Kirsty Hall: Broken Bauble, January 2010

Last October I took Alyson Stanfield’s excellent Blast Off course. This course was a life-changing experience for me – amongst other things, I realised that I need to find more sustainable ways to manage my health & my art before I can develop my career further.

Basically, I’ve been trying to build my house on sand. I’ve been constantly draining myself by doing more than my health allows. Because I’m pig awkward that way.

Last November’s arts trail was a good case in point. I’ve only just been back to take down 3 Score & 10 because I got sick immediately after the trail, then my host fell ill, then there was Christmas & snow. I finally managed to take the work down last Monday but completely exhausted myself in the process and I’ve been in a proper CFS crash ever since. I’m not quite on bed rest but it’s pretty close.

This is clearly absolutely unsustainable; I cannot continue to do shows if it knocks me out for months afterwards.

Now obviously I don’t want to give up doing shows: I love exhibiting my work – it’s one of my favourite parts of being an artist. Since I want to continue to make art and exhibit it, it’s clear to me that I need to do everything in my power to recover from my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

That’s a tough call because no one knows what causes it or how to fix it but even if I can’t find a permanent cure, I want to get to a healthier place. So I’ve been working on my pacing and my chronic insomnia. I also took a scary step and in November I joined Slimming World. I’ve lost 18.5 pounds so far and my goal is lose a further 3 stone by Christmas 2010, something I’m well on track to do. Losing weight is unlikely to be a miracle cure – I was unwell before I put on weight – but I know that being overweight can’t be helping. Slimming World is awesome, btw – I won’t bang on about it here but email if you’d like to know more about my experiences with it.

Even though I currently feel like Wile E. Coyote after he’s been squashed flat by an anvil, I’m taking the long view here. This is definitely NOT me giving up, it’s me refocusing and working on the basics. I do still have an art career, I’m just taking the scenic route: there will lots of tea breaks, picnics on the side of the road and photographs of sheep but I’ll get there eventually!

Kirsty Hall: Winter Fog, Jan 2010

As you may have heard, Britain is in the grip of some cold weather and things have ground to a halt because alas, alack, white stuff has fallen from the sky – hey, who knew that could happen in the winter?

Kirsty Hall: Snowy Branch, Jan 2010

The snow has come as quite a relief to me. I’m still recovering from The Virus Of Doom. I’m having a couple of weeks where I deliberately don’t make art but I’ve still not been resting enough, so a couple of enforced snow days are just what I needed.

Of course, my idea of what constitutes resting is somewhat suspect. I didn’t get as much contemplative time as I planned in the last week of 2009, so I’ve spent the couple of days mindmapping, writing lists and drawing colourful diagrams of the coming year.

Oh, and I’ve moved my bedroom around to make room for a dedicated ‘thinking space’ where I can update my sketchbook and work on my visual journal. I’ve been horribly neglecting the former and I’ve been doing the later in bed but it’s bad for my back and there’s always the worry that I’ll get gesso and paint on the sheets.

Although experts say that the bedroom should just be for sleeping, I find that it’s my best thinking space and I also do quite a lot of drawing in there. One of my aims for this year is to ‘meet myself where I am’. In other words, to deal with my actual truth rather than what I think should be true. So instead of denying that I use my bedroom this way and feeling guilty that I don’t go upstairs to my studio instead, I’ve decided to honour what actually is and next week I’m going shopping for a desk, preferably an old rolltop one so that everything can be hidden away when not in use.

Having some introspective time is even easier when the streets are so quiet. There are very few cars about, instead there are giggly people making snow beings, including this rather fabulous creation – in my 42 years on this planet, this is the first time I’ve seen a snow duck!

Kirsty Hall: Snow Duck, Jan 2010

However, not everyone is enjoying the snow – the chickens are distinctly unimpressed…