WEEK FOURTEEN (april 4-10)
About three weeks ago I purchased an App that I had investigated multiple times. I am often slow in committing with Apps and new ways of working.
Will it do what I want it to?
Will it be intuitive enough to work well with my needs?
Will it add to my workload or make my workload easier?
I use this particular blog to record parts of my week. It works like a diary. It helps to record my artistic fumblings. It is needed to immortalise the gems/germination of ideas or ways to push ideas in different directions.
Sometimes it simply reads as an ‘on tuesday I did this’ playback.
Sometimes my ramblings let me know that I am moving slowly but surely in a positive direction.
It goes someway to assuring me that what I am doing is OK…
Why not just use paper?
A Diary?
Unfortunately it has never worked for me…there is an ease of the digital that I like – perhaps it is that the phone is always next to me and I can jot and exit in a mere moment…. and I can always usually decipher my typed words.
With Day One, the App that I finally decided upon, I hope to add another way of recording my thoughts in a way that I don’t have to worry about spelling or making myself clear. Quick writing/typed scribblings will usually take me back to the headspace just as jottings on paper will. Quick photos taken on the ipad or iphone quickly slot into the day’s record.
The recall IS working for me.
How then to make this a positive experience not a chore?
My favourite use is when I can record the conversations I have with myself.
The best use is to affirm that I do advance day by day, week by week.
It is valuable in showing that I have had a worthwhile past that will lead me to a more productive future.
It placates/remind me, when all I seem to do is go round in circles, that I really do get things done.
Day One started for me on Wednesday March 23 and I have written every day since – adding a few photos most days, to take me quickly back to the doings of each day.
Instead of jotting brilliant thoughts on a scrap of whatever is at hand the phone/ipad will ultimately (hopefully) organise me.
Like all things hopefilled I will see how it goes.….but like the work that goes into a weekly blog, the time taken to record the daily doings seems VERY important to me….at the moment.
Now as I peek back into my Day One week I am reminded of what a big one it was.
Hardly any downstairs work done though…..
A week where WAFTA’s twentyONE+ was to have a major part;
Speaking with our graphic/web designer Milton.
Starting to arrange things with our curator Alison.
Alison also visited my studio to kick off her interviews of twentyONE+ artists.
Loads of tap tapping….
and there was a WAFTA general meeting was slotted in.
A few of us at QTSGWA met to officially handover the reigns from one coordinator to another. A very pleasant cuppa was had at The Warehouse Cafe in Shenton Park – run by the Uniting Church….”The Warehouse Café supports people who are living with a disability to have opportunities for training, building life skills and the possibility to move into open employment.” BRAVO to that venture.
I continued clearing a bit of space in the studio for my annual visit from Santa Maria.
The Year 10 girls do a Quilt making unit. They choose their project, design and make quilts then display them in the annual ‘Hanging of the Quilts’ on balconies around the school.
Every year for many years I show them various quilts I’ve made, this time adding some antque quilts to the pile….. I then get them stitching/quilting in scary free-motion.
Nervous giggles lead to success always.
Off to Nyzistor Gallery to see ‘Over There’ – a wonderful exhibition of textiles from an Albany ‘collective’. Some lovely works. Some excellent works.
I attended a lecture run by the Western Australian Museum that coincides with their current exhibition A History of the World in 100 Objects. Jane Balme’s talk was ‘The History of String’.
Then Friday, Esther day, and we are off on the train to Perth (her choice) whilst I pick the itinerary (my choice).
Cuppa at the museum cafe – our ritual.
A quick double viewing of A History of the World in 100 Objects.
A gallop (her not me) through the Museum’s Discovery Centre which we are really going to miss when the museum closes for renovation soon….
All the while I continued shuffling and re-arranging and pushing out a few more feathers. I’m looking for the background/background ideas for Sulphur Crested feathers that I am loving the look of. I spread myself/mystuff back into the studio by the end of the week with loads of books and materials and visual reminders placed back on the tables.
A weekend at home, with Saturday by myself, was a much needed tonic.
I picked a bucket of olives and prepped them for their three week ‘bleeding’.
I attacked the studio bookshelves for a further clear out and a tidy…..As I start to move forward with my artwork I recognise the need to shed….to lose some of what got me to the current me which may be holding me back????
At the very least I’ll be freeing up space.
It was a big week of doing and behind the scenes a very big thinking week.
