A really ironic thing happened yesterday, my father, from whom I have been estranged for the past 30 years, sent me an email with his christmas letter. It was just a short friendly one, acting like there are no issues between us and asking to see some of my artwork (he must have heard that I am an artist). It is sad, funny, ironic, all at the same time. I have actually made a small zine about him in the past Keeping the Faith, and he features in my current zines, there is a bit of me that is tempted to send them. I won’t because it would change nothing, may cause offence and upset, and he is an old man who has had a (mild) stroke. In an ideal world, he would read my zines, understand my point of view, recognise his role in my difficulties and we would be reconciled, which much hugging and happiness. But it is too late to expect him to change, to be the father I wish him to be. I bear him no ill wishes, just find it too difficult and uncomfortable to have him in my life.
Let’s get back to my day to day reality and my coursework….
And here suddenly everything changes on a sixpence, instead of having another year to complete my course I have 5 months. I’m not panicking, as I said to my tutor I can’t work any faster, I will just have to jump through the OCA course hoops a lot faster. I feel under pressure but that actually can help me push through without second guessing myself. It just has to be “good enough” not perfect.
I say I’m not panicking but I have been struggling the last week (separately from my pre-xmas struggles), I keep trying to work on my zine but I feel in a huge jumble work-wise. I make a firm decision on a way forward…and then come in this morning to my studio and it all seems wrong. My studio is a mess, I can’t see a way forward clearly right now. I’m holding strongly onto the thought that this happens just before I have a breakthrough, a huge jumbled mess that I just have to tolerate before it untangles itself and the way forward presents itself.
I’m going to trick / reassure myself by telling myself that I’m fine and that my unconscious mind is sorting it all out. I already do this very effectively with anxiety leaving the house, I take my “anti-anxiety” tablet if I’m struggling to leave, it’s actually a Peppersmith mint, but the placebo response works even if you know it’s a placebo!
My irritable bowel syndrome is playing up too, a physical manifestation of my inner turmoils I guess.
I’m working on another 3D set, here are some of the half made bits and pieces.
