My media fast is over and I am back in the world of the internet!
I will own up straigh away and say that my week wasn't completely media free. I ended up watching tele round at a friends house, but this was OK, as there was also plenty of conversation! I also had to jump on the net a few times as i had a work related mini-disaster (I lost the work camera cable!)and had to order something to replace it, so this required some internet time. Th last thing was that I ended up looking at Facebook for about 2 minutes, but I WAS looking at pics of my friends new born baby, so again, I give myself that one!
All in all, I managed it! It was a pretty busy week work wise for various reasons, so this proved a distraction. One thing I did find was that I find it incredibly difficult to just do nothing. For the first couple of evenings I felt quite restless, and needed to fill my evening, even if that was with creative stuff! So I learnt that i need to make more of an effort to rest and reflect. I did feel the pull to put the tele on a few times, as I guess I associate this with relaxation and (ironically) switching off.
The positive things that came out of the week were that we cooked more, we talked more, and we had a weekend of relaxing and doing things, rather than just wasting the time. We even managed to sit down and make a real plan that will help our finances. Some big decisions were made, yet the solution seemed so obvious. All we needed was some space to come up with it, and when time is being filled by media distraction, maybe the time is just not there. Its amazing what a bit of thinking time can do and the clarity it can bring!
I don't think I could ever totally cut media from my life, but I certainly plan to do this more often. After the week I felt lighter, clearer, inspired and motivated!
here's to the next "unplugged" time, its so important. I feel reconnected a bit mpre with the big wide world around me.
I really loved it! It was amazing to see so much of my work on the wall all in one place, its not often that I get to examine everything (well, a large chunk of stuff anyways!) and see all the links, occasional differences, themes and the way it all slots together. It was quite a process sorting out what was going up and what didn't make it, and I needed help with this to make sure I didn't just put in polished, finished pieces but included some less finished and often, more interesting ones. At first, when I was putting the work up with the help of the other volunteer, we were being really particualr about placement of work..... after three hours of this, we soon got to the stage of just slapping things up where there was space!! And then I had to speak about my work. I felt surprisingly relaxed about this, not nervous at all really, which I think is testament to the supportiveness of the studio environment as much as anything else. I was worried nobody would engage with me or ask questions, but they did. Other peoples responses, reactions and questions at times made me view my work in a different light, and it was great to talk about it and feel really proud of what I do. I managed to speak for nearly an hour and a half with all the audience participaton that came my way, which really surprised me!
