Walls and Bridges
I've had the title of that John Lennon album in my head a lot lately,"Walls and Bridges". It's hard not to be amazed and mystified by apparently pointless walls when you're out on the Cumbrian fells and other upland bits of the North of England. As I'm labouring up a hill puffing and panting, I often wonder at the poor soul who had to build the miles and miles of drystone walls, often heading up the most vertiginous slopes, that drape over the landscape like strings of dirty grey and green pearls. The walls have been there for centuries and often mark the boundary between fertile land, intake and the open fell side -the boundaries must be mainly symbolic as sheep are very good at ignoring them. Recently there were protests all over the world against Trump's border wall plans and since I didn't have a banner or a nearby bridge I made a little paper banner for the bridge in a sketch I'd made last year and added my tiny voice to the others who were saying #BridgesNotWalls. Since then the stream of outrageous announcements from the USA has grown into a torrent and I watch horrified from my corner of a small valley in the Lake District and feel helpless, wishing yet again that I could DO something or at least articulate the opposing view without getting over emotional and crying "Why can't we just be nice to each other?" like a foot stamping child.
Lying awake and worrying about the world isn't very useful for anyone when you're meant to be preparing to conquer the world ( peacefully) at BCTF in just 2 months time! Yes I decided at the last minute that it was important to take part again this year, despite the financial hit, as there is no doubt that it really helped to get my work seen (and sold) in lots of wonderful places last year and probably more usefully, focussed my thoughts on what it is I'm trying to do. I've learned some hard lessons and being a sensitive creature I've been on a real roller coaster at times ( and if you know me in person you'll know that I would never get on a roller coaster willingly... it would involve chloroform and heavy lifting gear of some sort). Despite all my reservations I'm really looking forward to it now that it's booked and I'm thinking of it as a bit of an early birthday treat...it's not often I get to stay in hotels so I've booked one with a pool so that Sara and I can float about relaxing after a hard day selling.
This year I'm thinking of moving away from some of the smaller, time consuming (and therefore less profitable) things such as the printed and embroidered notebooks and I've been enjoying working with larger pieces of one off cyanotype prints, on fabric, to make lamps, shades and candle lanterns; these as well as the original framed work and some new greetings cards will be the main part of my collection. I've also been making some patterns to have digitally printed after getting hooked on Photoshop again. I made a pair of pyjamas last week using a pattern printed directly onto one of my Spoonflower fabric designs and I had enough fabric left over to make a tortoise fabric table lamp too; there are so many exciting possibilities.
To get more organised and terrify myself to a jelly with figures, profit margins and sales targets I've just received my copy of the Makers Business Toolkit Yearbook which is a great idea from Nicola Taylor a photographer who I met when I lived in Yorkshire. I'm running a month behind, as I only got it this week, but already it's forcing me to look at some questions that you will probably find it surprising and foolish ( but not uncommon) that I hadn't already asked, such as "How many mugs or lamps or prints or current buns would I have to sell to actually make any money and pay the rent?" Well, pass me the chloroform, I'm off to get on board that rickety roller coaster to do the maths and then tick the boxes in the planner that state my tasks for today are complete 1. make cyanotypes. 2.write blog 3.look at numbers
Thank you for reading. By the way you still have 24 hours to take advantage of the 20% discount code SNOWDROPS in my Easy shop :)Reading:- "Swing Time" Zadie Smith Listening To:- Mind Games - John Lennon Shop/Web:- Fat and the Moon I came across this via an Instagram post this week. Rachel had just found out that her home had burnt down while she was travelling and she'd lost everything. Her attitude was a revelation to me, so positive and strong.