paperfaerie

Here I am again, stuck in the hell that is admin when I’d rather be making art and being creative. This time I have to do something about it. I’m so focused on money all the time, I think that paying all the bills and eating well and buying pretty dresses is necessary. Well it’s not, what’s suffering here is my quality of life. I go to work and spend all day doing a job I dislike, a job that does nothing for my prospects, future, creativity, a job that pays me enough to live on, then when I leave my life really begins, that’s the time where I make work and put plans in place for my creative future, but I’ve come to realise it just isn’t enough. If this is really what I want to do (and I’m 100% certain it is) then I need to start acting that way, making sacrafices for this, which includes putting the dresses on hold, eating cheaply, throwing that darn chinese menu away! But most of all if I am serious about this, I need to set myself deadlines and stick to them. I am not an administrator, I never was, therefore It shouldn’t be a job that I do.

Obviously I’m not an idiot, I know I can’t just walk out. Oh gosh how amazing would it be to just walk out! I’m moving to a new house in September, a beautiful handsome new house that is red on the outside by the way. It’s a new beginning so with a new house and new flatmates and a new neighbourhood, must come a change in my work circumstances too. I need to find a job that is (a) in the arts or related to the arts (b) part time© Money will be tight but the way I see it, there is no other option for me. I will survive because I have to survive, ten years ago I lived off £300 a month. Just last year when I was studying I was living off £500 a month. In Glasgow I lived off only my student loan and a few cash in hand jobs. I lived off nothing but lentils and rice. If I can do it then, I can do it now.

My goal is to leave my admin job by 30th September. I have things in place that will subsidise some of that income at least and it means I can spend time on making art. I’ve recently discovered the joys of screen printing again so the possibilities for that are endless. I also have two exhibitions coming up later this year, one of them is a selling exhibition, get in!

I even might just bite the bullet and do a post 16 teaching certificate, which would be far better than the job I do now.

When I was eight years old My dad told me that my half sisters had lived in the same house for more than twenty years, I just couldn’t believe it, we had always moved around and we had learned to adapt to change quite quickly, I just couldn’t fathom staying in one place for so long it felt so unnatural, so when he told me that growing up in the same home was usual for most people I was really surprised, moving house for me was one of the most usual things I could think of, we had always done it. So now I’m moving to my 36th house in 29 years, the last time I moved was 3 years ago but in that time I haven’t done any decorating or even putting many pictures up, I always used to have at the back of my mind that I would move eventually. I tend to find staying in one place unsettling, for me it encourages ‘making do’ or ‘not taking risks’. Staying in one place means that there is less opportunity to try new things, you accumulate junk that weighs you down. Sometimes I have moved because it felt like the thing to do, there was no reason to move, I just went with what felt natural.

I’m making a piece of work based on all the places I have ever lived, so here is a list of them from memory:

Grantham
Belvoir Cottages, Belvoir
Brixham Walk, Corby
Oakley drive, Cramlington
Pusan, Korea
Jin-hae, Korea
Jinhae Town centre, Korea
Seoul, Korea
Oakley Drive, Cramlington (2nd time)
Brixham Walk, Corby (2nd time)
Chalet x2, Ilfracombe
Chalet x4, Hemsby
Somerset House, Hensby
Caravan, Great Yarmouth
Scott Street, Langwith
Dudley Road, Grantham
Ford Escort, Roads
Lamb House, Cramlington
Dudley, Northumberland
Beacon Hill, Cramlington
Loftus House, Benwell
Elswick Road, Elswick
Wellesley Terrace, Fenham
Vallum Court, Fenham
Elswick Road, Elswick (2nd time)
Sidney Grove, Fenham
Wellesley Terrace, Fenham (2nd time)
Elswick Road (3rd time)
Egham Road, Chapel House
Woodlands Road, Glasgow
Nairn Street, Glasgow
Woodbine Street, Gateshead
Bentinck Road, Fenham
Phillip Street, Fenham
Jubilee Road, Gosforth
Fouracres Road, Cowgate
Wingrove Avenue, Fenham
Severus Road, Fenham
Otago Street, Glasgow
Normount Road, Fenham
Trewhitt Road, Heaton
Wingrove Avenue, Fenham

Oh right I’ve just counted them and it amounts to 40 homes (not including the car) and not 36, gosh that’s a lot isn’t it?

I’m planning on taking the big leap and build me a big ole website. I’ve never been that bothered before, I have myspaces, etsy and a blog to take care of my internet prescence but it makes sense to make all these things role into one. I’ve seperated things like my writing from my art because they were different things, but essentially they all have one thing in common and that’s me so I think I should put them in the same space. With the website I can separate the things while they live under the same umberella. Ironically I missed a crucial website course I had signed up for months ago, but with time, diligence and patience I’m sure I can make something that works.

There’s been a lot of attention on the wordpress site I’ve noticed that many of my artist friends are using, the templates are more versatille and website like as opposed to blog like than Blogger is and it’s quite easy to set up a domain name where you can lose the wordpress bit, so I’m going to start researching that.

The other reason I want to make a website (possibly the main reason) is because I can’t see a clear line of thought or process with all the different strands I have going on. The website will allow me to upload images of the things I have achieved and see where there are gaps to grow. My shop for instance is going well but could do with more variety, the installation side doesn’t have any new projects in and I’m unsure of where/when and who my next exhibition is with. I can list things like my skill set and advertise myself for workshops and education and also list future events and shows that I’m running with the gallery I’m part of. All in all having a website is the way to go and I don’t know why I didn’t do this in the first place.