01 May Eternal Catch Up of The Bloggers Mind…

For the past couple of months, part of my long daily list of things I’m meant to do has consistently included ‘BLOG’ along with ‘Sort Photos’. I’m usually good at being on top of sorting my photos and observations but this year has felt really chaotic and as if I’m only doing things  when I absolutely have to. It’s not a feeling I enjoy; it’s a feeling which actually makes me  full of rage and self loathing. I can very happily start a Live Instagram story and talk about things; creativity, ideas, procrastinations, annoyances etc, etc, because I genuinely love connecting to you all; it’s like going for a coffee or hanging out at the pub and having a chat about stuff. But actually getting down to work, doing what I’m meant to be doing and earning a living has felt like something I’m completely rebelling against. I had to look back over some of my old photos the other day and longed for the freedom and flair I had felt 2 years ago…I’ve been really trying to look at why I’m being like this at the moment and also trying to accept that it’s actually part of my whole creative process. I can feel that there will be some sort of shift, probably into new areas, and that I just have to ride out this period of time where my creative output feels rootless.

I haven’t stopped working and I’m not in any way ‘blocked’, it’s almost the opposite problem, but having ideas and working out how to implement them; writing the emails and creating the proposals etc, is a complete nightmare. I just want to be gardening! I’ve also realised in this period of time, ( and this feels quite a big thought ) that I’m not, and actually don’t want to be a ‘business woman‘. As a self employed person of over 20 years I’ve always had to run my own ‘business’, chasing the dream that one day I’ll be earning a fortune. For the past couple of years my business was better than it ever was ( although nowhere near the £150 – £200k sums you hear about ), BUT I was under no illusion that it would last. Part of my problem is that whenever my work and I have been accepted, I feel the need to move on; create different work, explore new aesthetics, new ideas and generally just keep moving forward. I’m doing this at the moment but I’m doing it in the knowledge that I’m creeping further and further away from any sensible business models.

I go into Instagram and an amazing digital entrepreneur pops up telling me how I can turn my financial life around as long as I don’t talk about the negatives, if I learn their secret business strategies or even just ‘niche down‘…NONE of these things I want to do! I’m left feeling like a failure and it’s in these moments that my digital demon appears:” Having over 400K followers means f*** all  if you don’t get your act together and monetise it” , “No wonder your income has gone down and your business feels all over the place…that’s because you actually told people you were all over the place! ”  , ” How can you have no idea where you want to be in the next 18 months?!!!” ,  “And why aren’t you talking more about your book?! You have literally thousands of copies to sell before you receive any royalties at all!!”

Any sort of blogging has felt completely out of the question recently and Instagram Stories has felt more like my place, especially as they disappear after 24 hours…I love curating visual stories ( I use the Unfold app and Videoleap mostly ) but when I’ve uploaded it I feel completely done…the idea of repeating it all in some other form for the blog or on Steller or Facebook drives me insane! However, sharing things all over the place does mean that I can reach more people, and that IS the bit I love. Obviously it’s great when a brand finds you and wants you to create content for them; it’s a commission and I enjoy it, but pleasing brands is NOT the reason I create and share images and I’ve grown to resent the knowledge that a certain aesthetic or composition will be more appealing to them. Also I just can’t do that clever photoshop stuff, and part of that makes me feel old fashioned…even a bit too old for the Insta environment.

I’m a 40 something experiencing all the weirdness of growing out of the really full-on ‘being a parent‘ times…and maybe there’s the clue, maybe that’s where my personal shift lies. I was in that parent gang for so long, that gang which shared each newly discovered nightmare and hilarity of having a young child. Sharing the day in the forest when I accidentally poked my son in the eye with a stick whilst telling him off,  the day I didn’t notice that he’d cracked his head open on a wheelie bin, the sad day we lost Cheeko which then became the happiest day when we found him again, and the day he made an amazing film and I felt SO proud. I was a single parent striving to get somewhere other than being just a parent, and now that my son is 18 and about to leave home…I am all over the place. Who I am feels wildly in the air. Who I am is being wafted around the skies like a helium balloon without its helium, like an empty crisp packet on a windy day, like the scuttle of ordinary, overlooked leaves…and I can’t even begin to imagine who I will be when he decamps to Manchester in September…

At this point my digital demon is now itching to get a word in: ” Why the hell have you told them all that? Are you actively trying to secure your failure?!!” “You’re meant to embody positivity, creativity and inspiration…it’s your BRAND!”

Well Digital Demon, I suppose I can’t help myself…I need to feel the sadness, the strangeness, the rage and insecurity as well as all the amazing joys and excitement that being a creative brings. And if that means I can’t be a business woman to boot…so be it. 

…I’ve now become aware, and a bit self conscious, that I don’t usually write this much. I obviously spent months writing my book, but I was completely out of my comfort zone during that time. I think I acted ‘being an author‘ in my head on most days. I like my pictures to talk and I don’t really like the act of putting words down; it gets on my nerves, and I often find that I write just to get it out of the way… so I can get on with the pictures. ( Even now I am absolutely dreading having to go back to the top of this outpouring and edit it ). I’m also aware that in terms of  length I should probably now be arriving at some sort of ‘point‘…

Well, I’m not massively sure what the point is apart from it serving as an explanation of my floundering without cohesion at the moment. Right now I’m sitting at my desk in the shed surrounded by reminders of what I should be doing; my calendar is still staring April at me, a couple of books people have sent me are piled up, random notes for my online course students are pinned to a shelf, a memory stick with millions of photos I want to write blog posts about is teasing me from my pencil case along with a fat pin cushion giving me a very knowing prickly look. But probably the most telling of all is a Post-It note right next to me with a short list of ‘things I want‘ written in Sharpie. It says: Blue Yeti Mic, Yellow Roller Skates , Wormery …I want the roller skates more than the wormery, but I want the wormery more than the mic, but it’s the mic which would be for work. I really, really want the yellow roller skates…

I started writing this post because I was waiting for my images to upload and I thought I’d just get on with the intro…it’s turned into something else completely, but I hope it at least breaks the deadlock which I’ve created for myself around my blog…fingers crossed more posts will follow, although this may just be a sudden rebellious outburst in the direction of my digital demon!

Anyway, I can’t finish without pictures so here are some taken over the last few months…

P.S The blog posts I am mainly wanting to put together ( and I’m writing this down so it makes them feel more like solid ideas ) are: My Trip to the Scilly Isles, Daffodils in Cornwall, Bluebells in East Sussex, Stanley Kubrick Exhibition, My Personal Plastic Journey, Shadows, Synesthesia, Artists Open Houses, My New Textiles, Patreon, and My New Paintings For Sale. In an ideal world I would be finished in an hour…in an ideal world I would have a wormery and yellow roller skates.