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I’ve had a rubbish week.

And unusually for me, I’m not going to tell you why, as this isn’t really the right place for such discussion. One day I might, but not now.

But…

What I will say is, when one person makes life difficult, there are loads of other people who make life wonderful. So I will write about the wonderful instead.

Songwriting Circle continues to be an evening of such joy. It requires such concentration, it absorbs and delights me every Monday. It has provided a means of dealing with my emotional state, with structure, discipline and certain formal conventions, but also allows for a little madness and imagination. The people I meet there are talented and generous with that talent.

On Tuesdays and Wednesdays I spend much of my time in my studio. This is great, feeds my soul and brings me strength and fortitude to deal with some of the crap.

On Fridays, I draw. Life drawing, for any of you that haven’t done it, or don’t do it, is a marvellous thing. We have a fantastic model, (Briony Lewis, If any of you need her can be found at http://www.lifemodellife.co.uk ) who challenges us and is as much part of the group as any of the artists. We are fuelled by tea, biscuits and chatter, not a group to everyone’s taste, but it is great. We are a weird bunch, but curiously loyal to each other.

Saturdays I am now spending my time in the gallery workshop at ArtSpace Dudley, where my studio is. I love the idea that it is an Art Space for everyone from toddlers to pensioners, beginners, amateurs and professional artists and craftspeople, all greeted with equal respect and no art bollocks.

Sundays, at home, now curiously art free, home centred. I’ve been making things… cushion covers, cakes. I’ve been cleaning the bathroom, even ironing.

I have around me a lovely, patient, calm but probably confused husband who in times of stress, brings me tea and gluten-free crumpets in bed. I have friends who drive me into the countryside to picturesque tea shops and listen to me rant and shout till the bacon sandwich arrives and I eventually shut up. I have other friends who respond supportively, and teasingly, laughing at the absurdity of my posturing, ensuring I retain a sense of perspective.

I list these wonderful things in order to get the crap in proportion, and find a way of dealing with it.

I became impatient.

Those readers who know me, will know this isn’t unusual.

I had intended the layered piece to be a piece on its own, the research, the experiment from which other works would follow. But actually, in itself, it wasn’t that interesting. As a material to be used for something else, it became far more so. So after all that time of layering and stitching, I have started to cut into it.

Now the layers can be seen it is like a serving of lasagne, as opposed to a dish of lasagne.

I cut a circle, and cut two slots into it, and buttoned them together to make the baby mask.

This is an interesting thing now.

It has become a sinister thing.

A protective item, soft things layered into an unyeilding whole. Definitely protective, but perhaps also smothering. This is getting me somewhere. This duality of protection and harm is where I at least, am comfortable… but uneasily so… you see…. Ambiguous. An attempt to protect that goes too far.

I put this photo on my facebook artist page, because Bo said he’d quite like a photo of it being worn, so that he could manipulate the image. His work with viruses and bacteria is developing very nicely, so the link with my protection issues is obvious.

Both of us grin in a sinister manner…

No takers… no artists with babies wanting a photo of their little one wearing this delicate piece… When I post photos of work I usually get a fair few likes and shares. This has hardly been looked at, it hasn’t been liked or shared.

I think I might be onto something.

Today is an Elliot Smith Day.

Some days are.

Perfect music to work with… I can tune in and out of it.

Some of it washes gently over me, barely making a ripple on my consciousness, my brain carries on working and thinking. Here, it masks the noise of people passing by in Birdcage Walk below.

But then I find myself tuning back in again for occasional lines

“The moon is a sickle cell, it’ll kill you in time…” (Coming up Roses)

“The enemy is within, don’t confuse me with him…” (Stupidity Tries)

“It’s all about taking the easy way out for you I suppose…” (Easy Way Out)

And I wonder what effect if any these lines have on my work, or whether the rhythm of the zoning in and out is like a sort of brain-breathing thing? Sometimes, I sit back, sing a whole song, then go back under again.

I always seem to come up for Waltz #2…

Then back to work…

“in the place where I make no mistakes, in the place where I have what it takes…”

Then occasionally I come out somewhere unexpected, disorientated, wondering who it is that’s singing, convinced I’ve never heard this track before.

I don’t always work with music. Sometimes only silence will do, or the outside noises that today I’m trying to drown out. It’s just a mood thing.

But the first thing I installed in this new space was the capacity to play music. Everything else followed that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBxYfLqKyew

Things are going well in the making. I still layer these scraps up, plugging gaps while trying to leave areas exposed. It is instinctive, the size and shape and positioning of each little bit. It might look disorganised, random, but I have a strict set of mental rules about what is right and works and what is totally wrong.

I have a few things in mind that have to be made, to satisfy this urge of work, these protective items I feel compelled to make. But in the distance, I see a rising dust cloud of something different approaching. I don’t know how long it’ll take to get here. But it will. I think it might be something big… what I’m making now are tests and trials, and experiments in preparation for something yet unidentified….

I drink my third cup of tea here in my studio, contemplating my middle class greed. I have a delicious lemon tart from Costa. I watch a woman through my window, downstairs in Birdcage Walk, sat on the wall outside farmfoods. I have ten bra drawings on the wall in front of me. She isn’t wearing one under her stained grey Cambridge University t shirt. I can tell. Either that or it is so old it is no longer doing its job. She has grey hair four inches from the roots, the remaining four inches is orange. She is wearing slippers. I watch as she methodically peels a creme egg. She then, with a cheery grin of gold, black and gaps, pops the whole thing in. Now she has both hands free, she rolls a cigarette, lights up and smokes it through the goo in her mouth. I turn away wondering which she will finish first… Or if she relishes the joy of making them both last as long as each other…I pop the last mouthful of lemon tart into my gob, and drain the last gulp of Lady Grey tea from my V&A mug. My hands, now free, type with sticky fingers.