Gratuitous cute pic of my dog Max and my Cat Marky. I always get more hits from my images or whatever when the little furry bastards are in somethingI was scurrying around in the dark cave that is my house on the weekend. I'd had some ideas for some new pieces (pics soon!) during the week and had scribbled some ideas down. I'd also managed to find a couple of small sand dollars! Something I've been looking for, for awhile now. So creatively, there was much to do. 
I'd also had the flu for much of last week. The darling boyfriend is a very capable domestic technician and does a lot of the cleaning around the house, but when I'm sick, not sure how, we both seem to fall down on domestic duties. Or the animals run around and throw more of their fur about in the joy of having me in a snivelly pile at home. Not sure, but the house looked like a giant cat had thrown up fur (and dirty dishes? How did that get there?) around the house with gay abandon. BF also couldn't find his birth certificate. Bookshelves had gone from having a patina of dust and dog hair to a shag carpet.
Something had to be done
So before I would allow myself any chance to get to my artwork, I needed to clean. This is a strategy I developed, as I can get a little side tracked by my work. If you've read my other posts, you may be aware of my all consuming, be distracted by nothing else desire to make. So, to make sure I didn't live in completely festy conditions, I activated my inner parent and set down the rules.
"No artwork until you've cleaned your room/house/done the dishes for the first time this week"
This used to work. I'd get stuck in early Saturday morning, get everything shiny and pretty and sit down with a sense of satisfaction to make some stuff and be filled with that unique kind of self satisfaction that seems to come with cleaning (what else could you get from it. Minute I make my millions from plush/jewellery/whoring out the BF for ten bucks I'm getting a cleaner!)
Of course, something had to go wrong...
I don't believe in astrology. I think it a lot of bollocky bollocks that helps sell newspapers and brain wash the masses. Of course, the devout say that as a Taurus (yeah, no surprises there right?) I would say that but they can y'know...go fuck themselves. But in the case of my mother I will make an exception. if there was ever a card carrying picture perfect example of a Virgo, she'd be there, perfectly clean house and a white glove on her hand.
How does this relate you may ask? Well, like all people, I'm pretty good at tuning in to the Hits of the 80s: Distorted Memories of your Parents channel of internal radio, and so a little cleaning and order becomes I Want My House to be Perfectly Clean Right NOW!
I clean the bathroom sink and shower, and notice that the inside of the drawers are dirty. I clean the toilet and notice the very back at the S bend where we have a leak is collecting dust. I haven't cleaned all of the kitchen cupboards for awhile. When are we going to put up that pergola? Haven't been able to leaf blow because it's been raining. And on and on and on.
I have only the basic understanding of Buddhism and the concept of Mindfulness. I have been using a lot of Mindful Cognitive Behaviour Therapy stuff whilst being on stress leave last year. It's been something I've found really useful, probably more than anything else I've tried, and I've seen me some shrinks over the years, and from my understanding Mindfulness is this.
Being in the moment, not planning what to do and not thinking about what's happened but just right now. So for instance, I'm sitting in my office, looking out the green cotton curtains I washed a week or so ago where the cat fur formed little pellety balls rather than be removed, out onto my front garden, the hum of afternoon traffic apparent as we live on a main road. My left shoulder blade itches, the place where the edge of my laminated desk has come away a little is cutting into my left arm.
The opposite to mindfulness, and the preoccupation of human beings is desire. We talk a lot quite guiltily in Western society about our excessive levels of desire. How we have to have a wall length plasma flat screen TV when we had a perfectly serviceable old one. How we have two, three, four cars in a petrol starved world. How kids get given everything and value nothing. We are a culture of consumers, and we love to consume, almost endlessly, from TV shows that seem to be catering for a lower and lower common denominator to new products which always seem smaller, or bigger and therefor better than the last one. Who buys something now because the last one wore out or broke? We want, desire, the new one, way before the old one we desired has expired.
I personally don't have a lot of possessions in that respect. We are a no car family, we both live within walking distance to our works and major shopping centres. I have an old TV, a new Playstation 3 (the 2 makes the most disturbing whirring sound and takes about 10 minutes to load a game) and a newish Olympus camera. Apart from that, it's all furniture, animals and fur and resin and art.
I find consumer fetishism weird. I don't really value my own work that much. Once it's made, the glow is gone, I sell it, give it away, get rid of it. I don't collect very well. All the artwork I have have been swaps with friends, i chew through my materials so quickly I don't get a chance to be fond of them.
So, as a result, I tend to mistakenly think that I am low on the desiring front. I don't want a bigger and better house/BF/car. I'm okay with what we have.
But this is the trickiness of desire. Not falling for the shiny new toy ploy....ahhh...time to play a different game. Let's get her where she lives..
I want that cool rush you get when you have an idea and start making it and it just...works. No struggle, no revise, rework, improve. You might do better ones later, but right now, this is perfectly like what I had in my head
I want that in all the colours I have and more. New colours can completely transform a piece. I've pulled pieces from moulds, particularly late in the afternoon and just had them...flare in my hand. Resin is good at sucking all available light into it and reflecting it back with this sulky look closer and I'll show you how pretty I am glow
I want to make new prototypes. I want to feel like a runner must feel, stretching myself, working at full capacity, just surrendering yourself to the process of generating and testing ideas
I want to spend time with the BF. He's lovely and supportive, and even if it was just because he deserves it, I want to do it
I want to walk outside and see the slate tiles are leaf free and clear. I don't know why but i feel better when I do
I want to comb the dogs. They're huskies and they're shedding
I want
I want
I want
This is how I came to be at 1pm on a Saturday afternoon, collapsing into bed for a nap, completely exhausted and having done no artwork and a slightly cleaner house. I think the Buddhist point about desire is it jerks you from here to there, completely at the whim of a transient state which is never satisfied (I think I have Deleuze and Guattari's desiring machines sorted out now...) and never stops. The fact I was still ill, had depleted resources, had been through a couple of years of low energy and resilience is ignored in the face of it. That I'm thirsty or hungry. That my feet are hurting, my back is hurting. All put to one side for desire...
I ended up writing down everything I wanted to achieve, as the ideas and wants and plans and desires got so many that it was making me quite agitated. In black and white, i realised I was never going to get it all done. Not even if they declared a "Serena gets a week off to do her shit" holiday at my school would I have got it all done, and even if i had, I'd just have more things I wanted to do.
I feel like I should be leaving some kinda profound message here, but really, I was just amused by the fact that desiring something that seems good (to be creative, to make art, to have a clean and organised house) can be equally destructive to your piece of mind as lusting after the neighbour's wife/husband or addictive substances. Friends of mine, especially ones with kids, I can see getting ground down by the even bigger 'shoulds/wants' of being a good parent and what that means, and trying vainly to fit some 'me' time. I guess, I'm curious, what is it that you want so much that you're prepared to drive yourself nuts to try and get it?
I'd also had the flu for much of last week. The darling boyfriend is a very capable domestic technician and does a lot of the cleaning around the house, but when I'm sick, not sure how, we both seem to fall down on domestic duties. Or the animals run around and throw more of their fur about in the joy of having me in a snivelly pile at home. Not sure, but the house looked like a giant cat had thrown up fur (and dirty dishes? How did that get there?) around the house with gay abandon. BF also couldn't find his birth certificate. Bookshelves had gone from having a patina of dust and dog hair to a shag carpet.
Something had to be done
So before I would allow myself any chance to get to my artwork, I needed to clean. This is a strategy I developed, as I can get a little side tracked by my work. If you've read my other posts, you may be aware of my all consuming, be distracted by nothing else desire to make. So, to make sure I didn't live in completely festy conditions, I activated my inner parent and set down the rules.
"No artwork until you've cleaned your room/house/done the dishes for the first time this week"
This used to work. I'd get stuck in early Saturday morning, get everything shiny and pretty and sit down with a sense of satisfaction to make some stuff and be filled with that unique kind of self satisfaction that seems to come with cleaning (what else could you get from it. Minute I make my millions from plush/jewellery/whoring out the BF for ten bucks I'm getting a cleaner!)
Of course, something had to go wrong...
I don't believe in astrology. I think it a lot of bollocky bollocks that helps sell newspapers and brain wash the masses. Of course, the devout say that as a Taurus (yeah, no surprises there right?) I would say that but they can y'know...go fuck themselves. But in the case of my mother I will make an exception. if there was ever a card carrying picture perfect example of a Virgo, she'd be there, perfectly clean house and a white glove on her hand.
How does this relate you may ask? Well, like all people, I'm pretty good at tuning in to the Hits of the 80s: Distorted Memories of your Parents channel of internal radio, and so a little cleaning and order becomes I Want My House to be Perfectly Clean Right NOW!
I clean the bathroom sink and shower, and notice that the inside of the drawers are dirty. I clean the toilet and notice the very back at the S bend where we have a leak is collecting dust. I haven't cleaned all of the kitchen cupboards for awhile. When are we going to put up that pergola? Haven't been able to leaf blow because it's been raining. And on and on and on.
I have only the basic understanding of Buddhism and the concept of Mindfulness. I have been using a lot of Mindful Cognitive Behaviour Therapy stuff whilst being on stress leave last year. It's been something I've found really useful, probably more than anything else I've tried, and I've seen me some shrinks over the years, and from my understanding Mindfulness is this.
Being in the moment, not planning what to do and not thinking about what's happened but just right now. So for instance, I'm sitting in my office, looking out the green cotton curtains I washed a week or so ago where the cat fur formed little pellety balls rather than be removed, out onto my front garden, the hum of afternoon traffic apparent as we live on a main road. My left shoulder blade itches, the place where the edge of my laminated desk has come away a little is cutting into my left arm.
The opposite to mindfulness, and the preoccupation of human beings is desire. We talk a lot quite guiltily in Western society about our excessive levels of desire. How we have to have a wall length plasma flat screen TV when we had a perfectly serviceable old one. How we have two, three, four cars in a petrol starved world. How kids get given everything and value nothing. We are a culture of consumers, and we love to consume, almost endlessly, from TV shows that seem to be catering for a lower and lower common denominator to new products which always seem smaller, or bigger and therefor better than the last one. Who buys something now because the last one wore out or broke? We want, desire, the new one, way before the old one we desired has expired.
I personally don't have a lot of possessions in that respect. We are a no car family, we both live within walking distance to our works and major shopping centres. I have an old TV, a new Playstation 3 (the 2 makes the most disturbing whirring sound and takes about 10 minutes to load a game) and a newish Olympus camera. Apart from that, it's all furniture, animals and fur and resin and art.
I find consumer fetishism weird. I don't really value my own work that much. Once it's made, the glow is gone, I sell it, give it away, get rid of it. I don't collect very well. All the artwork I have have been swaps with friends, i chew through my materials so quickly I don't get a chance to be fond of them.
So, as a result, I tend to mistakenly think that I am low on the desiring front. I don't want a bigger and better house/BF/car. I'm okay with what we have.
But this is the trickiness of desire. Not falling for the shiny new toy ploy....ahhh...time to play a different game. Let's get her where she lives..
I want that cool rush you get when you have an idea and start making it and it just...works. No struggle, no revise, rework, improve. You might do better ones later, but right now, this is perfectly like what I had in my head
I want that in all the colours I have and more. New colours can completely transform a piece. I've pulled pieces from moulds, particularly late in the afternoon and just had them...flare in my hand. Resin is good at sucking all available light into it and reflecting it back with this sulky look closer and I'll show you how pretty I am glow
I want to make new prototypes. I want to feel like a runner must feel, stretching myself, working at full capacity, just surrendering yourself to the process of generating and testing ideas
I want to spend time with the BF. He's lovely and supportive, and even if it was just because he deserves it, I want to do it
I want to walk outside and see the slate tiles are leaf free and clear. I don't know why but i feel better when I do
I want to comb the dogs. They're huskies and they're shedding
I want
I want
I want
This is how I came to be at 1pm on a Saturday afternoon, collapsing into bed for a nap, completely exhausted and having done no artwork and a slightly cleaner house. I think the Buddhist point about desire is it jerks you from here to there, completely at the whim of a transient state which is never satisfied (I think I have Deleuze and Guattari's desiring machines sorted out now...) and never stops. The fact I was still ill, had depleted resources, had been through a couple of years of low energy and resilience is ignored in the face of it. That I'm thirsty or hungry. That my feet are hurting, my back is hurting. All put to one side for desire...
I ended up writing down everything I wanted to achieve, as the ideas and wants and plans and desires got so many that it was making me quite agitated. In black and white, i realised I was never going to get it all done. Not even if they declared a "Serena gets a week off to do her shit" holiday at my school would I have got it all done, and even if i had, I'd just have more things I wanted to do.
I feel like I should be leaving some kinda profound message here, but really, I was just amused by the fact that desiring something that seems good (to be creative, to make art, to have a clean and organised house) can be equally destructive to your piece of mind as lusting after the neighbour's wife/husband or addictive substances. Friends of mine, especially ones with kids, I can see getting ground down by the even bigger 'shoulds/wants' of being a good parent and what that means, and trying vainly to fit some 'me' time. I guess, I'm curious, what is it that you want so much that you're prepared to drive yourself nuts to try and get it?
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