2020 is a new life for me it seems :)

So I had almost forgotten about this site – it’s been since 2017 that I last wrote.
2020 now – how?!?

Incredibly really what has changed – Life is full of surprises.
Now is a good time in my life.

I didn’t know I was going to make another big decision… but I did, haha.
I’ll update soon, but see below until then ;)

Rest, peace, choice, freedom, creativity, joy, love.

vs.

This time a year ago –  ‘once upon a time in the NHS’… never doing that to myself again.
(I couldn’t even see it at the time!)

Gasp

 

GASP

oil on canvas, 2017

 

[Read on only if you geek out on materials and supports, otherwise it’s irrelevant and you could be drinking a nice cup of tea with your feet up].

}} ***

I’m thinking I might gradually move towards a different support to paint on. This one above is on primed canvas, it’s pretty small but it felt good painting onto a plane without edges. Probably this works best on smaller pieces. For larger works you would need the taughtness prior to painting I should think.

So far for the past few years I have been painting on mounted MDF boards that I painstakingly killed myself making years back with a saw and mitre cutter and clamps etc, in the Old Street studio. They have been lurking around for a while but are running low. Since then I have used small unmounted cuts of 13 x 13cm & then the tiny gesso panels – there’s no space to make bigger where I paint now.

Now I am looking for something that can support oil that does not absorb. I would order more gesso panels, but I have to reprime them with thixotropic to support and resist my oil paint sufficiently, and once you add a ground on top it doesn’t feel as stable as I want.

I sent for a square of aluminium to try – mainly because the painting surface sounds good, the base luminosity and the flatness, meaning storage is not such a problem. See this link…

https://www.jacksonsart.com/blog/2014/03/28/aluminium-painting-panels/ 

Incidentally I’m going through a phase where I am seriously feeling major claustrophobia working in the NHS. I am grateful; always grateful, for this training, this job, I know how polished our lives are and how much worse it can be. I have recently been missing my creative jobbing and surroundings so intensely. After 6 years I still do NOT know how to marry these 2 lives together. I always carry a future hope to remedy this and get back to creative work (do we all? am I stupid for still feeling this?) My life is still ‘work days’ vs ‘my days off’ and my favourite days are my days off of course! We all have our doubles… Writing this and looking above, I guess ‘Gasp’ relays that sentiment. Thank-you Marina Abramovic for something.

I have this week off now before Christmas and I feel like a different person. I just feel so serene and so calmed and like the gentler old me. My creative urge is strong now; to read about art, to look at art, to be around it and it’s people. I want to have a space I can walk into and paint and I don’t now, so I brought some panels here to Camden, to draw on ready to paint. I think I will have to invest in some more drawers or low cupboards as I am gradually magpie-ing art materials from the Heath to Camden, which in a studio flat you need to be careful of!

Nearly Happy Christmas everyone!! I will be working but the best thing is I have a week off in Januaryyyyyyy to paint. Happiness & relief in this thought.

 

Back to Camden Town :)

Helloey, mind the time gap.
I moved (again) back to the West side of Camden Town near the park.

Nothing was wrong at all, but an opportunity came up and now I rent a studio flat and I realise two months in how absolutely happy it makes me; to finally have my own little space to occupy as I like and be creative in. I haven’t craved my studio as much, possibly because I have space here now to enjoy. I’ve just been moving, seeing lots of friends and doing all sorts of things. It’s been a busy time – I’ll return to painting again in October or November.

I am very very happy here.

LOOKING GLASS

Pls excuse the crappy photo… wet paint. Literally squeezed a day in before I go back to work. Gotta go home now & get ready…

LOOKING GLASS

oil on board, 13 x 13cm, 2017

Amsterdam

I’m in Amsterdam for a few days. It’s so good to be away, see some great art and feel the open, lively vibe of this great city. I love this city as much as Copenhagen. I love the waterways, bicycles, friendly people and it’s wonky houses are charming We are staying in the Jordaan in top two floors of a Dutch house (below). We have a Vermeer wall too… 💚

Yesterday was a total art binge; we saw Rembrandt, Vermeer, Hals, an unexpected Dumas at the Rijksmuseum. Then we went on to the Van Gogh Museum, which reminded me how prolific and sensitive this man was. I felt touched by his strong attachment to painting and the sense that he would feel incomplete without it. It resonates strongly, yet I think I’ll keep my ear on. A pleasant surprise was in the vast temporary exhibition of Prints in Paris, which had works of Vuillard, Vallotton, Lautrec & Carriere. I love the free drawing, strange crops and graphic style of many of the lithographic show posters & magazine covers, the use of coloured line for drawing. Research to be done here…

Today was more leisurely, a chilled boat trip and a visit inside the Oude Kerk & a bit of time wandering through the Jordaan before coming back to a sunny window seat, a cold beer and little bit of drawing. Home tomorrow. Shoulda coulda woulda stayed a week.

WINDOW

Night shifts tonight… Mieowwww :(

 

 

WINDOW

oil on board, 13 x 13cm, 2017

SLEEPERS

SLEEPERS

oil on board, 13 x 13cm, 2017

 

 

CUBICLE

CUBICLE

oil on board, 13 x 13cm, 2017

*

Not my best this one, but unfortunately I still feel the need to share…

Easter Weekend

Lucky to have 3 days in a row off. Relief.

I went to see the Hockney show, seeing as I snuck him into a painting last week (Gentle Men). It wasn’t a show I was bursting to see, but I knew I would regret not going. There were some line drawings of his that I wanted to find.

Room 6 gave me just want I wanted. Simple, wobbly line drawings, intimate moments shared with friends, family or lovers. I studied them for a good while before the bank holiday crowds came through. I’m really glad I went just for seeing them. They are mostly from the 1960s, and his paintings from this time I like the most too. Then his approach was quite graphic in style, flat colour vs patterning and unusual cropping and. I like that.

He painted in acrylic, which has a huge effect on technique. I envy the scale of these paintings and again found myself craving a big space :) His more recent artwork I’m not so keen on, but the 60s/70s yes.

It made me want to come back and draw, desperate in fact, but I think that is also a side effect of being slightly overwhelmed and overstimulated by people all weekend. As much as I love and appreciate my family and friends, I am always leaning towards being quiet and having space. I just need it. I did some drawing this afternoon and feel right again :)

GENTLE MEN

GENTLE MEN

oil on board, 13 x 13cm, 2017

*
Got up early and had a fantastic morning walk through the parks (I LOVE this morning sun) then painted, painted, painted and couldn’t stop until breakfast was long overdue by 2pm. Time passes painting. You are so in the freakin moment.
At the moment I could literally paint Every.Single.Day.
I wish I wish I wish :)

M.

 

BOY

oil on board, 13 x 13cm, 2017

*

One for Sorrow
Two for joy
Three for a girl
Four for a boy
Five for silver
Six for gold
Seven for a secret never to be told
Eight for a wish
Nine for a kiss
Ten a surprise you should be careful not to miss
Eleven for health
Twelve for wealth
Thirteen beware it’s the devil himself.

Revolver

Revolver

Oil on board. 27 x 27cm. 2017

Sundayazy

I feel a lot more buoyant. January is overrrr thank uuuuuuuu.

That annual leave week of painting did me so much good; made me feel sane again… and when I went back to work events happened that meant things have taken a very unexpected turn upwards. Too much to write here but the main positive was that I got a more senior job in my department; one that has been extremely hard to get for various reasons. I am so grateful and happy. I was feeling bleak about global events, the rise of Mr T (and other such horrors) and more personally, about the future and how this 36-year-old Londoner can even hope to stay living here. The current climate makes a secure woman feel insecure. Now I have this huge sense of relief that in the long term things will be a little bit better. I can be reasonably independent, keep working as an anaesthetics assistant, stay on in London and paint sometimes.
Warmth is on it’s way.

Exciting for me also is that I went to this master class with Chantelle Joffe at the Zabludowicz Collection on Thursday night. http://www.zabludowiczcollection.com/events/view/master-class-chantal-joffe . I’ve always loved her work. It was a Q&A between her and a very good interviewer/curator. Chantelle is a little bit strange and shy in a way, which makes me like her all the more.

They talked about her work and showed some slides and we got to ask questions at the end. I asked about her process, about whether she has the courage to approach a primed canvas with a loaded brush, or whether she draws first and what was her starting point. She said she might start on a random focus; an eye, a leg, a patch of skin and go from there, but that she never drew onto the canvas as it just felt like colouring in. She was generous in her answer. I loved being with Heather and Mary in a room full of creative people. It felt like home – a good atmosphere; curious and open.

 

Fly-by

Oil on board. 13 x 13cm. 2017

NIGHT TERRORS

Inauguration day today of a man I don’t believe is real.
It’s horrific. I am quite terrified.

Night Terrors

Oil on board. 13 x 13cm. 2017

 

 

 

JANUARY B’s

The Pear That Cried

 

Oil on board. 13 x 13cm. 2017

*

Januarys makes me feel sadddddd.

How does a studio make you feel?

I look forward so much to being here.

I imagine it the week before, the day before, the night before and early on the morning of. This morning very very early I was in a yoga class with one of my favourite teachers, she had us working really hard, sweating rivers. I loved it but in my head I was also here at this desk: with my music on – hearing the songs that I would like to hear today as I draw at my desk, with that sweet sunlight coming in through the roof window on my left and hitting the wall on my right. I was here even though I was not here; drawing in pencil onto a panel readying it for paint, getting ahead in my thoughts to be here, to make the most if this precious stolen time.

I always strain at the reigns to get here – like ten horses pushing and pulling against the mighty arms of a heavier world; the blood and guts shift work, people to please, the political chaos, eatsleepworkwork/eatworksleep. The more this fast world wraps its belts around me, the more I resist. Quite often I think the belts must snap. It feels like some of us surge the opposite way, away from what we’re meant to do, do we? We need to be held but also to be free. When the belts are off for a day it two, or a week, we jump high towards skies that are blue, light, limitless but then like Icarus, we know we must fall back into our work, our commute, to the reminder of time passing us by and the sense of a tiny desperation that swirls like a spinning top in your tummy.

BUT in my tiny makeshift studio, everything is here, everything is possible.
Here I can do what I want when I like, can paint what I want when I like.
It’s outside of space and time and everything falls away. The processes, the pens, the pencils, the paints, the smells, the colours, the pleasing junk. Here I feel safe from world events, cradled and anchored by a stillness that I can never quite cultivate in the real world. Here is a gentler song. Whereas everywhere else in the world I look to being right here, and when I am here, everything feels okay again (so long as it must never end).

And that is why, I really really like my studio.

 

A New Year

Another new year is here. We begin again. Repeat the cycle, except it’s not just another new year, it’s 2017; it feels the beginning of a strange time.

Outwardly I live my life and do all my things I love to do, keep smiling, having a laugh, going to work and fast-peddling to keep up with the speed around me. On my days off I free-wheel; look at nature, see exhibitions, walk further and further, do my downward dog, my tree, my shavasana, see films, giggle at my nephew’s wiggly round bottom as he dances naked around the front room (he’s two, not twenty don’t worry). Inwardly I feel fear that I have to mute, because otherwise it will change me but sometimes it weighs so heavily. I know I’m not the only one. I am inherently a positive person but I do feel so afraid of what is going on globally and the world that is in the making. I won’t write it here for the want of it being an art blog but it feels like there are huge shifts in those unseen tectonic plates of world power and control. I was really unnerved by things that happened last year, but this year I feel its going to get dark purple, because, because, because… read the news for more. I’m not glad to write this here, but it’s part of me and I type and erase this sort of stuff every time, to keep things light.

I think we don’t know that we are living in a golden age. We have everything we have ever wanted and we can’t see this. Love it more whilst it’s here. Things will change, things already are.

Appy New Year. I’m saving the H for the most important bit – Hope.

Oh and here’s a couple of things for you…

 Screening II

Oil on board. 13 x 13cm. 2017

Hammock

Oil on board. 13 x 13cm. 2017

Tomato Tomato

 

Tomato-Tomato

Oil on board. 13 x 13cm. 2016

SCREENING I

Screening I

Oil on board. 13 x 13cm. 2016

ROOM

Room

oil on board. 13 x 13cm. 2016

Posting this from my phone so I’m not sure if it’ll be higgledypiggledy but anyway – here’s another painting. It’s not really finished but it also is, so I think maybe that means I shouldn’t do any more.

I went to Ragnar Kjartansson’s exhibition at the Barbican yesterday, as it ends very soon. I’ve seen a lot of him recently, what with his concert and Q&A last month. I really liked it; many video art installations and some live art performers also. It included The Visitors which is my favourite work of his, but I feel it worked better in the blacked out car park space it was shown in at The Vinyl Factory last year. There, the climb up into a strange place and unexpectedness of it froze me dead in my tracks and brought a deep inhale. The acoustics and layout just worked less for some reason.

Also saw the play Yerma at the Young Vic last night. Talk about blow me away! Billie Piper you have grown up and come a lonnnng way. What great writing, staging and acting. 110 minutes straight through. It held. It was a powerful show; I saw a boy crying outside afterwards.

 

Ironing vs art journal

And in walks change…

I haven’t been on here for a while; 4 months has passed it seems! I had some time out; my attentions were elsewhere. I try not to be one of those people who puts very personal stuff online as I like my privacy but er yehp, I left a relationship that was really exhausting and felt like I was pouring all my energy into a black hole. Compromise is good but bending yourself into opposite shapes all the time is not good for you, at least not long term. We always need to have integrity about who we really are don’t we.

So it’s been a little horrible, but my legs and arms didn’t fall off so I reckon I just need to chin up and groove on. Life’s a lot worse for some. Summer’s begun and my creativity has returned… and I found a painting day. Yumminnyyumminnyyumminnyyum.

 

Midnight

Oil on board. 13 x 13cm. 2016

****

Where I have moved to is a nice houseshare with two other people. I don’t have a TV in my bedroom, just a tablet which I watch and use occasionally, but not much. I’m not a big television watcher really. I kind of wish I was, I’d have more in common with most people. I like pottering to music or the radio. Anyway I started reading a bit more and I’m liking it a lot. When I was at work walking down the corridors, I can still feel the world of the book fresh in my head and I love that. At the moment I am reading the sequel to Samantha Shannon’s The Bone Season. It’s called The Mime Order. I reckon I’ll curl up and read it in a bit. Nice to find an hour or so before I’m back at work tomorrow.

Aside from that, we are going through a weird Summer here (and everywhere).  I find it so hard to comprehend the things happening around the globe at the moment and the potential consequences ahead  it really freaks me out. I deleted what I tried to write. Too much is happening and I don’t own the right brain to give words to it. We just brexited also, which is another unknown – a strange time.

Below is the Temple of Bel at Palmyra. I just reworked it a bit. It’s not a good painting, but I’ve felt so touched by the situation at Palmyra over the past year or so. The capture by Isis, the barbaric cultural destruction, the killing of heritage and identity and people including Khaled al-Assad, the recapture by the Syrian regime and the political showmanship of the Russians who flew over an orchestra to perform a grand concert in it, to say look how helpful we are. It represented so many things and mirrors so many other heritage sites. I’ve since accidentally stumbled upon a few articles and podcasts about it. Sychronicity.

People’s lives…

Hostage

Oil on board. 13 x 13cm. 2016

Spring at last :)))

Madnanna

Oil on board. 13 x 13cm. 2016

***

This painting above is now dry from my last visit, so time to post. Today I spent painting something completely different that’s been on my list for ages (‘Hostage’). It’s been giving me a freeeeaking hard time and I nearly wiped it off the board several times today and actually looking at it now, it just annoys me so I have to hang it upside down. I’m not sure if I’m having trouble with this new ground or even the colour I primed with but the paints not been sitting right, the colours don’t look right and it’s been kind of dull to paint and I had to change it already in different ways…ugh… but the feeling behind the painting is strong for me, so I didn’t want to discard it. I’ve cleaned my brushes for today so will have a repaint of it another time and will know whether to leave it. Not everything works.

I have two weeks of annual leave. How amazing. It’s like a dream fortnight to do whatever I like. Today and tomorrow I am doing my yoga and painting, tomorrow I will go stay at my sisters for a couple of days, the weekend back home with my boyfriend and then Monday, la la laaaaa I am off to Cadiz and Madrid; a free ranger. Moorish surroundings, a little sunshine and a tonne of art.

Watcherwoman

Watcherwoman

Oil on board. 13 x 13cm. 2016

*

So this was what I did after my sanding and grounding the other day. I seem to have been quite productive that day. She’s kinda creepy isn’t she.

My Stairway to Heaven

 

I’m just off two night shifts. Horaay. Travelling here across London, dumping my bag and heading upstairs with my tea, standing below a mysterious white hatch, using a pole and pulling down some unfoldable metal stairs – I am feeling a growwwwwing sense of relief. Get me up there! I freakin love this feeling of opening up this space to reveal time for myself. I look forward so much to being in this hideout, with the top skylight windows that look up to the sky and open front and back to reveal the noise of the world outside; the street life outside. I can see to the London Eye, to the Gerkin, the BT Tower.

The smell of the primer and paint as I walk is so comforting. Changing into my painting t-shirt and apron is like relaxing into my real skin and I really feel a hope raise within me of better things (sometimes things are quite hard outside eh?). I am happy to be here to have a day painting, listening to BBC radio, podcasts, music. This is a place to create and be free, but also my sanity at the moment ;) After today Later I will head back across London to my flat and job.

I’m late here today as I went to the gym and then to collect a package but hey I made it. Today I am sanding my gesso boards. I tried painting on them and they are beautiful but sadly sucked in the oil of my paint in a nanosecond!! Argh! so yes the process of painting that picture was not as I intended. The remedy? I’m hoping x2 layers of thixotropic primer will be stable atop the rabbitskin gesso. I called my old art tutor and he agreed to try that. Fingers crossed.

 

February

Here I am again with a new painting.

Mane

Oil on Board. 13 x 13cm. 2016

*

I was struggling for a while there back in November and December. The usual ups and downs; golds and blacks. I feel better now. Phew. I booked a week off work mid January to chill out and walk, cycle and do some yoga. I decided not even to paint or to put any pressure on myself, just to be home and rest. I think we all work too much sometimes and even the tiniest things get to us when they are no big deal. A few months later you can have a sense of humour again and be more carefree. Works a bind, but it’s a luxury too. We are lucky to have jobs.

I went to the Chantal Joffe and the Elizabeth Peyton shows last Saturday, which were great. Joffe’s one of my favourite painters, although I could never paint like her. I *love* her sloppy, careless style. She says she can never do anything slowly! cooking, painting – anything. I was listening to interviews with her recently and have quite taken to her unusual character and ways of expressing herself – rather quiet and almost humble but the teensiest bit arrogant too, in the way that she rubbishes certain questions put to her and she will paint whatever she wants really. Integrity. Some other things… she works on coloured ground (ie, apple green that shows through, ‘it’s quite exciting’!), she often paints from photos, she paints either very small or very large and says she can’t paint in-between size because it just doesn’t work. She drew books and books of her family as a child and even now she draws and paints what interests her at that time in her life… sex, family, motherhood. She looks back at other artists like Degas etc and tries to feed this in to here own work and ideas
Elizabeth Peyton’s work was good, although the exhibition was not big. Quite pared back.
http://www.victoria-miro.com/exhibitions/487/
http://www.sadiecoles.com/artists/peyton#ep-elizabeth-peyton-2016

I just missed the Peter Blake portraits exhibition at the Waddington Custot Gallery by an hour. I got up there on the last day to see it in good time and the bloody gallery closes at lunch on a Saturday. I was gutted. I saw a little, face pressed against the window and it was looking good! Nevermind. That’s life!

My ***new*** gesso panels arrived this week. Twenty of them – they are gorgeous. I’ve always made my own 13 x 13cm panels, but this time having no studio I had to get them made. Luckily my friend gave me a wonderful contact. Excitinmallighting :))))

Also, I booked a ticket to Madrid and Cadiz in April. Madrid is full of art and museums and Cadiz is one of the oldest cities in Europe with many Moorish influences. My boyfriend doesn’t want to come abroad so I am travelling alone, which I haven’t done this since my Vienna/Budapest trip. It should be fun!

End of 2015

These are some paintings I made in December as I had a little annual leave. I didn’t make as much as I wanted but I never do, so paralysed I am by suddenly having the time off I have waited for for months and months! I have been trying to work in a faster hand so that my brushstrokes show a little more. I like the brushstrokes that show in many painters’ work that I admire. It’s more gutsy than hiding it, it’s more expressive, less controlled. I find the longer I work on a piece, the more it tightens and feels claustrophic. Does that make sense? When I see photorealist painting, yes its beautiful and so impressive in it’s skillfullness but it also makes me feel so tight around the collar.

 

Melonhead

Oil on Board. 13 x 13cm. 2015

Sister

Oil on Board. 13 x 13cm. 2015

Night Kite

Oil on Board. 13 x 13cm. 2015

 

117

Oil on Board. 13 x 13cm. 2015

Puff.

Oil on Board. 27 x 27cm. 2015

Blush / Shame

I had my first two full days in my little studio space in two months. It seems work does pull you away from all the fun stuff a lot of the time. I was pulled out of my usual role in theatres and sent to a four-hour in a Powerpoint audit training session on Monday afternoon and nearly died. I freaked out in my head and felt as far away as I could possibly be, from this place.

I was sitting in a session talking about stuff I had never put my hand up for in this job to be honest, and normally where as I can muster enthusiasm for even the dullest of tasks, the white walls, fluro lights, excel sheets and talk of writing reports killed my spirit! The worst thing I could imagine was the idea of me having to pour over charts and graphs and sitting down doing that stuff. By the end of the session I was painting big messy landscapes on those white walls (in my head of course) and planning a trip to Cornwall and searching for a face in the room that echoed my own claustrophobia.

This reminded me of a printing tutor of mine who had one day found himself managing a carpet factory and had a similar freak out moment years back, so he made a swift exit and now he runs a print room and is a pretty big player in the etching world. Now, there’ll be no swift exit for me I’ll have you know, as this is London 2015 and we all need to work to stay, but I will not get lost in this machine that is the NHS. I love to care for my patients, but it is very hard and tiring so I do need my something else! I go all loopy if not.

I’ve since been to a couple of exhibitions (film installations at Richard Saltoun and Ambika P3), walked on the beloved Heath that I miss living alongside and painted like a moron for a good twenty hours today and yesterday. There is a build up in the first difficult stages of a painting when you can’t do and it won’t go and it won’t work… and then the moment where it sort of clicks and breaks through this phase to a place where you think, oh yes this is going to work and actually be quite exciting when it feels complete. It spurs you on.

So I feel better now!!! I feel more like me and less like an excel sheet lover. I am almost not bothered about going into work on a Saturday tomorrow. So this is what I did today… not sure what it’s called yet… Blush/ Shame. It’s still wet so I’l post a better picture when it’s dryer next week.

Blush / Shame

Oil on Board. 27 x 27cm. 2015

Swimmer

Swimmer.

Oil on Board. 27 x 27cm. 2015

So I know I haven’t posted or written on here for ages, but nevertheless life and art and all the stuff in between carries on. I am still working lots in theatres in the hospital singing people to sleep for their operations alongside the anaesthetist laaaa! I just moved home. It has felt like a huge upheaval as I was so attached to where I was and loved it dearly, but I am very happy where I live now, with who I live and the feel of our home. I felt the need to take a pause making art whilst this was going on, plus extra night shifts and stuff so I’ve just gone with it really and not given myself too much grief about it (although naturally there is always this guilt and feeling of separation from your true self when you get overly caught up with alot of other things and people). It’s good and bad. You need one, you need it’s opposite.

Anyway, in our flat, I brought along one paintings to have on the wall. It’s the first time I’ve lived in the same space as my artwork and actually I like seeing it there each day and I am really liking the types of blues and the greens I put in it. In fact I am loving green at the moment generally. Everything green just glows for me right now.

Whilst I have a couple of days earmarked for painting in the next fortnight, I am thinking more and more about the importance of doing more drawing. I never do it anymore. I have come away from it and I used to be so good at it and have almost developed a fear! So this is my next focus.

Research drawing for inspiration: books like Vitamin P// Pinterest artists//
Art spaces: C4RD, Princes Drawing School, Jerwood?
Draw, draw, draw anything. Keep it simple and quick and frequent.
Keep notebooks around anywhere! Draw any old shit. From real and from unreal. Patterns squiggles, people, anything Just put pencil on paper.

Obsess.over.Drawing.

Begin.

Another cheeky day at the studio…

I squeezed these peachy cheeks in between my two night shifts and tomorrow’s 12 hour shift. I love painting bottoms it seems! I really enjoyed it… I may paint more.

Monologue

Oil on Board. 13 x 13cm. 2015

I painted a couple of duds recently. Not everything works naturally. It’s good to be able to see when it does and doesn’t.
I think my new loft studio space is feeling a bit cramped; all my paintings are stacked on top of one another (which gives me the heebie-jeebies) and I no longer have wall or floor space really, apart from slanting walls which I could perhaps stick a few paper works to. I need to put up some fine nails or horizontal dowling along the wall very soon I feel, just to have some space. I can’t wreck it too much as it’s a borrowed space. It’s pretty claustrophobic work-wise, yet at least there is lots of air and light and it is free. I like hearing the people outside and my family downstairs doing their own bits and pieces. I really do miss Westland Place but having this space means that I can fit in smaller chunks of time like today where painting is not an hour’s journey away, but a climb up a ladder. I always crave to be painting more and more and of course I wish I worked far less, but for now, this is life! It’s OK :)