Make and do

pretty much all the time. I have turned from a somewhat lazy student to a person who lives and breathes creativity, I get frustrated when I am not making something or other with my hands and now I want to focus on more specific goals to make my creativity the best it can be.

The making and doing is definitely paying off. Since I have been away I have had 2 orders, which I sent out the day after I got back, another one waiting to be made, and an order of 7 book sculptures for a small gallery somewhere over the pond which is about to go out next week. My next plan is to spend the weekend making some new items to go into the shop. I’m even going to be ambitious and try out my first photo album.

my life. Which starts with restructuring my goals. Having completed a business mentorship programme, I came away filled with enthusiasm and brimming with excitement and ideas about how to become a freelance artist.

I really need a smaller goal list, filled with either very short specific goals that can be achieved in short spaces of time, or longer goals that I can add to and re-evaluate as I go along, the main thing though, is to declutter my list, so that is why I have given up on loads of my goals.

The main thing I want to re-evaluate though, is my current living situation. I love living on my own, having my own space and doing what I want to do, but the simple fact is, I can’t afford it, and If I want to become freelance, I need the money to do so, this means getting a flatmate so that within 1 year I can go from working full time to working part time and spending at least 1 day a week working on freelance projects or running workshops, this I will then build up to 2 days then 3 days until eventually I am solely working creatively for myself.

So the hunt begins. Already I have a friend who has expressed an interest in moving in, though she has yet to see the place, so we’ll see how it goes.

today to see what it would be like to be one. We didn’t talk about art therapy just art and got excited about book sculptures and paper and words, it was weird how alike we were. She doesn’t know it yet but she’s going to be my new gallery buddy.

for the art cafe at uni. Everyone liked it, so now I guess I’ll be making this every week. I’m also making fabric brooches for my mail art buddy, I need buttons though. Oh and I bought a really snazzy digital SLR camera, I’m so in love with it. I’m going to go and photograph the trees at the bottom of my street later.

I’ve been having loadsa fun with books this week, which did, I have to say involve quite a bit of book vandalism. Please look away now if you’re a book restorer cos frankly you’re gonna hate me. I however think it’s really pretty.

at the library this week and took my friend who was umming and ahhing about taking on the course too, until she had the moment, which was to restore a book her granfather had written waay back in the nineteenth century. It was great to see her get all excited by the books. Me? I’ve nearly finished my two notebooks, I just have to put the gold lettering on the front and put the pieces together. It’s so exciting, I think they’ll be finished by the end of my next class.

a friend about selling handmade goodies to earn some dosh and keep my creative skills updated, and guess what? That’s exactly what she wants to do too.
She’s done a bit of research into the market and where we can do a trial run, so we’ve agreed to set up a stall at a local market in the summer, and sell our wares. The things we make are really different from eachother and covers a broad range of things, from books to dolls to patterns to embroidered cuffs and wooden puzzles, hopefully we’ll attract folk from all different tastes. She also knows a lady who runs a craft gallery, and has some of her things in there already so we might see if we can get some things in there too, depending on how we do at the market.

I’m quite frustrated that I have so much to do at university, I’m just dying to go fabric shopping and indulge, but I don’t want to rush into it, so i’m trying to harness my enthusiasm, but it’s really hard. The good news is that I’ve ordered some greyboard so I should be able to start making some books soon, I’m making books for my course, but I might make some for my soon to be open online shop too.

I’ve also bought some books on pop ups and ‘paper engineering’ which I’m still convinced is just a fancy word for folding paper, but the blurbs I’ve read say otherwise, I’m quite excited by these nonetheless, that there is a job out there for a Paper Engineer, I think it’s just brilliant. I’d like to be one of those, to make pop ups for a living would be just incredible. My boy, however who is a real life structural technician will think I’m being pretentious, and a mere paper folder… I’ll make him introduce me as an engineer at parties though. I can imagine the conversation.

“so what do you do?”
Oh she’s an (holding his fingers like inverted commas with a smirk) engineer”

“Oh really? What in?”

“errr paper”

“nice.”

Long silence.

I attempted my ink and stick drawings and they were rubbish, so I waited patiently for the ink to dry and had some more lentils which btw are slowly driving me crazy.

Later I tried to draw a bicycle and my best friend Natalie from when I was 8, they were rubbish although Natalie had potential but then she was a swot at school. I abandoned drawings and decided to watch the Godfather for some Al Pacino inspiration but couldn’t work the playsation that only boys know how to use, then it got a bit better when I decided to do some embroidery, I was all in a rage but immediately calmed down after some sewing, to me sewing is the equivalent of having a nice bath or a joint or both. Then for some off reason I thought I would pierce shapes into my clean new drawing book, these have worked very well. I’m going to do some patterns next and some words, I have dreams of an entire room wallpapered with prickled patterns, that’s what sort of day I’m having. Then I thought about making books bound with ribbon, this made me very happy indeed.

D has just walked in and fixed the playstation and solved the puzzle of the pulled out aerial, I am happy.

to my new blog
www.thingstomakethingstodo.blogspot.com

I’m putting all my skills to good use, and soon enough I will hopefully have some things to sell. I’m planning to make embroidered cuffs, cushions, homewares and handmade books. It’s still early days, but I plan to update any developments on here, so check me out.

I’ve joined the childrens warehouse which is a community warehouse of fabrics and paper, and once I’ve finished my degree I’ll be joining Northern Print so I can carry on screenprinting. I’m pretty sure this is what I want to concentrate on for the time being along with a return to writing… that novel will not write itself after all.

go me