It is amazing that you can spend hours on a piece of artwork and then spend seconds ripping it up. Creativity can cross a slim line over to destruction easily, and I hit that point. I suppose this has been my lowest week, it had to come it is only natural. I have felt unsettled with the flow of my artistic abilities and a general sense of confusion in which direction to follow, topped with the strain of being the new kid on the block. I am in one sense living a dream but that doesn’t mean to say that it will be easy.

The only thing to do was to pick myself up and dust my crayons and myself down, as I feel that forwards is the only motion to traverse.



The artwork will come and I have to have faith in that. I want to do this and I cannot let insecurities hinder that.

So what better way to get oneself revved up and get the blood rushing than a spot of dancing, Scottish stylee. This is somewhat different to my usual tech-house manoeuvres I can assure you. There are lessons at the village hall and innocently I thought I might be able to sit and watch for a while, but alas my innocence was proven wrong! I was spun, dragged and twirled in a myriad of directions and as I had no clue what I was doing, I laughed the whole way through. I’m not sure this is a common or accepted response, but everyone was lovely and didn’t seem to mind the laughing novice joining in. It is another exceedingly exhausting pastime that I thoroughly enjoyed and will definitely go again. I am now wondering if this is a get fit residency rather than a colouring-in one, I’ll have to check my contract.

Went to Newcastle one afternoon to purchase and drool over materials in an art shop and also to attend an artist talk in the evening. The artists were just starting a six-month residency in Berwick Upon Tweed, which is highly regarded. Even though they are further ahead in their artistic careers than myself I hope to contact them in the near future. It would be an interesting comparison of creative journeys.

I am a little concerned at my reaction to being in a city after only one month. How can I put this……it was…..ugly and I really didn’t like being there. There were the usual city sights and lots of people in t-shirts or miniscule dresses even though it was blisteringly cold. And I know I only saw a fraction of Newcastle and didn’t get to see the beautiful parts but….. aaaaarrrggghhhh what has this new home done to me??? I’m a city girl so surely I’d feel at ease in Newcastle. Perhaps it was the mud encircling my trousers, or perhaps the bewilderment again being somewhere new, but alas I couldn’t wait to get back to the moorlands.
Blimey, how am I going to feel after one year? Will I walk the streets of Bristol with a flock of sheep at my side and bunches of heather in my arms to put my soul at ease? Apart from the angst of art this week, I love the landscape here it is eating into my heart and bones.

My lovely liaison officer Janet let me stay at her house in Newcastle that evening, firstly to aid my distress of finding my way around and secondly we had a meeting early the following morning in a rather strange location. Now hands up how many people have had meetings in a bus shelter before? I don’t mind admitting this was my first. I do have contractually a certain amount of work that involves the community and art projects and it was asked whether I’d be interested in making a local bus shelter look more attractive. Therefore we met a member of the community in said bus shelter, and as knocking it down and starting again was not an option they wanted some creative ideas. I am now currently plotting my suggestions. It was good to be thrown something completely out of the norm for me and time will tell if the ideas are accepted.

Went for my longest walk to date up and down very steep pathways to some old disused limekilns. For my walking diary, my stick and me it was a new distance record, which I was really proud of. Still loving the roads and the textures that I come across, even the sheep poo! I digress, the limekiln structure is rather satisfying and I keep thinking of the shape that the mouth of kiln forms. Records show that lime-burning was a local industry spanning 1780 – 1880’s. As land was being enclosed and farmed, the soil needed help such as drainage and lime placed on it to make it less acidic and more fertile. Today it’s the cheaper chemicals so the kilns lay abandoned.

Once a month there is a film night at the village hall and as I’ve been deprived of a TV since I’ve been here I was eager to go and watch something. The film was the ‘The Counterfeiters’, an intense wartime drama based on the true story of concentration camp Jews who escaped the gas chambers by counterfeiting for the Nazis. An incredible film that is really both interesting, heart rendering and thought provoking. Not a bad combination and definitely worth a viewing! After the film had finished a gentlemen stood up waving a piece of paper and announced to my astonishment that he had one of the counterfeit notes made in the concentration camps and did we want to pass it round. Now you don’t get that in your city center Odeon.

Anyhow it has been an intensely interesting week for me, even with the blues, its still an experience I would not miss.
Over and out….week four done!