The time is now

I try to avoid being too arty farty or making precious statements about being an artist.  I hate the phrase 'in the zone'; it sounds pretentious and I think can be easily misused.  "The time is now", however, goes some way to pinpoint that same area of an artist's experience.

Creative work has a place in time not only when it is finished, but in the making.  If it isn't the right time, the work won't happen.

Plenty of obvious things affect whether it's the right time.  You have to be in the right place mentally.  For some, stress is a boost to their creativity and they can channel anger into their best work.  For others, the mind needs to be completely clear of other distractions.  I'm probably somewhere in between but definitely towards the calm and stress-free end.  You also need to have the right physical conditions.  I don't function well if I'm not really warm, nor can I do close-up work or choose colours without at least a little daylight of the real kind rather than a daylight bulb. 

There is a more important side to 'the time is now', though, which is what I'm conscious of at the moment: every piece of work has its own right time to be made.  There are external factors; the zeitgeist must surely inform our work at least unconsciously if not consciously and for those of us who make our living from our art, market forces have to be a consideration. But these are minor considerations.  The most important thing is about sitting here making this exact piece of work at this exact moment in time because it's the right time to be doing it.

You have an idea.  You have the necessary the resources.  You put them together...  and create ... often without having to think anything through because everything just falls into place.  At the end,  something arrives which has worked and which may even be good.  It wouldn't have been last year, or ten years ago or possibly not a year or two in the future. 

So, many years after having the original idea, I have made some work using photographs, printing on silk and paper, and stitching.

The time was right.  The time is now.

The clues are there

I know I'm lucky to have a large workspace but there are times when I really need it.  There is another table behind the ironing board with spray mount, waterproofing spray, random paper and fabric and you can see in this photo and the one below that there are many different types of things out on the two big tables and the ironing board.  All of them are being used in developing my newest work. 

The work is progressing much slower than I'd like because of the weather.  By about 3 in the afternoon there just isn't enough natural light to work effectively and I keep making mistakes in measuring and cutting.  I'm learning to walk away but it's frustrating and up till now I have wasted more time than I have used profitably because it has happened that my mornings have been taken up with other things. 

Eventually I will have enough to show you, although I am already anticipating that this work is going to be very difficult to show in a photograph.  Till then, as I say, the clues are there.

"How are you doing?" "What are you doing?"

These seem to be the questions everyone is thinking when they talk to me, though they're rarely the questions they ask me.  Yesterday I had tea with L and she asked directly how I was coping with missing Mike.  I like those sorts of questions and am good at answering them.  Most people don't like to be so direct, though. The question I am being asked most often at the moment is how I'm getting on with building up my stocks of pottery.  This is a question I am not so good at answering because the real answer is "I wouldn't start from here."

I'm not doing any pottery at the moment and although one reason is definitely my current cartilage injury, I'd guess I wouldn't be doing any pottery even if I didn't have an injury to take care of.  There are so many reasons for this that I hardly know where to start.  And, most unusually for me, I'm not finding what it takes to get round the difficulties and communicate to people what they really want to know.

Bereavement has very subtle effects and I'm not sure how well this is known.  It can affect your memory, your concentration, your attention span, your temper, your energy and just how much you have to give to anything.  Don't think these are all negative values, either; you can end up with more patience than usual, or concentrating on a boring task very well.  You can take to one task but not another.  Bereavement is not a constant state.  It is currently affecting how well (or badly) I explain things on the hoof, though I can probably make a better fist of it here.

Bereavement, too, is a sudden one-off event after which everything is different exactly because it is now "after".  This means that you should not expect a person to be 'getting back to normal' because nobody will be getting back anywhere.  Rather, you might wonder if they are establishing what normal now is.  I am on that road but like many important roads in life, the journey is probably more significant than the destination.

So where should the solicitous enquirer start, if not from here?  I suggest you start with "what are you doing at the moment?"  This is a question I can always answer and it will probably tell you how I am doing at the same time.

One week can be different from another but at the same time I am aware of engaging in a continuing process of finding the new normal.  Last week, for instance, I was mostly busy doing executor things (for the friend who died last March) while at the same time trying to make some new earrings.  This week I have been making some new earrings, planning some new textiles work, working on the makers' pages of Arcade Artisans (as part of my contribution to working in/for the shop which we all undertake), photographing my new earrings and processing the images so I have good images for later publicity, updating parts of my website and working on the website and newsletter for Crafts In Gloucestershire, which I run.  These are all part of my work as an artist.  I've also been to Ikea and been out to tea. 


In amongst all these things that are part of what will be normal from now on there is also stuff which is finite.  Stuff which I am doing little by little but eventually one day will be done, the things that are there to be done when someone has died.  To begin with this is mostly admin but now the tasks are more practical.  Belongings to go through, give to others, keep, re-home, sell, throw out.  Mike was not a tidy person.  So every fortnight I fill two boxes with paper for recycling.  (I estimate this will be ongoing for some months, such are the many, many boxes of paper stacked in various parts of the house.)  From time to time I sort out a section of his wardrobe.  And I do some of the tasks that were part of his 'domain', even though he didn't do them often, such as tidying up outside.

Today I transferred five or six bucketfuls of dead leaves, soil, detritus from firewood collections, etc to the compost bin and half filled a bin bag with rubbish from the same part of the yard.  It's not exciting, but it's enjoyable and I'm pleased with the result.  And it's part of the answer to "what are you doing?" and should also help you with "how are you doing?"  If you do, thank you for wanting to know.

 

Promising

Yesterday I found one of the coloured hellebores fully open.  The white ones, usually earliest, haven't opened their buds yet.  I love the hellebore season as they are the first things of the year to flourish in my garden and even in wind, rain (today) and snow they are a promise of seasons to come.

Writing

From time to time I write.  Here are two very recent poems:

“I wasn’t sure if you would want this”

tentative gift of a book

of poems ‘of grief and healing’.

“I seem to remember you like poetry.”

I do, and I like poems about hard things

so eventually I read the book

and start to write my own poems again.

‘Not how are you but who are you?’

you asked, that first pub Sunday

after my husband,

and with this prescient question

a lifelong friendship was born.

I wrote, oh how I wrote,

a poem, triumphant,

heralding the future.

declaring myself.

Now after another husband,

and you, and she, all gone

we two remaining friends

see to your estate and sell your flat.

Inside the empty room for the last time

the tears flow and we hug,

two widows, I suppose, and yet

that isn’t who we are.

She and I must answer

‘Who are you?’ afresh,

no you, or her or him

to bounce ideas and love.

Floundering about in a pond

grown too big with too few

friendly fish

it’s not so easy.

 

Self-indulgence

"Self-indulgent" is one of the most common criticisms I've read about blogs, both individual styles and the blog phenomenon itself and let's make no mistake that Self-indulgence in all contexts is generally perceived as a Bad Thing.  In less formal circles it's sometimes known as Splurging.  One rarely reads any praise of Splurging either. 

I've also noticed a recent trend in criticism of psychotherapy and counselling because they encourage people to be Self-centred.  Being self-centred can be lumped together with some other, possibly unspoken, epithets such as Self-pitying, Wallowing, Self-aggrandisement, Showing off etc, all of which, if they are levelled at you and your blog, you can safely take as criticism.  Apparently, it's not good to consider yourself very much at all.

This poses some difficulties for the blog writer since it's what many of us are doing much of the time and it's been exercising my mind particularly over the last week or so as I have been pondering whether or not to post a particular poem on my blog.  The pondering has led me to think about self-indulgence generally and to realise that we don't always consider it to be a bad thing.

Since the death of my husband people keep telling me to be kind to myself.  I'm not sure this differs much from indulging myself and therefore from Self-indulgence.  If it does, it's a fine line.  They're right about being kind to oneself, of course.  Guilt (which can be about anything at all) is one of the stages of grieving and it's a good idea to recognise that and not give oneself too hard a time if possible.  Bereavement takes its toll physically, too, and recovery will be speedier if one is gentle on oneself with rest and good food.  (This last is tricky if, like me, you need to avoid Over-indulgence in order not to put on weight.  But it can be done, with balance.)

An argument explaining the benefits of therapy or counselling and the need for considering oneself is for another time, but you can safely take it that I am in favour of them.  Briefly, though, it does seem to be somewhat accepted that you can't love others properly unless or until you can love yourself.  Understanding yourself puts you in a good position of being open, honest and available to another person, all bases for a good relationship.

So I'm hoping I may be building up some agreement that self-indulgence can often be a very good thing.  My final argument should be the clincher.  I am currently making more earrings, including some new designs.  One pair in particular is probably my favourite pair that I've ever made.  I've decided to keep them for myself.  I can make the same design again (though not yet as I haven't any more of one of the colours I've used) but every pair is different and this pair is mine.  I don't expect any argument with that.

I checked with H, and she said that in spite of the fact that I normally can't wear green against my skin, on this scale there was no problem, so it's a done deal.  I just love these earrings. 

And ....  just when I have (I hope) encouraged you all to agree that self-indulgence can be a wonderful thing, we come back to my original dilemma.  Should I post very personal, sometimes painful poetry on my blog?  Why would I want to?  The answer to the second question is that I don't see much difference between my creative writing and my other creative work.  I like to put my work where it is appreciated and I think some people might appreciate more personal writing.  The answer to the first question is ...  well, I don't know.  I think some people might not appreciate more personal writing.  Some people might not like reading painful things.  I don't want to upset anyone unduly.

The jury's still out.

Melting frost