less new

I'm less new than I was. The area of the city that I regularly walk is becoming familiar, I'm aware of being at the cusp of not looking so intently, at staging my way with landmarks and personal way-markers of things I've noticed. My walk can also be timed by the passing of familiar but unknown people at particular times of the day.

These past few months have been stressful, more so than I was expecting. Its been an odd time of limbo. As if I'm waiting for my life to start, soon I'll be busy and plugged into the city, with work, with friends, with my own memories being laid unseen upon the topography of streets. But for now these notions are of a future I've yet to meet, as if unseen ghosts are haunting this future and yet to take form.

On one level I love this time, (practically though, not earning money is just plain crap!) but sometimes I allow myself to feel the energy of being unknown, incognito, that at least my future is not planned out, I really do not know what tomorrow will bring.

A familiar refrain from people I meet who ask 'Why Sheffield?', is that I am brave and I somehow find this hard to take in. On many levels I am brave, I'm a freelancer and have never had a regular income my entire adult life. Though I may not have the possessions of others I own a flexibility and resourcefulness that has provided me with an abundant life in many ways. Sometimes change is the only path, by turning a situation on its head old doors close, new doors open and having faith that it will all work out is a mantra worth repeating. AND staying where I was wasn't an option.

open studios

I'm in studio 6 of the Porter Brook Studios on friday 5.30pm-9pm and saturday 11am-5pm, all welcome!

spark

During my time as an educator I've met a number of children that were particularly fascinating and have lodged in my memory, some struck me as vulnerable, some as creative thinkers, others as bright bright sparks. Once during a screen printing workshop a boy was so full of delight about the printing process that he could hardly contain himself. I recall his energy at finally getting hold of the squeegee and afterwards saying, ‘That was the best lesson of my life’, he will be a young adult now and I dearly hope he got to follow his creative interest... In Nottingham I met a hard girl who was pretty unlikeable to be honest, on one particular occasion I told her, ‘You did that really well’, for a second her face softened and became childlike, and it dawned on me praise was a rare commodity for some. The ways we keep ourselves safe are complex and variable.

This is a photograph of a young girl I met during a project in Islington, London. She was in the park with her parents and younger sibling and was an incredibly bright kid. She had an intuitive understanding of special awareness and was very curious. We all struggled with some basic origami, but she didn’t get bored with our folding and re-folding and took to our discussion and problem solving process with a learners delight. She made a lovely word piece using white cups pushed into a grid fence which spelled out the word n i c e.