Make Good Art or Get Creative (by sarah)

This speech by the writer Neil Gaimon I found extremely powerful especially for someone like me who has to do creative things to survive.

But also the fact that I have not done things the normal way and that I keep hitting barriers such as I don't have an art degree so therefore do not count as an artist for some people. I am in a space inbetween. When I hear or read that others have not done it the normal way either it gives me hope.

Also I feel encouraged that I am not the only person who finds that trying to do projects for money fail and end up leaving you worse off than you started but the ones you do because it's a fun idea race ahead and are successful.

He mentions the changing landscape of publishing too which for me is an emotive subject - I really think I am going to continue on my own path with my blogs and getting my own CDs printed and what have you. I have tried traditional publishing twice now and both time the company has gone bust or something similar - one still having the rights to the work I'd done so I didn't even end up with it and worse they have not done anything with it :/

My first attempt at crowd funding has been a huge success 🙂 So I am very happy with that.

He mentions throwing bottles into the sea and then they all start coming back and you have to learn to say no. And you know - this is actually happening - though I would say I have been shouting into the void and now the echos are not only coming back but are bouncing and reflecting and propagating and I am having to turn things down! (But please still ask as I may not be doing stuff that weekend etc... or like with the Stroud Water Festival - what I was supposed to be doing may have been canceled).

I do feel a bit weird though it is just like suddenly I am this person that people know of - I'm getting pounced by people who I do not know who start chatting to me about my art (ok well this has always happened quiet alot but frequency has increased!).

It is bizar but I do feel like a fake - really? Me? That thing I made in the middle of the night? That story I wrote whilst breast feeding the baby at 5 am? The knitting I did at a festival whilst listening to my favourite local bands? That really? You like it?

It is not all positive feedback mind - one of my best friends hates my songs, I was accused at the Poetry Festival of being arrogant as my business cards say Artistic Scientist and Scientific Artist. Alaric cringes at my Wiggly Pet stories and visual puns. Performance poets see me as a page poet, page poets see me as performance or worse experimental and the artists are scared or the science part and the scientists are like 'you have no PhD!' and I have people ranting at me over spelling mistakes on my blogs...

But....

That is small compared to what is coming back to me at the moment. I keep thinking I'm so lucky how has this come about? But it is such a knife edge world really - I'm getting bookings now but 6 months down the line? And also it still isn't actually making money 🙁 And what it does make tends to be for charity.

But you know people are excited about Ballads of the Scientifica and there have been requests for a Wiggly Pet book and for t-shirts with things like my Normali Tea picture on.

If you watch/listen to Neils speech he says make good art, I would change that to Get Creative.

When I tore the ligaments in my ankle and had to be flown home from a field trip in the desert I GOT CREATIVE - I made Wiggly Pets

When I had to take a year out for medical treatment to my back - I GOT CREATIVE - I began writing and designed a series of childrens' science stories.

When I found myself having nearly died, and crippled from childbirth, boiling with anger and fear - I GOT CREATIVE - I started writing a novel and so was found in a cafe by the now Cheltenham Poetry Festival Director.

When our house was flooded I GOT CREATIVE and designed childrens activities to entrain my toddler.

When I got shingles and had to rest and give up the Master degree for the second time I found the Paleo Art community and began drawing trilobites and things.

When I was devastated about miscarriage I constructed The Punk In Pink personality.

When I was petrified of going to the hospital to have little Mary I wrote poems about that fear and about having a separated pelvis.

When we were being chucked out of our home I made a poem about how the home is not the building but the people with in.

And so on. There is an even larger list of good times and being creative but that would make this post silly long! 🙂

Basically as I have struggled to build my own serendipity funnel and have just reached my perceived tipping point and this talk resonated so strongly that it made me cry (yes I know that will be the hormones).

If you haven't already listen to it 🙂 But most of all Get Creative!

Roller Bladding with Style (by sarah)

Jean picked up some rollar blades for 50p on a charity stall and could not resist trying them out when we got home. This ment that whilst I was putting away shopping and what have you, there was a CRASH, clatter, clunk and thonk from the kitchen.

I go in to find Jean a pile on the kitchen floor, she was wearing the rollar blades, three festival tails and her new angry birds hat. She was already picking herself up to continue the experiment when I reminded her that they were an outside toy.

'Oh yeah' she said and disappeared out the back door, she has since been seen chasing cats, rabbits and babies 🙂

Molecular Knitting (by sarah)

This is my knitted sucrose molecule still missing some of it's hydrogens. It has worked out both better and worse than I expected - as a first attempt I think it's great personally. My long term plan is to knit molecular assembles so groups of molecules as say found in tea, comet tails and chocolate... you get the idea 🙂

The finished knit is part of the work I will have on display at Centre Arts Cheltenham as part of their charity Exhibition Please Touch. The idea behind my knitted molecule is to give a tactile visualisation as it were of what how a molecule fits together - it is basically a model.

They have also asked for The Tree of Life Coral to be there which makes me very excited - I would have loved to have the sound cave up and running for this but it took too long to get the basic funding so that is going to appear later in the year and at a few things next year. There is still time to fund the Sound/Sensory Cave though not much! I have reached target but the excess money will go towards a science-art exhibition next year in March.

Grumpy, Dumpty Had a Fall (by sarah)

So yeah - things have been great and everything is on the up but today I am more than a grump 🙁

Yesterday I decided to try out my new walking stick and took it out for a spin which I was very excited about - it being purple and not the crutch and therefore it felt more me and more like a step forward. I am sick of the crutch and I don't need it for say the outward bit of the walk but after a bit I do need it so a walking stick I could pack away seemed like a good idea.

But it turns out to be defective and the pin to hold it in place is not long enough so the top bit slides. And so whilst out I had a bit of a fall as it basically 'collapsed' as in the handle came right off. This jarred my left shoulder which is my weak akward shoulder. This hasn't acted up alot in the last few years due to all the pregnancy hormones running around in my system but as the bleeding has slowed so the pain has come back along with the weakness and the alarming clicking, colour change and all the rest of it.

This ment I was in quiet a bit of pain when I got back especially as walking with the stick wasn't as easy as with the crutch and my pelvis was acting up by the time I got home. I was also very tired from the weekend where admittedly I had rather over done it.

So I thought I would have a nice bath to ease the pains away.

Which was great especially as I had stolen my dad's new book Snuff - a Discworld novel I haven't actually read.

But then it came time to get out. Due to the pelvis I have to heave myself out with my arms sort of like the horse thing with handles on the top that we used to use in gym when I was at school. Until about March Alaric was still having to get me in and out of baths but I've been fine for ages. Anyway my shoulder was bad and my hand and arm just lost all strength meaning I fell back into the bath.

Now I am still 12 stone 🙁 so you can imagine the tidal wave that poured over the side, plus, I hit my head and slipped under the water which really scared me. It jarred my pelvis and I hit the top my right arm on the bath.

I then tried to get out of the bath but couldn't and then found that I had not taken my phone with me - and so I called and called and called and cried and shouted and screamed as I was stuck and coughing up bath water still. The main issue wasn't the pain it was realising I was completely helpless.

I woke the baby up but still no Alaric, he it turned out had gone to his workshop thinking I had my phone plus I'd been fine for weeks and had even had baths whilst he was in Bristol though they are normally timed so I'm getting out once he is home.

He rescued me and had to help me put my pjs on and get into bed. Where I was in too much pain to sleep even with my pain killers, my right arms had started swelling and so I tried to read and make the best of it.

Today I've not been as bad as I could have been - I can still walk and there is just a dull pain at the side of my tail bone on the right hand side, my ribs on the left hurt for some reason, the shoulder still aches and left arms a bit floppy and the right upper arm is still swollen and bruised which has been interesting with the baby today. I'm afraid I gave her carb rich food and warm milk and put her back in her cott at lunch time for a nap so that I could take my stronger pain killers which wipe me out. Al phoned just before Jean was due home and we were both still asleep.

I have completely failed to do anything constructive today including going to the Science Festival which is now a no go for me until about Friday which really sucks 🙁 I'm sort of cheering myself up by stalking the people I was going to see on Twitter and reading their webpages and watching talks they've done on youtube instead.

Stroud Water Festival 40 yrs Party (by sarah)

Last weekend we went to the Stroud On Water Festival for me to read my poetry - it was on our wanting to do list anyway so I was very happy to be asked and in some ways wish we had been able to spend the whole weekend there but obviously I had originally been booked for another festival which had to be canceled due to flooding. (Today we are off to another wet looking festival!).

It was a lovely festival with victorians wondering in to listen to poetry.

I got fed coffee, eton mess and other goodies whilst listening to the other poetry - Alaric and girls missed my performances which was a shame.

After the poetry we wondered about and bought plants and things and looked mainly at bees!

It was the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the restoration of the canals - so here are some photos of work on the canals 🙂

They had a steam roller!

But for me I think the highlight of the day was that as Alaric and the girls left a tent I heard '....good to see the Gotye impersonator has bought his children along...' I missed the rest of the conversation so am not sure it was Alaric that was ment but I think it must have been 🙂 On top of that random people he meets are now saying the same to him :/