Kunskop....

10 ii 2008, Sunday
It is excruciating and torturous, this thing of being an artist. My mind feels both achingly empty and bursting like a too ripe fruit with ideas. Where do I begin? I stand in front of my shelves laden with materials, sketchbooks and my very private collection of found objects and feel like screaming with all the angst and fear and sheer bewilderment that is pushed upon artists like a sticky, fly-paper cliché – but it’s honestly true! I think it’s maybe just the way our brains are wired. That were it not for this intensity of creative confusion on one hand, on the other our brains would just not be able to produce the kind of lateral, out-the-box uniqueness we’re so renowned for.

(Or am I just making excuses for myself??)
My morning was spent rifling and sifting through piles upon piles of collected pages torn from all sorts of magazines – from dusty, old National Geographics to the latest French Vogue – which I’ve been hoarding with compulsive selfishness over the last few months when my ‘day job’ has dominated my days… They were like the secret dreaming of painting and having another exhibition even though there wasn’t the faintest whisper of hope for this to happen because already I was burning my proverbial candles at both ends! And so, now that I have found some time in my new life with Craig where I only work 3 days a week at Gymboree, the amassed tearings have swamped me with too many possibilities and directions so I feel like I am drowning in my self.
A combination of two things has catalysed the beginning of my new body of work: brutally purging the pointless, excessive imagery of anything unnecessary… (the bin is now full!) and the unwavering, fiery encouragement and listening ear of my soulmate who listened to my quiet, neurotic ranting and gently suggested what I’d been desperate to hear: that it was ok and the right thing to do to choose just ONE specific focus and to pursue it till its completion, and only then continue on to the next idea/project.
Two or maybe three (probably four!) “petite” glasses of wine later, and I’ve primed a variety of surfaces with white gesso that’ve been lounging about latent and hidden in my drawers labelled ‘found surfaces’. AND then also laid the ground for a work I’ve been meaning to set down in black inky lines since September 2006!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

All Gymboreed out (sjoe!!)

Supposedly, allegedly and apparently my day off today, I am at work! I got in at 9.30am to do the dreaded 'Switch' where we move all the various bits of foam and wooden equipment around into a different configuration every two weeks... And, I did ALL by myself (yip, I already gave myself a Noddy badge for this!!) where normally we used to do it with three or four other people --- which was definitely a case of too many cooks... Putting some of my own music onto the FAB sound system in the play area (choice: light rock and pop mix from the 1960s to 2000s instead of Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory just in case a customer DID arrive for something! ALWAYS got to look and act the eternally happy Gymboree teacher - even on my day off! This morning I woke with a scream trying to escape my subconscious after a sweaty, hectic nightmare in which I was kidnapped by gunpoint and imprisoned inside a big Gymboree where no-one was allowed to know of my exhaustion, loneliness or enslavement - but that I still had to continue to teach and be this incredible bundle of energetic and happy love that I apparently am! There's much more to the dream - but because it's interpretation is rather obvious, I'll refrain from saying more...) Needless to say, a litre of Coke Lite later and rather sweaty, I'm pretty damn pleased with myself for my morning's work. The rest of the afternoon needs me to do some housework AND prepare my lesson plans for the next two weeks before heading off to teach my mom and her friend art class at 3.30pm. Then it's a braai with Craig at my folks - and hopefully an early night before the busy, busy week that's ahead of us!
Hope your week is delicious and inspired! x

Blah blah blah

5 ii 2008, Tuesday
Sitting alone in the quiet stillness of the early morning at my little antique marble writing desk, I have a feeling this week is going to be glorious! I’m really not sure why, but there’s just something in the cool, pale gold sunlight and the gentleness of the summer wind shimmering across the leaves in the trees outside my window… something I can’t quite name or explain…
To my left sits a cup of black coffee I spooned an extra dollop of coffee into in the hope that it’ll rinse the last residues of sleep from my mind – as well as three capsules of various bits and bobs of vitamins, immune-boosters and flu capsules : I think my mom’s flu has taken a distinct liking to me, so hopefully these colourful plastic medicines will do what they’re supposed to do! Surprisingly, there’s no music playing on my CD player – but the music of the morning is more than enough in its birdsong, humming refrigerator and silent sunlight. (I’m trying to learn how to slow down into my life, so that each heartbeat becomes a present moment, a ‘now-point’ – instead of the constant craving of rushing headlong into the next month, next magazine, next meal – blah blah blah. I’ve been meaning for months and months to find out more about Leibnitz’s ‘cult of slowness’ – so perhaps today might just be the day where I listen to my heart’s desire and DO IT in lieu of my usual ignoring and placating.)
Speaking of heart’s desires, I’ve been trying – rather unsuccessfully – to see what our country’s universities offer by way of art therapy courses/degrees. None seem to exist at all, unless one actually studies psychology. I’d have thought that by now art therapy would definitely have been a recognisable need / occupation for it to be offered as a degree at universities. It seems as if it is still only in the US and UK that it’s offered… So perhaps this is the solution for me? To return to the UK to get this degree I’ve hankered after for years but always swept under the carpet of unattainable dreams! Working day after day this last year with little children in creative play as well as in the art classes, I’ve become ACUTELY aware of how intensely I feel about becoming an art therapist (hmmm… my time is running out – better get into the shower and ready for work in a few minutes – so more on this art therapy thing as I find out more.)
The basic outline of my day at work for today is: open up Gymboree (set up PC, print out class attendance lists etc), teach two classes in a row, and then spend the rest of the day sorting out my art class cupboards and writing up the lessonplans for the week’s art classes. I’ll also try pop in at the bank (usually less of a pop-in than a long fruitless slog in a queue) to change my name back to Roberts on my account – and then to see if Planet Unfit (sp) has managed to transfer my membership from Claremont to Parklands so a friend can take it over from me : so I can instead wander along the beach, breathing in the salty evening air, my feet sinking into the cold rough sand – instead of self-consciously sweating in my trendy kit like a hamster on a treadmill in front of lots of other self-conscious hamsters, all of us breathing and re-breathing the same recycled staleness (yep – not the greatest fan of the gym!)
Then it’s hopefully a drink with a treasured friend before heading home at about 6.30 or 7pm to make supper: hand-made pasta which I’ll form into girasoli (big circular pasta pockets – ‘girasoli’ meaning sunflower in Italian) which I’ll fill with feta and peppadew – all that’s left in my fridge! And if I have the energy, I’ll try my hand at making chocolate mousse in the old-fashioned way – by slowly melting dark chocolate in a glass bowl over a steaming pot of boiling water, beating up egg-whites till it forms stiff, glossy peaks etcetera etcetera – my hips will tell you the rest later!
Adios and ciao-ciao ;)