Keeping it going

Wow, this has been really helpful. Ok, so I haven’t solved my financial problem, but the discussion and advice has been very valuable and much appreciated, the generosity of other artists and their desire to offer advice and support leaves me with a warm fuzzy feeling inside, I’m finding myself wanting to say – you guys! and jab my computer screen with an affectionate style punch – weird! Seriously though, it has got me considering and re-evaluating how I originally (before all the issue of money came into it) came to the decision that an MA was best for me.

There is nothing like lack of money to give you a wake up call to the real world. Things cost money, living costs money (duh) and most significantly for my practice, progress costs money! The relevance of cost to my decision making has been miniscule in the grand scheme of things. Generally, I am a person who finds it hard to consider money, either accumulating it or parting with it. Someone mentions selling, costs, income, anything money related and I have this strange reaction with eyes glazing over and involuntary yawning. This, I think is why sometimes it bites me back so hard. Suddenly I find it has the authority over a situation so important to me and my delusional state of mind that I am hardly influenced by it, that there will always be a way round it, is shattered by a sudden hard to swallow dose of reality. I suddenly realise that my avoidance tactics is just plain irresponsible. I have to consider how my practice is going to become more sustainable, I am failing myself by not facing up to how the real world works.

But I can’t at the moment, start beating myself up over this failing. It is pretty irrelevant to my situation now. Hopefully these kinds of problems can be considered and tackled when I am on the MA. The main point now is that I have decided that one way or another I am getting my arse on that course! It is the right step for me now and I want it.

'I understand that this will disappoint you, but hope that you will continue with your plans to take up your place as an MA student and look forward to welcoming you to this College'

Things are looking grim. I sat up last night and looked at my options. Sitting in my dressing gown at midnight staring at the fire place, I failed to find them. So the dilemma has reared its bloody head and dropped a ton of bricks on my dreams of doing the ma. There is a vital ingredient and I now don’t have it…. money.

Does anyone know where I might turn at this stage? Does anyone else fund courses?

I wasn’t prepared for how bad this would feel and how hopeless my chances would now look; I had blocked it all out. Can I really, after all end up not doing the course? The idea makes me feel sick. But the thought of how I might do it makes me feel sick too! Expensive bank loans, rinsing my family, working every hour, living on nothing, relying on other people, setting up a sexy chat line, etc, etc….

Aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, it’s like having it waved in front of my face and then whipped away. I know it was really foolish of me to rely on funding but that was my only option…to hope and hope for it.

And I don’t know why I was unsuccessful. I don’t know what let me down…. The standard of work, my location, my fellowship, my age, my hair colour? What were they judging me on? I am not deserved enough. (In a pathetic whimpering voice)

I am really sorry that I am just spewing self pity on this page…but I honestly don’t know what else to do at this moment in time. Who would understand the utter frustration of it quite like other artists do?

Oh you cruel, cruel world!

Ok, so get over it start working out options…

I’ll have to get back to you on that one…..

'The level of competition this year for limited funding was high and I regret to inform you that the panel was unable to recommend that your application be submitted to the AHRC'

BUM!

I’m having trouble writing this morning. I barred myself from checking blogs and emails over the weekend because by the end of last week I had started to feel odd about this online world. Sometimes I struggle to get my head round it. I remember when I started to use Facebook worried I was missing out on something. I began wary of the alien space, and then got really into it, then realised I was checking it obsessively and felt it was warping my sense of reality. Subsequently, I left (although was pretty annoyed that I couldn’t delete my profile but could only disable it). Friday I started to consider how I feel about this online blog space. I read Alex Pearl’s description of what he got out of it and even though it was all very positive I felt deflated reading it. Also last week in a discussion with an artist friend she mentioned agenda and that when reading anything you should consider the writers agenda. Then this morning I read David Minton’s latest post and couldn’t bring myself to write the regular weekly update that I normally do. If as a writer I always have an agenda how can it be untangled in faceless exchanges that solely exist as words? In some ways for me it makes me feel more isolated, more anxious, and more vulnerable than in physical reality. David talks about trusting each other but I don’t understand how you can trust such an obscure world. It seems impossible not to be anxious about being misinterpreted, especially as your whole online identity is based on what you say. It’s quite intense to me but it has made me do a lot of thinking and questioning. That's why I still do it.

I too feel there is an element of courage that I have to find to click ‘publish’ at the end of a post. Gulp.

Last week was a bit of a non-week in terms of art work. I did over-time at work, was babysitting my niece and finishing the decorating. After all this I was only left one day at the studio and by the end of the week found myself getting a bit itchy about my absence. So this week I’m hoping to scratch that itch and get back down to it.

11 weeks until the show which seems ages or maybe not. It’s very hard to gauge time scales. How long will it take me to sew another two houses, get some prints done, finish a drawing, make a performance house and tend to any other last minute issues and decisions? How long is a piece of string? I guess the point will come that I just have to stop and put up and say this is were I am at right now. If I had ten years or ten days it would just be a different stop off point.