Friday I started a long-overdue clear-out in my studio.

If you know me at all, you know this is big news. If you don’t, let me tell you why.

Like many visually-creative people, I am a lover of Stuff. All sorts of Stuff: stuff that is beautiful to look at (a carved elephant, a magpie’s iridescent feather), Stuff that is interesting or unusual (a 1907 Singer treadle sewing machine), Stuff that represents a place or memory (a filigree birdcage from Tunisia, a UBC Varsity Rowing jacket), but most of all, Stuff That Might Be Useful For Making Things.

I like not only to have Stuff, but also to be able to see my Stuff. This makes me happy. There is always something interesting or beautiful or memorable on which to rest my eyes, and when I come to create something I can see all the options available to me and reach for the one that calls me most.

Of course, this means that our house is… , well, let’s just say that minimalists would have nightmares. Interior designers would shudder at the sheer randomness of it. The House Doctor would sniff and say, “Hmm,” in that horrified voice of hers. But Stuff-lovers – oh, Stuff-lovers like me think it’s great! “Oh,” they say, “You have such interesting things!” and “You can tell you’re creative from your house!” All this is fine and good and I’m not planning on going all Le Corbusier in this lifetime.

The downside of being a Stuff-lover (and of course, there’s always a downside), is that it gets harder and harder to be discerning about your Stuff. The longer you collect Stuff, the harder it becomes to distinguish what’s really beautiful, interesting, memorable or most importantly, useful for making things. Because, let’s face it: almost anything can be used to make something. So you keep collecting Useful Stuff for Making Things on the basis that yes, I could use that in this idea for that project I had the other day!

Before you know it, you have a “studio” that looks like this (squeamish viewers look away now):

Just try working in here!

And the problem with that is that you now have so much stuff that you haven’t actually got room to use any of it. Creative FAIL.

I’ve been struggling with this for literally years now, ever since I started branching out from just making quilts into dyeing, surface design, fabric painting and embroidery. Each new technique and potential direction needs new materials, new media, new references and new ways to store ideas. And each one has put additional strain on the small back bedroom I laughingly call my studio.

I don’t know what it was about Friday, but suddenly, there it was, the desire – no, actually, more like a need – to finally do something significant about it. Significant in this case equals Getting Rid of Stuff (crossing arms and waving garlic about in a panic). Aieeee!

For a Stuff-lover, this is akin to brutally crushing the sweet little puppies your beloved dog has just birthed while she watches you with the Eyes of Trusting Devotion. Oh, the pain! Oh, the betrayal of all that Useful Stuff!

You, O Minimalist-Lover-of-Simplicity, you think I’m exaggerating. I’m not.

Because for a Stuff-lover, we’re not just letting go of the stuff itself. We’re also letting go of the Things We Will Never Make With It. No matter that mostly we didn’t even know what they might’ve been. No matter that we can almost certainly get more stuff just like it should we ever need to. No, what matters is the loss of the potential in that stuff. The loss of what they might have been or meant or signified to us. And that loss hurts.

So spare a thought for us lovers of Stuff when we finally, at long last, after all your hinting, suggesting and nagging, decide to clear out some of our Stuff. It’s not easy. We’re grieving.

Here’s what I’m grieving right now:

• 354 quilting and needlework magazines (17 years, saved as ‘reference’ in case I ever took up teaching quilting)
• 1 broken quilting hoop (saved because ‘all it needs is a couple of wood staples’ even though I have another one)
• 24 various plastic bottles (saved for storing dyes when I considered going into production hand dyeing)

That was the easy Stuff. I still have the hard Stuff – fabric, materials, abandoned projects – to get to.

Hi! Over here… yeah, remember me? I know, I know, it’s been a while.

I guess you’ll be wondering where I’ve been all this time. After all, when I left you, I was standing around at a party in my underwear with my saggy bits on public display. I imagine you were expecting something quite spectacular as a follow up to that.

I would love to tell you all about how I have been rafting down the Amazon, painting at the foot of Kilimanjaro and learning how to make Inuit caribou skin boots in Resolute Bay. What a spectacular blog post that would make!

Alas, it’s all bollocks.

Much to my eternal chagrin, I am not at all spectacular in the normal run of things. Weird, odd, mad, kooky, gobby and bossy are words others have used at times to describe me, but spectacular never.

So naturally, I have been doing spectacularly ordinary things for the last while, including:

• nursing my disabled mum through a nasty bout of labyrinthitis
• trying to keep on top of the mess creative chaos that is my home and studio
• beginning a complete overhaul and renovation of my garden
• waffling over whether to enter the Festival of Quilts this year
• experimenting with materials and learning more about machine embroidery with Angie Hughes
• developing ideas for pieces and original gifts that aren’t five foot square and ridiculous to manage and hang
• processing – as they say in therapy circles – what I want, where I’m going and how I’m going to get there
• and building my online shop here on the website.

And here are the results, in order:

• she’s fine now, thanks
• it’s still in ‘creative chaos’
• in progress and looking good
• no
• exciting new ideas to pursue
• coming soon – small art works, covered note/sketch books, treasure boxes, and more
• still not sure but getting clearer
• it’s open! Hurrah!

Yes, just in case you missed that last one – my online shop is now open! It’s not a very big shop just yet, and as of today it is just selling stationery (notecards and postcards) featuring images of my work, but it is my shop and it’s a container for all the other cool things I’m working on now. So big yays for me for finally getting through the technical hitches and emotional stuck around selling my work. Does this mean I’m a Real Artist yet?

(This is the post you write when you’re poorly and feeling oh-so-sorry for yourself. And yet, you’re aware that you’ve neglected your blog and its readers and you’re feeling very guilty about that. So you drag your sorry arse to the computer (oh, all right, yes it is a laptop) and write it anyway, because the readers – will no one think of the readers?!)

Today I have a cold. An icky, stuffy, snotty, head-full-of-cotton-wool cold. My head and neck are aching, but I can’t tell if that’s from sinuses and swollen glands, or from trying to sleep in an uncomfortable, propped up position in a vain attempt to make breathing non-optional. My nose is red and sore, and even the Two Bad Dogs don’t wish to get too close to me. (Sneezing alarms Pippin. I’m never sure if he thinks your head is going to explode or something, but he looks at you with a very worried expression and then hides in his cave under the blanket box.)

It is a day when a duvet and a non-taxing novel with plenty of tea seems like the best idea.

But you just know that’s not going to happen, right?

Let’s talk about what happens when your time is your own, and it’s up to you to Get Things Done in a way that meets the expectations of both you and others. Expectations that you might – oh I don’t know – get a large piece of artwork involving several mermaids completed in time for an exhibition you’ve committed to. It’s purely hypothetical, of course.

Here’s how it works for you, I’m sure:

1. You make a plan, figuring out all the steps that have to be completed to achieve whatever it is.
2. You create a schedule, working backwards from the due date, fitting all the steps into the amount of time you estimate they’ll take, thus giving you a concrete list of timed steps, with helpful milestones along the way so you know you’re on target.
3. You remember to include plenty of contingency time, Just In Case.
4. You start on time, work consistently on each step, hit your milestones and complete your project with lots of time (the contingency you built in) left over.
5. You sit back and relax, basking in the knowledge that you are master of your own time and servant of no-one’s agenda.

That’s how it works for you, I’m sure. Don’t try to deny it.

Unfortunately for me (and luckily for you) I’m not you. I am, and always have been, Queen of Last Minute Panics.

Here’s how it works for me:

1. I think about making a plan, which seems like a good idea, but you know, I can always do that tomorrow. Or next week.
2. Eventually, after much reminding, I decide that a plan is a good idea and I scribble some notes on a piece of paper.
3. I lose the piece of paper.
4. A couple of weeks later, I do a plan again because This Time I Will Do It Right, dammit.
5. I try to estimate how long each step will take and come up with a total elapsed time of 3 years, 4 months, 12 days.
6. Since that seems somewhat excessive, I reduce each step’s time by a factor of 53 and come up with something more like 12 weeks.
7. I look at the calendar so I can plan backwards from the deadline and realise that I have, in fact, 14 weeks before it’s due.
8. I revel in the fact that I have loads of time and therefore do not need to panic just yet. Easy peasy!
9. I ignore the plan for the next six weeks, feeling quite relaxed about the whole process, because, you see, I Have a Plan.
10. Quite by chance I look at the calendar and realise that I am now four weeks behind shedule. Gah! How did that happen?
11. I immediately begin work and work like a demon for the next two weeks.
12. I look at what has been accomplished and think, “Wow! I’ve done loads! I’m practically back on schedule now!”
13. I relax again, feeling smug that I am doing so well this time. Why look! I’m almost half way done! I can take it a bit slower now.
14. Some time later, I look at the calender, thinking, “Hmm, better get moving on that; it’s due in about three weeks.”
15. At this point, I realise that “three weeks” is actually “ten days”. Mild panic and determination to REALLY GET ON WITH IT at last kicks in.
16. The last ten days pass in a blur of overstretched days and late nights as I flog myself into finishing on time.

So here I am, head full of cold, feeling oh-so-sorry for myself and I am, of course, at step 15. So, today I will really be getting on with it at last.

Right after I have a little nap.

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So, for the last twelve months I’ve been hanging out at the Kitchen Table. Not my kitchen table, but Havi Brooks’s Kitchen Table. It’s an awesome place full of incredibly clever, talented, funny and fabulous people who help each other out with their blocks and successes under the beady eye of Selma the Benevolent Despot. And learn wacky techniques for destuckification and biggification, like visualising our stuck parts and talking to them. Yes, really.

Since I’m kind of odd myself (no, no need to be polite, dear reader, I know it’s true), you can see how this would appeal to me. You’ll see how it works if you read Havi’s post about talking to her wall. A wall, for the love of gawd.

But who am I to talk? Lately, I’ve been talking to my stuck about creating art, being an artist, and earning a living at it. You probably won’t be too surprised to learn that my stuck is a goblin. Called Mike.

Okay, actually, he’s not called Mike at all. (He wants you to know that.) But ‘Mike’ is what I call him.

Let me start at the beginning.

*Imagine time-warp music here. No not The Time Warp, just spooky woo-woowy music. Yeah, like that.*

We first did this exercise on a teleclass a year ago. It involves closing your eyes, relaxing and paying attention to the things that you see, hear and feel in your mind and body. That first time I struggled with it; I couldn’t seem to feel/see/hear a block at all. Cue feelings of failure.

Eventually, after several tries, for a very brief moment I saw a sort of hidden face blending into the darkness. Gnarled and part of the background, like a green man, or a goblin, or Old Man Willow. Like when you’re looking at the twisted trunk of an ancient tree and all of a sudden there’s a face there. Look! There’s the mouth and the lumpy nose and two closed eyes…

But then one eye opens. Like that. Yeah. I know.

The eye shut again, and although I pleaded for the face to come back, it just faded back into the blankness in my mind’s eye. Sigh. More feelings of failure and inability to Get It.

*More spooky woo-woowy music as we fast forward to November. Go on, you know you want to.*

I decided to listen to some of the recordings of earlier classes again while I was driving. I like listening while driving. Driving is often a flow state for me because my vision is being occupied by the task at hand, but because that’s mostly automatic, my mind is free to focus inward. I seem to need a lot of visual stimulation, and I struggle to concentrate on audio alone.

Of course, I couldn’t actually close my eyes this time. Because closed eyes while driving is generally considered a Bad Thing. So I had to rely on my inner mind’s eye more than the darkness behind closed lids. I don’t know how that works exactly but you can be looking at something with your eyes, and at the same time, imagining a picture of something quite different. Weird, huh?

Anyway, this time, as I drove along and Havi’s voice talked through the exercise, I got a really clear sense of a block. First I had a very strong feeling that the block was in my solar plexus, with a hollow, slightly queasy feeling.

Then, in my head, I had a strong image of a cube of some matte black stuff kind of just floating in a vacuum. Heavy, black and non-shiny. Afterwards I realised it was very similar to the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey, but cube like, and much smaller. Maybe a foot square. Floating, turning gently in mid-air. (Yes, you’re thinking WTF? I know. If it’s any comfort, so was I.)

It felt… malevolent. Distinctly dangerous and unpleasant and unhealthy. Sort of evil but without a moral judgement. Malevolent is the best word.

And then I realised that the cube was just a cover story, like a glamour thrown up to disguise what’s really behind it. And beside it, radiating this malevolence was a boy. He was about 9, maybe, with pale skin and dark hair and a flat, closed expression, but staring straight at me with intensely hostile eyes. He was dressed in Sunday best; a dark suit, white shirt, black tie as if going to a funeral. Very Omen-esque. (Which, btw, I’ve never seen but that was the feeling that I got. Damien.)

Anyway, this kid didn’t like me at all. I’m not sure he liked anyone, because that flat, closed face was really unpleasant. And nasty eyes boring into you.

And I said something like, “So, are you the real stuck? Are you the thing about money and art not going together?”

And you know what he said?

“You will fail.”

That’s all. Nothing else. He didn’t move, just stood there, arms by his sides, staring at me in that hostile and vaguely evil way and then he said it again:

“You will fail.”

Unfortunately, that’s also about the time I arrived at work, so I had to leave it there. With Damien-boy staring at me inside my head. Not nice.

But you, my darling readers, do not have to have Damien-boy radiating malevolence at you. Because I could not do it to you. It would be too cruel. So we have one more flash forward to do… all together now:

*woo woo woo woo woo woo woo woo*

A very clever friend at the Kitchen Table pointed out that Damien-boy was from a movie. A movie I hadn’t even seen. A movie that wasn’t my movie. And that it was perfectly justifiable for me to say, “Hey, you’re not part of my movie!”

So I sat down to have a conversation with Damien-boy. But as soon as I conjured him up, he morphed. Yeah, just like that. And instead of the nasty little boy, there was a grinning, capering, big-headed, knobbly-kneed, twisted little goblin.

“Oh ho!” says I. (Actually I didn’t. I don’t think I’ve ever said “Oh ho!” in my life. But it makes a better story, so I’m leaving it in.)

“Oh ho!” says I, again. “Are you the real stuck then? The one who hides in the background and pretends to be an evil little boy disguised as floating box?” (Believe me, I am entirely aware of how bizarre this sounds.)

“Oh ho!” says he. (Of course.) “I might be, and then again I might not. Who are you to ask?”

“Well, since you’re my stuck, I think I should know about it. And anyway, I already know the answer.”

“Stupid question, then, isn’t it?”

His face is twisty and he has a squint.

“But why all the hiding? The morphing and games?”

“Us goblins are tricksy, see? It’s in my nature.”

There are yellow, pointy teeth visible when he grins.

“Oh all right then. So, I guess we do this thing, right? Have a conversation?”

“Conversation shmonversation! You can ask but I don’t have to answer!”

Now he’s capering again, and waggling his rather hairy ears.

“Okay,” I say. (I really did say that) “How about we start with your name?”

“No, no, no! Not so foolish!”

He jumps around shaking his head vigorously.

“Okay. No name. Well, I’m Fi.”

“I know who you are! But foolish, foolish to tell me so quickly!”

He’s shaking his head and looking slightly perturbed.

“Um, hello? You live in my head. I’m doubting there’s much you don’t know about me.”

“True, true! I know it all, all your thoughts and fears and dreams! I know it all.”

A sly look creeps over his face, like he’s sizing me up.

“So, then what’s your name?” (Gotta give me credit for trying.)

“Not going to trick me. I’m the tricksy one!” Another toothy grin.

“So I’m guessing it’s not Rumpelstiltskin then?”

“Too easy, too easy!”

The capering is getting on my nerves a bit now. I do wish he’d sit down like a normal person.

“But if we’re so close, why not tell me?” I reason.

“Names have power. You know that ‘Fi‘!”

“Fine,” I say. “But I have to call you something. If you won’t tell me, I’ll just have to give you a name. Like… Mike. Yeah, that’s it. Mike.”

That’s stopped him capering. He’s looking at me incredulously.

“Seriously?” he squeaks. “I’m a f***ing GOBLIN and you want to call me ‘Mike’? What kind of name is that?!”

“It’s a perfectly good name. I think it suits you.” I’m chuffed that I’ve got the upper hand at last.

“Oh please. Can’t you pick something more impressive? Like, I dunno, Gobblygroot or Punkeratigan or something?”

There’s actually a pained look on his face, as if all his goblin mates are never going to let him live this down.

“No dice, dude. You can tell me your name, or you get what I pick.”

He’s sitting with his huge hands on his knobbly knees, looking depressed and sucking his teeth. Loudly.

“Couldn’t you maybe, add ‘the Magnificent’ on the end? Like ‘Mike the Magnificent’? I could live with that.”

“Nope, sorry. Names have power, Mike. You should know that.”

“Sucks to be me,” says Mike.

“Tell me about it,” says I.

NB. I am not insane, nor am I schizophrenic. I DO know that this is all going on inside my head and that it’s just a way of tapping into subconscious or unacknowledged thoughts and feelings. No need to point that out. But hey, if it works, I’m all for it. And besides, it’s quite fun to have a goblin called Mike to talk to. I haven’t had such interesting conversations with myself for years.

Okay, who else has goal-setting fatigue?

It seems you can’t do anything any more without being told that you’ll never succeed unless you Set Goals. (Yes, apparently it’s so Important that it requires initial caps. *snort*)

SMART goals, EPEGS goals, BHAGs… apparently, no-one in the history of mankind has ever achieved anything without using these HR management-speak magical tools. Whether it’s corporate domination, personal productivity, athletic achievement, weight loss, habit change, or creative output, we’re constantly bombarded with the message that we will never achieve what we desire unless we not only specify and delineate in sensory technicolor our aims, but also write them down and then submit them to public scrutiny under the guise of ‘accountability‘.

Well, I call bullshit.

Leonardo contemplates his goals for 1513

I’m wondering. Did Leonardo da Vinci sit down on January 1, 1498 and make a list like this:

1. By 1 April, I will have designed a single person flying machine, complete with technical drawings and mechanical notations
2. By 1 July, I will have completed that fresco of the last supper, incorporating single point perspective and an androgynous John for interest
3. Within 5 years, I will get a job with the Borgias …

Forgive my scepticism, but I sorta doubt it.

The point of setting goals is supposed to be to motivate you.

But what if it doesn’t? What if it actually makes you feel less inclined to pursue them?

Here’s what happens in my brain when I sit down to Set Goals:

“Ack! Goals! I hates ‘em!

“Omigod, I have to set goals or I’ll never amount to a hill of beans.” (Sidebar: Huh? And I would want to be a hill of beans, why, exactly?)

“Okay, goals. Gotta be specific. But, I’m not really sure what I want yet. So…

“Okay, gotta be measurable. But, um… how scary is that? How do I know how high to set the bar?

“Never mind. Go with attainable. Yeah, pick something attainable but still challenging. Oh shit. What if I fail? I hate failing. It makes me cry and feel like, well, a failure. And I hate that.

“Oh, and then there’s that whole relevant thing too – or is it realistic?” (checks notes) “Well, if Everyone can’t even agree on what the R is for, how the hell am I supposed to plan it?

“Timely. Argh! Deadlines! Deadlines make me itch! I always leave things to the very last minute and then have major panic productivity rush. I try not to, but I do. I know I will and I’ll feel horribly stressed. I’m itchy already. Help!

“Can’t I just go back to bed and do this tomorrow?”

And even supposing I do manage to come up with some, and write them down to ‘make them real’, what happens next is I feel squashed and restricted and bound by this sodding great SHOULD of a goal.

As in, “I really can’t just play around with this because I SHOULD be working to make that goal happen.”

When I think like that, the weight of the SHOULD usually results in nothing happening – neither the playing I wanted to do nor the working I think I ought to do. Result? Resentment of the goal itself for making me feel grumpy and frustrated and stressed.

Or, I think about the goal and I think about how friggin’ far away it is, and how difficult, and I feel sad, and discouraged, and yes, stressed again.

In fact, the only thing setting goals has ever resulted in for me has been a whole load of stress. Oh, and guess what stress does? Funnily enough, it demotivates me.

So does failing to achieve a goal, even in the tiniest aspect. It feels like another chalk mark on the FAIL side of the board. (Yes, that’s the perfectionist streak talking.) But seriously, if it’s demotivating me, what’s the point?

Despite that, I have in my life, actually managed to achieve some things. I completed a BA Hons degree in Romance Languages and was accepted at Oxford University for a grad programme. I won a scholarship to study in Italy. I’ve moved countries and changed jobs. I’ve taught myself about bookkeeping and business and computers and websites and online commerce. In the last two years, I’ve complete three large textile works, entered them in exhibitions and participated in an Open Studio.

No, I haven’t discovered a cure for cancer, or managed to stop The Two Bad Dogs from barking too much, but c’mon, some things are a little too difficult, even for me.

And I did those things without setting goals for them, SMART or otherwise.

I did them one little step at a time, looking no further ahead than was comfortable. Did I sometimes go down the wrong path? Probably. But who knows what I wouldn’t have seen or learnt about if I hadn’t taken a little detour now and then?

Sometimes I had a vague idea of what I’d like to do, like the Oxford thing, which had appealed to me from childhood. Other times, I had no plan or idea at all, like going to Italy and loving it so much I stayed. It turned out living in Siena was one thing that reminded me about the whole art dream I’d given up on ten years before. I didn’t plan for that.

So, yeah, if setting goals is a thing that motivates you, then go for it. I certainly want people to achieve whatever they dream of.

But if, like me, you find the whole thing a nasty, big, demotivating tangle of shoulds, then I encourage you to look at it this way, in the words of the very wise and wonderful Jo VanEvery:

“Moving down the road. In roughly the right direction. That’s my goal.”

And if you need permission to not Set Goals for 2010, then here it is:

You do NOT have to Set Goals for this year. It’s okay if you don’t. I doesn’t mean you will fail in your dreams. It’s okay not to. Really.

Oh my poor website, how I have neglected you! Never mind, darling, you know you are always in my thoughts.

But it’s New Year’s Eve, and I have some things to confess.

First, let’s get this out of the way: I really hate New Year’s Eve. It is almost the silliest excuse for fake celebration and excess consumption possible (the sole exception being Valentines Day, which I hate even more, and which has no justification whatsoever).

I’m certainly not against celebrations. I totally get things like Yule – celebrating the solstice when the days stop getting shorter (hurray!) and start lengthening instead. And national celebrations like Canada Day. (Yes! There is one! Americans are saying, “Who knew?”) I even understand religious celebrations like Christmas. If you’re into saviours, then the birthday of the big one has to be worth celebrating.

But New Year’s Eve has always been the biggest anti-climax of them all; we’re all supposed to run around like idiots getting excited about it, dressing up and hanging around waiting for midnight, and then bong bong bong (bong bong bong bong bong bong bong bong bong), it’s here at last! Much cheering (why?), a few fireworks, an out-of-tune rendition of Auld Lang Syne and it’s all over. What’s the point?

Maybe it was all those years of New Year’s Eve parties where you spent all evening angling to be next to some guy you fancied come midnight, only to find he’d gone to the loo when it came round and your chance of a New Year’s snog was gone for another 12 months. Whatever, New Year’s Eve gets on my tits, and we mostly ignore it. We certainly don’t stay up ’til midnight just for the sake of. No thanks, I like my sleeps too much to waste them on such triviality.

On the other hand, New Year’s Eve does have that slightly disturbing effect of making you look back at what’s happened in the last twelve months and taking stock. In the case of this website (there, there, darling, I’ll pay you more attention next year; promise!), it’s been less than six months, but still worth considering. Let’s face it, I’ve not got much else to do tonight.

And thus we come to my confessions: three things I feel I ought to come clean about – not because I’m trying to be all fakey authentic (I do love a good oxymoron, don’t you?) – but because continuing to avoid mentioning them is making it difficult for me to be comfortable with posting to my own website. Which is exceedingly silly, given that this is supposed to be my home on the web. I don’t like being uncomfortable at home, and I don’t like pretense here either. So, here we go.

Confession 1: I am a latent perfectionist.

I have a little girl inside me with a perfectionist streak a mile wide, and she gets very, very cross with me if I consider posting anything here that doesn’t have a point. A sharp one. Or clear cut usefulness honed to a fine edge. If it doesn’t add value for you, my dear readers, my perfectionist streak girl starts screaming and stamping her little feet and telling me that I had better NOT post it, or else. Or else what? Well, I haven’t asked her, but I suspect it involves everyone (oh you know – Everyone) hating me forever and the sky falling on my head tomorrow morning. Possibly today.

Perfection is, of course, a double-edged sword (I’m sticking with the sharp things metaphors for now. Hey, if it’s working, run with it.). The forward thrust is great for pushing you to produce high quality work. But watch that backswing; that’s where the unwary get cut by the paralysing fear of imperfection. The fear that prevents us from actually doing anything just in case it might not be perfect. Or useful. Or have an obvious point.

Are you getting where I’m going with this yet? Maybe a lack of blog posts recently? Or even – shhh! – a lack of new work to share? A fear, perhaps, of showing the crappy stuff that goes on before we get to the final work that’s just about acceptable for public consumption (maybe, if I don’t look too closely and squint at it in low light)?

Confession 2: I am depressive.

Notice that I did not say “I have clinical depression” or “I suffer from depression.” Those sound like “I have a cold” or “I suffer from lumbago.” They don’t at all correspond the the reality of my life – a reality I have lived with since I was fourteen – although, as they say, not a lot of people know that.

Depression is a part of my make-up, not a transitory illness or temporary injury. Churchill called his “the black dog” but I see mine more like a cat; sometimes it goes off on its own and I wonder if it’s been adopted by someone else or gotten lost in the woods, but sooner or later it always comes back and insists on climbing into my lap for some attention. Mostly, it sits in the corner, or over by the bed, or looking out the window and doesn’t demand too much so long as I keep it fed. If I forget too long, you can be sure it’ll remind me of its existence. It has claws and knows how to use them.

I don’t believe I will ever be cured of depression. That would be unreasonable. But I keep it at bay with medicine and cognitive therapy. Together they generally keep me from falling too deeply into the black hole of despair, but staying positive is a daily struggle. I don’t always succeed. Now you know.

Confession 3: This whole professional artist thing? Terrifies me.

As a child, all I ever wanted to be was an artist. I did art classes for three hours every Saturday morning for eight years. Art was my favourite school subject, my pastime of choice, my dreams for the future. And I was good at it too. If anyone asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, there was only one answer: an artist.

But somewhere around the middle of high school, I got scared. Scared because Everyone (remember them?) said there was no hope of ever earning a living as an artist. Maybe I should think about graphic design. Or photography. Or teaching art. Because art is better as a hobby. Safer. Everyone knows that. Best go to university and get a good degree and forget about this art school thing.

In my family we have a lot of creative types. Who are also clever types. And the clever always trumps the creative. Because clever earns money; creative never does. At least that’s how the story goes in our family. Creative is fine, but it never earns us any money. Better focus on the clever, and the safe instead. How about a nice job as a secretary with a good pension plan?

I mentioned a while ago that I was building an online shop for this site so I can offer original work, prints and cards for sale here. Because people have told me they’d like to own my stuff. But I have a very hard time believing them, because you know, creative is fine but it never earns any money. It’s all about the starving artist in the garret suffering with chilblains, going insane and chopping off body parts, y’know? Or dying alone in a seedy flat and having my dogs eat me. Yep.

So I’m working on this fear. Just like I’m working on that shop, slowly in teeny tiny turtle steps. Because it’s very, very scary and I have to consciously ignore all the messages I’ve always believed about being an artist just to even think about it, let alone progress it.

* * *

Phew. Enough already.

I thought I should mention those three things – the perfectionism, the depression and the fear – because they all tie together into what sometimes becomes a very big stuck around producing art and wanting to sell it, in any form. And not being able to mention it, dancing around it, pretending it doesn’t exist, is just too damn hard.

So, what can you expect next year on this site? Here’s some of what I’d like to do.

• Posts about how I’m dealing with the stuck
• Recommendations for products and people that help me with that
• More journal-style, conversational posts about progress on my work
• A shop with my original art, prints, cards and gifts
• An Amazon bookstore full of books I recommend on art, textiles, creativity, and my themes of the mythic and fantastical
• Videos showing how I make my art
• Posts about the stories and images that inspire, and inform, my work
• More posts that don’t have a point (like this one)

That’s it. Have a good one, and see you next year.

Okay, okay, I lost a few days there somehow. Man, I really hate those random time-slips that just swirl up out of nowhere and suck you forward without the slightest warning, leaving you stunned wondering where the weekend went. Or is that the champagne?

But enough of this levity – back to the molto serioso business of Art Every Day. How are you guys getting on with creating something every day this month?

I had to go to London on Monday, and anyone who knows me knows that I freakin’ adore travelling into London for the day. NOT. The stress of four hours of cars, trains, tubes and crowds en route, along with noise, dirt, millions of people and too much pollution in the air, always means two things: one, I catch some hideous lurgy from the foul miasmas, and two, I need a day to recover afterwards. So yesterday was my recovery day, spent napping and nursing a headache, which had more to do with stress and travel than the champagne reception* the night before. Really, it did. I know this because I always get one from London and I certainly don’t always get champagne.

Despite that, I was determined to make the effort to at least do something tiny and creative. I had taken a Moleskine sketchbook with me to London, but I was on one of those new-fangled swingy, tilty Virgin trains on the way down, and believe me, if you’ve ever felt travel sick while reading in a car, you don’t want to be reading when that thing does its scrambler-fairground-ride corners at 100mph. Nuh-uh.

And on the way back, it was nearly midnight and there was the effect of the champagne to contend with as well, so I’m not really sure if that one was a swingy, tilty train or not.

Eventually, after my recovery day, though I finally managed to pull out that sketchbook and do some doodles while watching a film. I’ve been wanting to play with some line work for a while now, as there’s a style of illustration that really appeals to me, using a lot of strong line and vibrant colour. It seems to suit some fantastical subjects really well, and portrays things like drapery, costume and texture beautifully. So here’s my doodle from last night, which started out as swirling lines and somewhere along the way turned into a woman’s hair:

Line doodle that became hair

I’m not really sure where I’m going with this, whether it will filter into the textile work through stitched lines, or whether it’s something I need to pursue with traditional media. I did this with a black Pigma Micron pen because I wanted to force myself to commit to the lines and not continually sketch them until they were right. When you’re comfortable with a lot of redrawing in graphite, it can be intimidating to commit to ink straight away, so I’d like to develop more confidence in my line for when I need it.

I’d love to fill this notebook with nothing but black line doodles to explore all the possibilities here. Look out for more anon.

*The champagne reception? I still work part-time at the old day job with some lovely, creative, generous people and Monday was a big company meeting held at a West End theatre, followed by a champagne and canapé reception and a VIP visit to see the musical Jersey Boys at another West End theatre. With a backstage tour after the show. Very cool. And fun. And yes, I am a very lucky girl sometimes.

It’s been a couple of less-than-creative days, I’m afraid.

I’ve had two days in a row working down the coal mine (aka at my old day job) and it’s really wiped me out. Long story, but there are health reasons – as well as my artistic dream – that I don’t usually work there more than alternate days. I just can’t hack it.

Usually, I’m there just Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I had planned to at least take a notebook and do some doodling, or do it when I got home, but y’know, sometimes you just have to face facts: right now, on work days I’m just too drained by the time I get home to be creative. I can beat myself up about it as much as I like (you know, the “If you really wanted this, you’d work all the time to achieve it no matter how tired you are” Voice), but it won’t change it.

So maybe it’s time to acknowledge that downtime is allowed too. I do have a bit of a problem with that. The Voice is pretty loud.

Because I’m only at the coal mine two days, but also trying to be a Real Artist, I feel very much that the rest of my time should be devoted to that. All of the rest of time. Days, evenings, weekends as well. But only, of course, after everything else is done first – like chores and errands and family duties. Because art is well, you know, frivolous and fun and WE CAN’T BE HAVING FUN UNTIL OUR HOMEWORK IS DONE.

Which means my internal conversations go something like this:

Fi: “OMG, I’m so tired after that day at the coal mine. I just want to lie down and chill.”

Voice: “You can’t. You have a blog post to write. And you haven’t done anything on Pearls of Wisdom today either.”

Fi: “I can’t draw now. I’ve got a headache. Too damn tired.”

Voice: “Then you better do some internet stuff instead. Work on your online shop. It’s only 8pm.”

Fi: “But my head!”

Voice: “Never mind your head. Stop whingeing.”

Fi: “Fine. I’ll do some website stuff.”

Voice: “Did you empty the dishwasher yet? You better empty the dishwasher and clean up the kitchen first.”

Fi: “Oh fine. I’ll do the kitchen.”

Voice: “Then you can go do the website stuff. If you’re not drawing, at least you should be working.”

Fi: ”But… headache? Tired?”

Voice: “Stop whingeing. If you really wanted this, you’d be working to achieve it no matter how tired you are.”

~

Who is this woman? And why does she keep bullying me? Does she really think this is helpful?

Then again, maybe she’s right. Maybe I should be listening and not whingeing. What do you think?

So I’ll come clean.

I’ve been in a bit of a funk.

It’s true. Oh yes.

For most of October, despite it being my favouritest month ever, I’ve been feeling pretty much paralysed by doubt and fear.

Were I living in a war zone, or Neanderthal times, or I don’t know, amongst brain-eating zombies or something, this might actually have been a sensible thing – doubt and fear, that is. But alas, I have been in my relatively comfortable little life with my drives-me-crazy-but-I-love-him-anyway partner and the Two Bad Dogs who are sometimes very good. So the doubt and fear aren’t actually coming from anything that might be, you know, actually scary or threatening.

We’re talking doubt and fear that is much more subtly insidious. The artistic kind.

You know it. Yes, you do –

• doubt that anyone will ever want to pay enough for my work to recompense the materials it took to make it, let alone the time, or hahaha the skill.
• doubt about my style, my visual voice; doubt about my subject matter; doubt about the appeal of themes that appeal to me
• doubt that textiles are the right medium for me, or that the medium and the subject and style marry up.
• doubt that I have enough passion to be an artist. Artists make art. I just think about it. A lot.
• fear that I’ll never have the requisite energy and stamina to earn an income doing this. Because you need perseverance and persistence and I feel I have neither. And I get so damn tired all the time – tired, tired, tired.
• fear that if I can’t ‘make this work’ somehow, it’ll just prove that I was never ‘good enough’.
• fear that if I live the dream of being an artist and it doesn’t work out, what will I have left to dream about?

You can see how with all that swilling around in my head, I’ve been finding it hard, hard, hard to actually sit down and work on anything creative. Because, well, “what if… ?”

Last week I could’ve written this post and left it here. And how depressing would that have been for you, dearest readers? But, my best beloveds, there Has Been A Breakthrough! Yes!

Last week I took this doubt and fear and shared it with the wonderful, creative, clever and supportive folks at Havi’s Kitchen Table. I asked if anyone else ever felt such doubt and fear that it stopped them moving forward, even when they wanted to be following their dream. And they, bless them, said, “Yes! Me too! I know this!”

And then I saw that my lovely, talented friend, Leah Piken Kolidas (@leah_art) of Creative Every Day was getting ready to run her annual challenge Art Every Day Month. She’s run it for years, and it started as an artistic alternative to National Novel Writing Month. No guilt, just encouragement to make something arty, no matter how small, every single day throughout November. It’s not about ‘shoulds’ but about fun:

The idea is to bring more creativity into your life, not to make you feel overwhelmed, pressured or guilt-stricken.

And then I chatted to my bff* Bren Boardman, artist/mentor/generally cool chick, and mentioned being stuck, and also told her about Art Every Day Month… and being Bren, and generally much more decisive than Fi, she said, “Okay, let’s do it! Where do I sign up?”

So we did. (You can too by emailing Leah from that page.) And then I tweeted about it, and Jane Dávila (@janedavila) – who’s a Real Artist and kinda famous in art quilty fibre circles and I swoon whenever she notices me – read my tweet and decided to play too. So how cool is that?

November should be very exciting now. Lots to do.

So, the moral of the story (for all you skim readers) – how to break an artistic funk in three (sorta but not necessarily) easy steps

1. Share your fears
2. Challenge yourself
3. Play without guilt

And now, I have dyeing to do. See you laters.

*bff: Best Friends Forever (do I have to explain everything?)

Omigod. It’s here already. Open Studios starts today. Already? Srsly?

My art, in public. With a price tag on it. Ack.

Worse, with me there, in easy eavesdropping range, baring my creative soul and offering myself up as an artistic Aunt Sally for people to throw shoes at.

Woah. I must have secret masochistic tendencies. Do all artists feel like this when they put their work out there for the first time? (And will it ever get any better?)

So, to quell my rising freak out, I’m going to do a little pre- Open Studio Chicken (that’s Selma-speak for check in). Here goes:

The hard:

• Not enough work to show. I spent so much time freaking out and working on the admin side of starting selling that I didn’t have time to actually create anything new. Oops.
• Fear. I’m so damn sensitive about my work that any little tiny negative comment or situation eats away at me forever sapping my confidence. (Bren and Miki think I will need therapy over the crappy way We Must Not Look at Goblin Men was hung at the Festival of Quilts this year!) And there will be negative stuff, or at least backhanded compliments: “Mmm, it’s not bad if you like illustrative work.”
• Pricing. Ack. How on earth do you know if you’ve got it right? My seller/creator self is saying, “That’s a fair price. I can let it go for that.” My buyer self is saying, “How much? Are you insane? Who spends money like that on textiles?”

The good:

• Display. Seriously, the place looks fabulous. Miki’s studio, garden and house are gorgeous, the work is displayed around all of them, and it looks really cool. Hooray!
• Admin. I’ve done so much setting up systems this first that next time will be so much easier. It pretty much has to be.
• Cards and prints – I haz them! I love my cards that I got printed – very close details of my pieces showing the painting and stitch, my two favourite parts.
• Creative talk and time together with Bren and Miki. It’s awesome when we have time to hang out together. Lots of laughing, plenty of talk about art, life, the universe, and everything. Occasionally some work even gets done.
• Cake. My bestest Mum has made her bestest cakes to offer to visitors with their tea and coffee. Yay for cake. Cake makes life worth living even when shoes are flying.

Today’s lesson?

Cake and good friends can make up for an awful lot of fear and panic. Amen.