Here is where we spent the festivities. We were treated to champagne and canopies followed by a three couse meal which included a seafood platter, thai green curry or venison and a cheese board and wine, all privately catered.

Birthday Party

I've just got back from a lovely weekend in Norfolk, where I celebrated my friend Judiths 60th Birthday at her converted Barn. We got to stay in a lovely flat which was once a garage, which Tony her next door neighbour offered.

Bookery

Things are going so sooo well with my show. I've hit upon a lovely idea that random people passing through my studio keep going oooh at. I like it when they go ooh, it makes everything all worth while. Still I have a whole lotta ground to cover, and I'm still collecting books, it looks like I will be spending a small fortune at the charity shop, which is good because I can get really cheap books as well as helping people. I also had my mid term review, which was very rushed but also very positive and thought provoking in terms of presentation and trying new things. Things are going well, I am annoyed that I have caught a hideous cold which makes me go through phases of extreme hunger and extreme non-hunger. Right now it's the non hunger phase, which is really annoying when you've just defrosted some spag bol.

I haven't spent any time on my craft business though, except dreamt about it to help me get to sleep, though I did make some things for my mail art swap, which I can't post here in case she sees this, but I'm loving the fact that any day now I'll get a lovely handmade suprise in the mail.

Making and doing

Well it is done. My job is no more, I couldn't be happier. I had random pangs of excitement throughout this week, of never having to answer the annoying buzzer, file another DLA form or input random codes on the database. It just feels wonderful. To focus completely on doing creative work all day everyday. It's just made me see what makes me happy and I wake up every morning wanting to get up, not waiting for the last possible moment to drag myself out of bed to pretend I give a damn about my job. So now that I have this free time I'm going to start thinking about my business set up, and make lists and action plans and dust off that sewing machine, part of me thought it wouldn't start when I plugged it in from neglect and abandonment, but it did. I thought spending an afternoon maybe a week to focus on making things for my etsy shop would be a good start and I can see how this pans out in the coming weeks up till my show.

I had an interview for a gallery too, it wasn't to be but it was at that point that I really started to assess what I really wanted to do after art school, and I decided that making and selling my work as well as running workshops is what I want to do. So I'm going to focus on this and hopefully by the end of the summer I'll have done some work to really get things off the ground. I'm already in the process of making some bags and fabric brooches and maybe some book style greetings cards to put in my shop. I'm going to wait another few weeks before I list anything though, because once there's some things in there I probably won't make anything else until Easter, when I have more time.

Sushi me

I've been making sushi for the art cafe to raise funds for the degree show. I made folded the boxes after typing the sushi recipe on rectangle pieces of paper. Hopefully they'll be well recieved. Yum.

Openings

I have joined a fabulous new mail art collective, I'm so excited by this, I've always wanted to do this, ever since I discovered Fluxus when I was researching for my dissertation, so now I have until the 19th of February to make and send something. I already have something in mind. Something suprising and new and air mail friendly.

It's also been quite a topsy turvy week. Lots of disagreements, life changing decisions, broken picture frames and lots and lots of book folding, which in some way has been my therapy. I've left my job, to focus on my art, I never thought it would ever happen, it's so easy to get comfortable with a regular income but there are lots of opportunities open to me now, it's funny how one door closes, another one opens.

Here is a poem because It's also a time to remember I am a poet as well as an artist and I haven't written one in ages. This isn't new, I'm only posting it to remind me of myself and what I do, and also what I am not.

Openings

I open the bill
but don’t pay it
I never pay it
It is more than one pound
which is all the money
I have in the world till Friday
in silver coins
but not fifties
(I always feel slightly rich when I have fifties)

I open your front door
with the keys you had cut for me that
I never use
there are cats darting other ways
but I am drunk and
you prefer dogs which I don’t like
and I feel the bill is my compensation

I open my mouth
to taste the red liquor kissed
cigarette stained tongue
with a toothbrush that I didn’t buy
it is pink
(for a girl I suppose)
you open out the shower curtain and leave the
toilet seat up

Tomorrow it is Friday and
I think about all the fifties in the world