I want to wish everyone the best for the festive season- and I hope it is enjoyable for you.It is Christmas morning here and the kids have unwrapped their parcels. We are having a fairly quiet day and sharing a Christmas meal with friends this evening.
I always reflect on the year gone by at this time of year and so thought I would post my favourite piece of everything I have made this year- it is the Letters From Home lace which I made earlier this year. I like it because it says a lot about who I am in this land where I now find myself.I also enjoyed using something tangible from my other life, a letter that my grandmother wrote to my mother. The jagged edges or the burnt edges are about the process of immigration itself and the gaps about the pain/nostalgia of things left.They will never be quite the same because they live in my mind as the memories of a nine year old- and those memories stay there and then a whole new set begins here in another language. It is like there is a split between the two things.
This year I have also been practising as a full time artist for 10 years. I started when I was still pregnant with my youngest child Ynez- she was born during 1995. Running an arts practice/ business from a room in my house with three small children underfoot was sheer madness. I am surprised I am still here , the temptation to return to law or a more secure job has always been under the surface constantly. It was the reason I did my masters ,in the hope of securing some tertiary teaching in the thing I am passionate about, but with dwindling jobs in the tertiary sector I have not much hope in that regard. I have thought of starting my own textile school in the way that Australian artists of the past started their own Art Schools for they were non-existent in the tertiary sector.
So over the next few days i think I will mull what or where I will go next. I do try and make plans which reach out for the next few years. So any ideas or suggestions would be much appreciated.
2 comments:
Merry Christmas Dijanne,
as always I like the work you are showing, I found your brief notes about it interesting, I was going to emigrate to Australia in the autumn of 1966 but my then husband changed his mind a few weeks before we were due to leave, my maternal grandparents left the islands for London so living here now I do sometimes have a feeling of coming back even though I had never lived here before but my mother told me her grandfathers stories of his time on the islands,
congratulations on your tenth birthday, I wish I could add something worthwhile for the future but alas I cannot, I expect others will so I will be back to see how this conversation goes,
Dear Dijanne, I enjoyed your blog writeup this morning. I nearly emigrated to Australia in 1966 but my husband changed his mind too. When we had a holiday in Sydney in the year 2000 I knew we would have been happy there.
I know it's difficult to make money in textiles unless you teach. It is so difficult for anyone else to suggest anything, but your idea of having a textile school is a good one, perhaps something on the same lines as http://www.gitesvendee.com/
I know you live in beautiful inspiring surroundings yourself.
I do hope you come up with some great ideas, you have managed for 10 years and it will be easier as your children grow older.
I hope you had a lovely Xmas day.
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