One thing clicks into place…
Which means I can now blog about it. At last! This one has been nibbling at me, and every time I’ve wanted to blog, or started to blog, I’ve bumped up against it somehow and ended up not blogging at all. It’s been very frustrating. I’m very glad to have been able to talk to other artists a little removed from the situation, to help me through it…
I’m moving my studio!
It’s tricky isn’t it? I have felt for quite a while, that my studio in Dudley was too small. Not just physically, but in the amount of growth in practice that was possible there, on my own. So I started to very carefully ask around, not really sure what I wanted… And not wanting people to know before I was sure. There was the possibility of a city centre space. The advantages of having a city centre artist-community type space are obvious. The disadvantages are too though… I live about 5 miles from Dudley. Even in heavy traffic I can be there in 15 minutes, and off peak, less than 10. I live about 7 miles from the city centre. Those extra two miles, in that direction are horrendous… On a really good day, or rather, in the middle of the night, I can get into the centre of town in 20 minutes. In peak traffic you can double or even triple that. If something untoward happens on the route, I’m stuck. I don’t want to spend that time in the car, don’t want to spend extra money on parking, don’t want to use public transport all the time either.
A friend has a studio in Stourbridge, which I have visited, and it seemed perfect…. And through a series of chats, cups of tea, exchanging life stories and principles of practice to see if we are compatible…. I now have a shared space there to move into. I shall move in throughout this month, and properly get working as soon as possible in the new year. Stourbridge is about three miles away (less than ten minutes off peak). It is a much more artistically inclined population in general… I won’t feel I’m bashing my head up against the wall, and I will be able to engage in the sort of conversations I have missed… In person at least.
So I end this year and begin next year much the same as I felt a year ago, (with the prospect of arts council funding for nine women looming ahead of me). I am full of ideas that have been kept on hold because of lack of space in my studio and in my head. I know these changes are coincidentally tying in with the changes of the year, but it does lend it more significance, makes it feel like a stepping out into a brave new world again!
So, farewell Dudley, it’s been great, but it’s time to move on now!
