It’s only the second day since things have resumed back to ‘normal’ – work, day care, early morning alarms and full up train carriages. Coffees that are too hot and people trying to aline their schedules to get things done.

Things get done, but there is always more to do.

How does such a small amount of play-dough spread so far? It is in everything and it has smudged every surface.

Nigh times have become sleepless again – there is so much screaming and tears and stomping and begging and negotiating and defeat and resentment.

I’m feeling overwhelmed today – as though I hold no power over my life. Not even my sleep. I can’t get sleep. No matter what I do – all the tips and tricks from Super Nanny and 1,2,3 Magic fail us in the night.

Everything fails in the night.

Where did I go wrong? Am I over indulging? Am I saying the wrong thing at the wrong time?   Am I too kind when I am meant to be strict and too strict when I am meant to be kind? Is it obvious but I am just too damn tired to see it? Is it to do with me?! Well, it has to be – it’s always the parents fault .. right?

I don’t want to go down the fault line. Because then there is pointing fingers and fuelling fires and just feeling more unhappy than we already do. I just want sleep and happy – fuck, even content would do.

Day two and I’m already struggling.

The above drawing seems like it was made by another person; a person with hands and eyes that are co ordinated and thoughtful in that well rested kind of way – not the mess that sits here banging on these keys.

Husband has been home for the last two weeks and it has been AMAZING.

I’ve got filming to do today, then I’ll have to collect Toddler in the rain and make us dinner – I have no idea what to make. How come the dinner conundrum keeps reappearing?

Maybe we’ll just have ‘fuck it toasties’ and curl up together on the couch.

I bought Kidlet craft things for tomorrow and I cannot wait to cover this place in glitter and little plastic eyes.

Having a kid means having awesome.

Lately I’ve been looking at all the things in our house – and when we are out shopping for our house – and thinking ‘gosh, that’d make a great drawing.’

( Yes, gosh! )

We bought a vintage kitchen cabinet off of gumtree with etched and curve glass and original paint job and I cannot wait to make an artwork out of it.

It’s nice to take a break from portraiture for a bit – I love doing it but it is intense work, on so many levels. Since I have started doing portraits of other people I have been confronted with how much other work goes into the act of making portraits.

To begin with, I have to be confident in approaching people to ask them to pose for me, negotiate a time and a location that suits both them and myself. Then I have to make sure I have the camera working and be able to direct people – there have been a few embarrassing sessions where the battery has been flat or I even just plain forgot to bring it along. Then while I select the work and begin the portrait I have to be conscious of bringing into my work something that they – the ‘model’ – would like. I’m not sure I have always achieved this, I think that sometimes I have produced work that has been unnerving or confronting for people – but I hope it is in the act of seeing themselves as an artwork and not that I made something they hate.

There’s been a lot written about artists and their subjects and how we ( have to ) objectify – I’m not sold on that idea at all. While I’m busy learning peoples faces, bone structures, flesh tones and collarbones – I am always thinking about these parts belonging to a whole person, a being.

Even my writing about the process is tiring to me. It’s a good thing but it’s such a big thing and so sometimes I need to deviate from it and just make work that is easier for my hands and brain. So I’m still exercising all those drawing muscles but I’m not running the risk of burning myself out.

These cameras are like a holiday for me – I still have to breathe and eat and wash but it’s all on my own time, a nice pause before I launch myself back into the routines of the everyday.

Reblogged from Jason Roberts:

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Rajasthan is like an artist's dream. Scarcely a day goes by that I'm not browsing through my sketchbooks and photos from my visits there, and frankly it's all too rarely that I get to paint large studio pieces from my times there.

So it was with much anticipation last month that after almost two years I was able to dedicate myself to completing a watercolour of the horse market that I spent a week or so exploring in 2011 (part of the much larger Nagaur Camel Fair, discussed in an earlier blog entry).

Read more… 1,086 more words

And so, the weekend comes to a close – it’s been a great weekend despite some of the emails in my inbox. I’ve been hesitant to write here as I feel like this space is no longer a safe space.

Or maybe that’s what people would like me to believe so I will stop.

Or maybe it isn’t that sinister – but I could feel the heat coming off of those words.

It’s been mentioned here before, an idea of this – Berlin Domestic – being turned into a book. It’s been asked of me – by several different people – when I am going to start writing a book.

What kind of book, perhaps a memoir.

Like Jo Case with Boomer and Me, like Patti Smith with Just Kids.

The idea of writing a book seems so out of reach for me but I’ve always wanted to do it. Maybe I hadn’t yet because my voice has always been too open, too honest. I’m too obvious and too quick to bare all. It’s taken by people as if it is some huge investment – bulked down and tarnished with the want to feel sad, or being hateful – but this is just me. It’s what comes out when I bang on the keys. This is my voice. Perhaps people had just never heard it before and now they discover that they actually don’t like it.

And that’s OK, I don’t think everyone needs to like me – but actively seeking out my blog, my twitter and yes one day, my book, and expecting me to be accountable for your thoughts and feelings is not. It’s not OK to expect me to stop, like I owe you something, if anything – you should stop reading.

But while I truly believe all of the above I can’t deny that I haven’t been very hurt by these observations. So I ask myself, do I stop before I lose more people? Is it safe to write a book when I know how upset I can get?  When you write a book and unleash the object that will be permanently circulating in the world – will you be accountable for it for the rest of your life? How do I know if I will be OK with that?

Is this why art is easier for me than words – because I can hide in it.

I haven’t work in four years, I haven’t done this kind of work for even longer than that and all work I have done has been in regard to art, writing, assisting people. I was in out of my depth and I found the woman in charge and told her. She was great about it and said that she respected me for being so honest. I could have hugged her, but that would have been unprofessional.

This week has been brutal. I’m really not sure where I stand anymore – I’m so sick of my past smashing into my present.

So I went to the National Gallery of Victoria and I just took some art in. I used to work there for a number of years, I went to drawing lessons there as a wee one and the current installation brought me such peace I felt like I could hug it too. 

I don’t know where I’m at, I don’t feel I belong, I don’t feel embraced and I don’t feel good about a lot of people lurking around the edges of my life. I think it’s time to knuckle down, maybe even delete facebook ( AGAIN ) for a little while and really just do things for me.

And the Toddler, obviously, because she depends on me.

And I her.

Sometimes things come up and remind me of the old days – and not in that carefree I was so young way, but in that oh dear I was so unhappy kind of way.

I was surrounded by people who I had to second guess with everything – I’d analyze what I had said, how I had said it, I’d weigh up if my actions could in any way be translated in a way to offend. It’s a tiring way of being and I think I was really good at weighing up threat due to my childhood and living with somebody who was explosive.

Good at weighing up but not good with dealing with it.

For a long time I knew that people who were meant to be friends saw me in a negative light – it’s not new to me to be accused of being hateful or unable to let go. People would tell me about what other people were saying about me and I tried so damn hard to turn that negative focus into a positive one. And I admit, I just made things worse!

It hurts me when I get cut off and put down in front of people. It really hurts when I’m dismissed and told off and never given the benefit of the doubt. It hurts when I can tell I’m being manipulated but if I call it out deemed as paranoid. Unless I go along with everything I’m not going to be able to put a foot right.

I think I’ve stomped all over everything and smashed all the delicate glass wear.

But if the small things that I do provoke such strong reactions, if I’m not given a chance to have a dialogue, if its a question of my backing down and admitting hey yeah – I am a terrible, spiteful, horrible person – you’re right! Maybe it isn’t ME. Because I know when react strongly to things – it’s usually coming from something within me. I know what when something repeats itself – its usually because I haven’t dealt with it and yes it is my own shit but yes it is very normal.

I am normal and I won’t be told by other people that I am not. I am critical of behavior but that does not mean I hate. I am open and vulnerable – but that does not mean I am weak.

Little things that happen on the Internet are little things that happen on the Internet. They are unbiased and we can read into them what we will. But it isn’t my responsibility to monitor everything and to track people down and attempt to open up dialogues over and over again. It isn’t my job to give people perspective.

While I’m saddened by everyone not getting along – which is truly all I want – I’m accepting now that this is more to do with just me.

Perhaps also, people need to accept some responsibility – you come here to read this, you come here to read my thoughts and feelings and my life. If that’s a way of holding onto things and having something you can throw at me and use against me – how has that got anything to do with me? What control do I have over that? Ever heard of the term ‘hate read’..

Blogging certainly is an interesting territory. It’s mocked but my gosh people react strongly, which amazes me.

Next post will be back to drawings, I promise.

The site is under my name, as is the blog and to be honest I didn’t think anyone was reading it. It’s hard to feel like a blog has a public voice when no one interacts with it ( ie: leaves comments ) and you’re writing from a tiny little house in a small city on the other side of the world – as I was.

But the thing is, it was being read.

My old blog has seen many different changes – as I have tried to edit, alter, correct and tweak it to suit the person, the artist and the writer I have been and have become. It was a place where I published a lot of not so great writing – but it got me writing. So part of me goes to feel slight regret or shame at the content and the structure of those posts – but then I think of all the good stuff that has come out of it.

That being said I am very critical of my actions and have always taken on board feedback – this I think is a good thing but I am also aware that in the past I have taken on other peoples rections and feedback to a point where I ignore my on thoughts and feelings – which are just as valid. It’s only recently I have come to really understand that I need to stick up for me – because nobody else can.

Feedback is a tricky thing to navigate – I don’t want to be dismissive but I don’t want to take too much of it on. After-all, people come at this armed with their own experiences and will read things how they will read them.

But should that stop me? Should I explain myself? Do I owe people an explanation because this is in a public sphere? Should I apologize to all the people I may have maybe, possibly based any characters on?

I’m no longer convinced I should – I no longer feel I have to explain myself or justify anything because this is my story. People have taken liberty to explain to me that there are more sides to the one story, that these are my perceptions and memories – there is no one point where I have ever stated otherwise.

I feel that also because of the nature of a blog it’s very easy for people to accuse me of writing things out of spite however, as I have said, people will read what they will in writing, they will see me how they see me.

All I can and will do is carry on and maybe people will come to see me for what I am one day, or not. But through my writing – all of my mistakes and bad poetry – I have really come to know who I am.

Working from home, alone, spending long amounts of time in my own head and never – ever – making any money means even the little things can crush you – me, can crush me.

I’m walking on the edge of plans that keep changing and these are changes out of my control. I feel work that I have poured my time into have been overlooked and I’m wondering why am I doing this when I can’t really tell if anyone cares of not.

We all need validation, so please don’t give me the ‘artists are narcissist’ spiel – because that’s just bullshit. People need validation from their jobs, their relationships – everything. And people get that in other jobs – through promotions, through the pay cheque they receive every two weeks or month. Where’s that for me? Can I promote me? I get it through comments on a blog, likes on facebook, retweets… Sometimes I get it from surprising myself but I still think it is a weird state to be and it is so very fragile.

So I’m thinking instead of following this usual pattern to the usual outcome – I’m thinking fuck that, I’m going to try out new things. If the stuff that I am struggling with is worth it, I’ll come back to it. But I don’t want this down time or to listen to my self doubt because really – it’s my perception. My perception changes how I feel – but not how things actually are.

I’m doing a mixture of taking on a huge, daunting task that is out of my usual experience as well as little, fun things that make me happy. We see what we will see.