Old Years Night

It's olde years night already, and in between preparing a buffet and moving furniture for a dance floor for a party/gathering I've decided to throw, I've been contemplating the old year and where I want to go and what I want to do for the year coming. It is time for resolutions and the like, in the past I have never bothered with such things but this year, I'm prepared to come over all life coachy for the first time ever. I've rediscovered how useful lists are and the importance of ticking things off. Bulletpoints are introduced, giving me some therapeutic satisfaction of hitting the bullet icon in Word.

This year I've written many things, not poems but accounts of goals and things I've done. I've spent the whole year cursing myself for not sitting down and writing 'that novel' or finishing those poems or reading that book, but in fact I have been writing lots of things about studying and well being and art auctions, I've subscribed to design and art journals, read other peoples goals on life and Plato, listened to obscure folk music, read poems as a treegirl, eaten foreign food, learnt Pilates and how to blog, how to make books, how to fold paper, how to be a better listener. But what I have been pondering most in a year where I have been more settled than ever, is what to do next, after university. How silly I thought that being a perpetual student was my goal. I have learnt how to be a teacher, a curator, an arts administrator, but I want one thing above all those things, and that is to make, and that is the sole purpose of this blog I suppose, to make and do, not to just talk about it, but to actually do it. I have learnt fascinating skills, taken on too much, taken on everything in a bid to learn more, and for the first time two weeks ago I sat back and decided to stop and look what I can do, and see how I can use that to make and do.

I am however, in my final year of university, the one that counts. But to put the making off until after I have finished seems to me to be another excuse not to do something now. There is nothing to stop me starting something now, even a list with bulletpoints, finding something like sourcing fabrics, looking in trend magazines, relearning how to hem, it doesn't take much. I realise my degree must come first, I think the first thing would be to prioritise my work and life, so that I can keep on top of things.

So I have started a very tiny collective. It's called Arts and Crafts Friday, that no matter what I do I must do at least one creative thing on that day. Friday is a good day, because I'm not at work and the studio is very quiet. John Holler founded the club with me and now he's doing bigger and better things. This is my goal.