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.
Merry Christmas Dijanne,
ReplyDeleteas 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.
ReplyDeleteI 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.