…but this happened just before Christmas. It was so great that M’s Dad, Graham, Sisters Mel and Jayne and niece Abbey were able to come down for the ceremony.
Dr Art is now also in his second week of his new job as Inflight Gallery Coordinator.
Congrats Doc, there’s so much to be proud of. 
What a long time between drinks.
I have a new job you see. A great job in a great place with great people and I only work two days a week leaving me free for my own projects the rest of the time.
I am working for a clinic of osteopaths in a building that was once the Hobart Mosque – hence the photo here from the end of the hallway.
In order to land this job though I had to commit to a period of full-time work there. How did that go, you ask? Well… it was a little ambitious and I found it entirely consuming and totally exhausting but I made it through the gauntlet and am rather happy about where I have ended up. Even if there was no blogging for a while. Sorry.
It’s actually nice to have a foot outside crazy, old art-land and to remember what the rest of the world is up to.
But I missed you. Art and news updates to follow.
Hallo.
For a long time our house was perfect for our needs. Cold, yes but the perfect size and proximity to everything. Then it wasn’t anymore. And our property agents went from being the best ever, to being the worst in the space of the last two years.
Also – of course I’ve been out of the workforce, battling my health problems with a combination of a trickle of freelance work and a government pension. For a long time I couldn’t see myself ever entering a workplace again. I have fears and phobias up the ying-yang and I couldn’t see how any employer could ever be expected to accomodate them. Not when there’s a line around the block of other willing candidates without ‘special needs’.
So anyhow there are two big items of news.
1) We found a new house that is much more like what we need + heating and sunshine and are currently running around cleaning and stuffing things into boxes to move in a week and;
2) I have taken a new job as a kitchen-hand which is so far, so good and quite a significant step for me.
There is actually a third big item too – which is that I am having another solo show opening in a couple of weeks (July 3) at Inflight. It’s a bit on the fly, but too good an opportunity to pass up so I am frantically trying to get some long unfinished works done for this show.
Also I have a cold.
All this means there is a lot of activity, not a lot of energy and as a result, blog posts may be thin on the ground for a bit. But I’ll check in when I can.
In the meantime – here is a picture of a ferret in a bath. From cuteoverload.com
. We have a new car (well… new to us) and are both in furious car love.
. I have had my first anxiety attack in about 12 years and am now placing my ‘within a crowd’ presence under much stricter control.
. I started a new job at a The Island café with enormous gratitude to Elissa and Lucy for giving me a go. + making me the best coffee I’ve ever had in Hobart.
. I ended my coffee schlepping career after only one week to take up another job offer. I am now a Production Manager and Publications Coordinator/editor for a local film/multimedia company. (If all those slashes confuse you imagine how I felt in my first week).
. I’ve started the preliminary development on a collaboration with Mish Meijers. It’s exciting, fun and especially convenient because she is loaded with good sense and it means getting to hang out with her regularly which is very good for the brain. I am conscious of not abusing this privilege.
. I am trying between new-job-learning to finish some small drawings and get them in the post for a show in Vancouver. It’s called iPAWS which stands for International Psychic Amateurs’ Work/Study and it’s curated by one of the multiple personalities of the remarkable Jo Cook.
. There will be a work of mine in a show curated by Brigita Ozolins in the Long Gallery called Parallel in August. It’s also a show about slightly spooky things.
. I have Tasmanian pals at CESTA right now (Pip and Harpie) and hearing their stories of Tabor (and CESTA itself) fills me with confused feelings. I love that place and those people and wish I was there too + am so glad to be sharing that experience with friends. But my memories of it now are a little bittersweet. I hope I get to go back there one day and put my own feelings to rights.
What have I been doing to make a crust since leaving CAST?
Well, in addition to a smidgen of freelance stuff, I’ve been doing a little truck driving for them, delivering and collecting exhibitions from around the State. It gets me back up North to my home turf, to see my Mum and Dad, the galleries up there and the odd pal too.
Since being forced into learning how to drive a 3 tonne on the job by an errant car hire company who spontaneously and carelessly replaced my CONFIRMED van (I’m looking at YOU, Europcar, Hobart!) I am now rather grateful for their lack of good service and general rudeness as it turns out I LOVE driving trucks and am so happy I know how.
We deal with another company now anyway, who are kind and sweet and offer excellent service (as opposed to whatever it was we got at the other place).
If you are ever forced to deal with the aforementioned company, look out for a chap I refer to as Ginger Nuts on the front desk. He is particularly adept at not giving a shit.
Hey! I resigned!
I will finish up at the gallery when we break for Xmas. Probably Xmas eve will be my last day.
The important things to know about this are:
a) No, I don’t have another job to go to which is a little scary but;
b) I feel a whole lot better about all kinds of stuff + I’m working well in the studio again and;
c) in a time where I haven’t been confident about much I am confident that this is the right move and;
d) with ups and downs and such taken into account we have been a close-knit little package in that office so I will miss the esteemed collegues quite a bit. I hope we’ll still get to hang out sometime.
Now I’ll shut up about it because no one is handing me an Oscar.
It’s been real.
I’m in a rut.
In my job I feel useless and cumbersome which makes me unhappy which in turn makes me feel like a tool and an ungrateful wretch because it’s actually a great job. I’ve probably sat in there hanging on for grim death for way longer than any other employee previously. Some young thing should have had the opportunity to get their start in there a long time ago.
My confidence is at an all-time low which makes looking for something else torture. I’ve never in my life gotten a job I’ve applied for. I just kinda ‘fall into’ stuff historically. There’s a feeling in the air that I must go but that no-one else will hire me. I’ve always feared this to be true.
This all spills over into my studio as well. My ego can’t take completing any work just in case it turns out to be shite. I know the advice that I would give to others – that you have to risk making shite to make anything good and who would know if this next work is shite ’cause you just kick the shites under the rug in the privacy of your own studio space, learn from your mistakes and move on to the next one, which -odds are- will be a winner.
So that’s what’s up with the knitting. Weaving glorified string around two sticks in a fashion that belongs to the ages is a guaranteed winner. Who doesn’t love a sock? A scarf? Something made just for them, invested with time and care? What’s more there are patterns to follow – records that are proof of prior successes. These objects are guaranteed to be worth my time and crows-feet…
There is a strange substitution too – What are knitted stitches if not just physical pixels? The equivalence of the frames of film or video or one of a thousand girls dressed up as a violin in a Busby Berkley sequence. I worry over each tiny part in turn to make an object that is (without a doubt) the sum of it’s parts. If you freeze any frame of a Hitchcock film it is composed as if for a photograph.
I hope I never use any filler. But right now I’m too scared to find out.
