Art on the Street

This is always super- busy season for me, with exam marking being squeezed into ever shorter time periods. But it has been extra busy this year. Interviews, which I mentioned before, all requiring prep. But also all successful (I will be starting my doctorate in October!), and also getting ready for Art on the Street, Maidenhead. Which I also managed to do quite successfully. 

It was a lovely sunny day, lots of people and Lots of positive feedback on my work, which was much appreciated! 

Now, back to the marking! 

Even busy busy busier than before!

My academic Pookery is in a state of chaos. And I don't mean the kind of chaos that signals productivity. This is the no time to finish one thing before going on to the next kind of chaos. I am trying to cram work I would have liked a week for into one day, while at the same time fulfilling some professional obligations to other people in a totally different area of work so that they can get on with what they have to do. 

Don't get me wrong, it is good to be busy. But why does everything have to happen at exactly the same time?!?!!!?

Still I thought I would take the time to dash this off since I missed last week. I didn't forget. Or rather I didn't forget the blog. I did forget that I would be in a house with absolutely no way to connect to the Internet. 

Right, must crack on! 

Splattering!

Both my interviews went as well as they possibly could. Hurrah! 

Of course one of them results in some rather urgent work to be done at my busiest time of year - exam season is almost upon us! The other was only one stage in a process that should see me being interviewed again (fingers crossed, touching wood) in a couple of weeks after which I will know whether I have achieved what I set out to achieve. At which point I shall tell you all about it. 

On the creative front I have just acquired two new brushes, specially shaped for creating splatter effects. I've been having great, if messy, fun with these. I bought them because I kept snapping paintbrushes by making them flick the way I wanted them too. I will probably still do that though, because its a different effect again. But hopefully less often. 

I wouldn't have thought I would enjoy splattering paint so much actually, but its very freeing. A real chance to play. When this one is dry I shall add some very straight and structured collage to it, as a contrast. 

Busy busy

I have two interviews week. I don't want to say too much more, don't want to jinx things! Neither of them are for arty-creative things though. They are on the academic side of my interests. They have have had a knock on effect on the art though as I have had lots of prep to do - two quite substantial tasks for one of them and some back-up reading for both.

It's not that I resent the time, it is my chosen subject after all and things I want to do. But I have yet to master that 'grass is greener' kind of feeling, which says that I would rather be painting when I don't have the time and also (of course) that I would rather be studying/writing when the painting is being stubborn. In fact the time I have the least resistance to overcome in either case is when I'm in bed, thinking about what I'm doing tomorrow! Then feels like I can go straight to the desk, or the studio and get right into things without hesitation. But when I'm actually there I find I still need my little rituals to get me going.

Painting

Feeling a touch more positive about life today! Hoorah, I hear you cry.

A couple of pictures are starting to come together, which I was beginning to despair of! The first layer was good, and then everything I added seemed to make them worse and messier and more rubbish...always a problem when you like what's there but you know it's not finished I suppose!

The one with the pelican, 'Wheel of Fortune', which is now finished, wasn't working I think because I had too strong an idea of how I wanted it to come out. Once I let go of that, which I'm afraid happened in a burst of 'oh f**k it!' Frustration rather than a zen-like embracing of the process, it came together really quickly. Although it doesn't look anything like I wanted it too it does say what I wanted it to say, which no doubt says something more profound than my words can manage about the importance of letting go and letting your intuition move the brush.

The other, working title 'Antibodies', was just being a but stubborn. Didn't have any idea what it was going to look like. Still not sure what the finished piece will look like, but I feel that it is moving forward now, at last. Which is all I wanted it to do.

Thinking of possible futures

Where my head is at the moment is the trivial question of what to do with the rest of my life!

When I was 13 I had no idea. I’m not sure that many people do, really. Not least because ‘the rest of your life’ is a long, long time and it’s impossible to imagine how you will change and grow, even over the next few years before you leave school.  But it matters, you’re meant to know, because you have to start making the choices that will take you there. I had to choose my GCSE options, then less than two years later A level subjects, then a degree course…and then you are supposed to be there, wherever it is you are going. You get this job and then that one, climbing ladders, building experiences, but essentially doing that thing which you chose way back when, in one form or another, until you retire.  

And now, at the grand old age of 36, I wish to do something totally different.

I know, I know, people do change course – I too have read all the stuff about people having multiple careers these days.  It’s not easy though, because a job is based on your previous experience, which you got through your educational choices…you can explain stuff at an interview of course, but what if your choices just get your form thrown out at first glance? All my qualifications and experience steer me towards education, within a specific subject-specialism, so even if I see a fabulous job I know I can do if it doesn’t line up with those areas I am likely to fall at the first hurdle.  As for self-employed... well we all know that’s hard, and emotionally stressful as well, even within the areas where you are already expert.

I want to be creative, and I didn’t qualify to do anything  in that line. In fact the idea that someone with an exam-ready brain might be interested in a creative path, or in ‘the arts’ never crossed the minds of the people who gave me my ‘careers education’. If it crossed my parents’ minds then they hid it well. I was good at school work ergo I would go to university and do something academic, something ‘appropriate’. For one parent creativity was all ‘that’s lovely, but is anyone going to pay you for it?’; for the other it was focussed on the idea that if you were good enough at something you would produce works of genius regardless, and the world would discover you whatever you did about it, while if you weren’t good enough no-one could teach you it.  At any event it all adds up to me not even knowing that some choices existed - wonderful, fascinating , fulfilling jobs that I did not know existed.  In my university prospectuses I didn’t even look at the degree courses that had anything to do with creativity - they were not for me, I would just do wonderful things if it was in me to do them. 

I did not do wonderful things. I studied law, found my academic passion (religion) by accident, became a teacher  of Religious Studies, and taught well for over a decade. I love my subject still, I want to learn more about it, I don’t want to lose touch with it. But I don’t want to be a teacher anymore.  I have realised that the world will not implode if I let my creativity fly, and having wasted years getting to this point I want to do that. I want to let it fly. So, I think to myself if only I could find a way to make my living creatively…which brings me back to my first point – I didn’t qualify for that. I don’t know much about it.  I can make stuff, and I can sell it online – to a point anyway, but I don’t make a living. Do I want to work purely for myself? Maybe, maybe not. Possibly that requires a degree of confidence in myself and fortitude in the face of adversity that I simply do not have!

Either way, whether I want my own business or to work for someone else I need knowledge I haven’t got. I read books of course, but you need to know what you don’t know to find the right books! Also there is no substitute for personal feedback on things, from people who know their stuff.

I keep thinking about this – what do I want to do, and how do I go about doing it? There are practical things I don’t know, as well as conventions and expectations; I have no relevant experience to offer; no portfolio in the sense of something which fits the expectations of the people to whom I’m giving it; no real knowledge even of what jobs exist ‘out there’ or of where to look to find them. And when I do spot something and think not only ‘I could do that’, but also ‘I would enjoy that’, the information about it says, without exception, that I must have this or that qualification - even stuff which fits on my ‘education’ hook wants me to have an arts qualification.

So I suppose I could do the qualification thing - I have two undergraduate degrees already,  and a Masters,  so you might say why not add to the collection. But to do what?  I don’t know, beyond a desire to create beautiful things. Do I consider courses in terms of possible jobs as I did all those years ago, or do I finally think about my interests and enthusiasms? If a course, what sort of course – undergrad, diploma, non-accredited? How do I pay for it while still having the energy to do the work? (some teachers manage to teach and study I know, but I don’t think that works for me as I would do neither thing to the full). What if I choose the wrong thing? And, of course, because I am me, the nagging fear - what if I commit to some course or other, love it and find that I am talentless. Or even worse, just talented enough to know that I will never be able to do what I want to, to create what I see in my head.

Alternatively I could throw myself further into academic work, which I enjoy. Pursue PhD options, carry on creating as a hobby and hope that satisfies. What if this, what if that? Round and round in circles I go, getting nowhere fast...

Ennui

Spent much of this afternoon lying on my bed. This is not because I had nothing to do, as I have something of a list. But I was feeling a touch poorly, and not a little miserable.

Both these things are still true. But I must say it is surprisingly comforting to lie down in semi-darkness and not sleep exactly but drift in a sort of dozy haze. Perhaps I spend too much time doing, and not enough time simply being.