV License...but these are balls which I know are sitting at my feet.

I suspect I'm just not used to things working out well for me. My job is going well. I met a friend who I haven't seen in years and we were talking about work and study and my house move and she laughed and said 'ah you're a grown-up now'. And I realised she's right. These are grown-up decisions I've been making. I want a stable and comfortable home for Boy, the Cat and me. I want regular employment, I want a car that gets me from A to B in a reliable, but fun way. In the last 6 months I have come to value paying bills on time, buying food without thinking 'how much?'. There is much to be said for going shopping without the guilt for the Indulgencies. I am getting used to this.

Does this mean I'm becoming 'normal'? This is slightly worrying for me. I mean I'm paying a mortgage, living in a semi, driving a BMW, earning an honest living. Am I turning into someone I never wanted to be? Am I turning into a suburban, net-curtain twitching, repressed woman?

Dunno. Only time will tell. Perhaps this blog will soon be filled with the mis-adventures of shopping in John Lewis? I hope not.

Chillin'

I've treated myself to a couple of days chillin at the Viking's which is a bit naughty. But, I can't be sensible ALL of the time. He's off saving the World and I'm here with my feet up on his desk, a mug of coffee steaming away and feeling smugly domestic. I've just hung out the laundry. Every now and then I surprise us both, and do something useful around the house. It doesn't happen very often and probably won't be repeated for awhile, but hey, it was fun and made a change.

I live in a first floor flat, with no laundry line, so hanging laundry out in a proper garden is a bit of an adventure. Especially, since my hayfever is so bad I've been rubbing my streaming eyes constantly since I've come back in about 10 minutes ago. I'm looking out the window and thinking about a walk into town, wandering around VikingTown, trying not to break my already fragile bank account. Or I can stay in and work on my project a bit more. Or I can daydream on-line.

There are times this year when I've found my life to be quite frustrating. My circumstances haven't changed considerably since then. I'm still skint, still trying to sell expensive creams, potions and lotions to bored women, but I feel more content recently. Even with the disappointment of the MA.

The Viking and I went on a North Norfolk Coast adventure on Sunday. Our car journey was graced with rain and hail, but we were determined to go. We parked up at Burnham Overy Staithe and walked to Gun Hill, a large dune to the east of the village, before the Holkham Estate starts. It's a lovely walk, on the bank that runs between the low, water meadows and the Staithe harbour. There were a few other hardy souls braving the brisk wind and grey. To the west we could see rain tumbling out of the clouds to fall on land and sea, but we couldn't tell which way it was travelling. We risked it and I'm so glad we did. It kept on raining westwards leaving us dry, if slightly chilled. The tide came rushing past us, flooding the mud flats and still we sat chatting, sharing snacks and playing in the sand. We watched a party of 3 wrestle with a large, purple stunt kite. It took them about half an hour to get the thing in the air and then it danced overhead, dipping and swirling to its own music. It was getting late and we needed to pick Boy up from his dad's, but then two things happened. My Viking spotted a large, sandy dune and the clouds parted to let the sun through. I spent the next hour on top of the dune soaking in the sunshine while Viking jumped and ran, up and down the dune til he was knackered. When we finally left, the purple kite was still dancing.

I realised that I'm becoming easier with just letting life unfurl around me. If something is meant to be, it happens with a minimum of fuss or effort. This is the easy life and I don't miss the tension, the striving, the frustration or the constant, nagging disappointment. The MA will happen or it won't. I'll just wait and see. The time off has been good for me, I don't feel so bone weary all the time. I'm sure there are still way too many things I really should be getting on with, but who cares? Things get done in the end.

Two Things I Learnt Today

1. Eating cold, day old pizza is not as disgusting as it sounds.

2. I always seem to achieve more when I don't set out to do anything.