Dangerously listing actually ....

... that's me at this pre-exhibition moment.

It's all very well putting pictures up cyberwise on the worldwide web but my anxiety levels know no bounds when it comes to the prospect of actually hanging the actual pieces in an actual gallery in an actual location.

Complications arise when that gallery is abroad and I have to add the worry of normal travel details like how many clothes and bits and pieces I can stuff into hand luggage.

The large case will be stuffed solely with writers' houses.

So at least that's simple.

 

My answer to all this is to go into list-making overdrive.

I write everything down on bits of paper.

And given that the studio is naturally awash with bits of paper anyway these lists tend to go under never to resurface ...

 

So the first and last item on these lists now generally begin with "Do list".

 

In between I am darting up and down to the framer.

And revising each image.

And adding bits and changing bits.

Like the latest house above which got two more birds and a bit more foliage before glazing.

 

Anyway, just look at this posting....

 

.... I have made another list.

 

(And you now know why I haven't been around much just lately).

Photo shoot chez naive art house

Portrait of a grumpy woman

I am grumpy, stressed out and fed up. Now there's a rivetting way to start a post. (That's not me above, I hasten to add, just a little picture that chimes with my general mood). I am in need of getting down to some serious image-making but all I seem to be doing is shuffling pieces of official paper from one end of town to another or even worse, one town to another. And I daren't even think about the hours of waiting in air-conditioned, miserably-lit depressing offices adorned with hideous paintings where windows should be. 

THEN, in the same fortnight, being the glutton for punishment I already know myself to be, I embark on my Etsy adventure. (Etsy is an online shop community). Stand up anyone who believed the blurb about it being easy-peasy. On second thoughts, don't if you value your life. I was struggling at it all day again yesterday. THEN this morning I woke up to cat sick in the living room and a massive orange spider in the bath.

THEN I switched on the televison and saw the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph and all my selfish troubles and whinges were kicked into insignificant perspective...

Sooooo ..... back to this Etsy emporium of mine (opening Monday or Tuesday) - it requires photography so I have been stabbing away at every damned setting on the camera hoping that something sharp and appealing and hopefully legible would emerge. That is my usual coping method with any technology whatsoever, be it camera, computer, washing machine or telephone - stab away until it works.

Anyway, here's a sampler of some more acceptable (ie less blurry) images.

I found some nice frames for my Keatsian mini prints:

 

And here's my Mad Cat Lady in her frame:

 

And that's enough for now otherwise there'll be no surprise. It'll be a relief to think that maybe next week I will be able to emerge from this horrible chrysalis and start making things that have been buzzing around in my head again in peace and I hope this grumpy whining post will explain to those people with whom I have not been communicating over the past fortnight how things have been. 

My most abject apologies.

Think of it as a lucky escape.