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!

As an artist, I get strange obsessions. Something about a material or an image will seduce me. I have an artist friend who uses the word ‘authentic’ to describe this attraction but I use ‘particular’. I’ll say, ‘that’s very particular‘ and I mean that there’s something about that object that is compelling and unique to me, something that draws me. I don’t always know what it is but I do know that these visual or tactile obsessions are what fuel my work.

At the moment, greaseproof paper is one of these things.

There’s something about the combination of translucency and opaqueness that I find utterly irresistible.

And when I finally got to it, the little plum & almond cake was delicious too!

This post was inspired by an entry on Hazel Dooney’s excellent blog after I got cross at some of the comments insisting that artists should be crazed geniuses living wild lifestyles.

The Death of Chatterton, Henry Wallis, 1856

I HATE the myth of the tortured artist.

Why do we want the lives of our artists to be a spectacle?

‘Oh artists, please sweat blood and tears. Blow your brains out. Die young from a heroin overdose. Stick your head in a gas oven. Paint in a drunken rage. Live in squalor and poverty. We want to see you struggle, suffer and go mad – then we’ll know what you made was real and important.’

Or you could just, you know, look at the art they’ve made.

Ah, but where’s the fun in that? It’s so much more exciting when the artist kills themselves or dies tragically young!

Um, does anyone else have a problem with the inherent vileness of this attitude?

Suicide isn’t romantic; it’s a terrible thing that destroys families. Alcoholism isn’t glamorous; it’s an extremely unpleasant addiction. Poverty isn’t heroic; it’s boring and exhausting.* Mental illness may indeed help someone to access and release their creativity but it can just as easily cripple them with so much pain that making art becomes impossible.

My life probably looks rather dull from the outside. Yes, it has aspects that other people would undoubtedly consider bohemian but as a general rule, it’s pretty domestic and mundane. I like staying at home. I like gardening, knitting, plittering around online and cooking when the mood takes me. I get a bizarre satisfaction from filling up the freezer with homemade food. I like wandering around with my camera in my hand observing tiny moments of everyday beauty. I like talking to my family, petting the cat and going to bed with a big pile of books & my hot water bottle. These days chocolate is my major vice. Most days, I feel content and blessed with my safe and boring life.

And I don’t care if you’d rather have razor blades and drugs and wild orgies – too bloody bad. Sorry to disappoint. But I’m not here to serve as lurid entertainment; I’m here to make my art and I’ve chosen the most sustainable way for me to do that. Oddly enough, I care more about making my art than about someone else’s need for salacious excitement. If you want the later, go watch reality TV!

Of course, I wouldn’t say I was exactly normal – if I don’t make art regularly then I go into Mad Project Mode and you’ll find me reorganising all my cupboards at 3 am or peeling wallpaper off the walls! Living in a safe, comfortable place surrounded by people who love me and having a dull routine where I make art most days actually stops me sliding into the crazy and I like it that way because I get more art made. My art is not improved by letting my crazier aspects loose; all that happens is that I don’t sleep enough, I manically work myself into the ground and then I spiral into a Chronic Fatigue crash that stops me working for weeks or even months.

I had a more extreme ‘tortured artist’ lifestyle when I was younger. It was a lot of fun and I have no regrets but in the end, I found that sort of drama-filled way of living didn’t serve my art or my health. I used to live on adrenaline, particularly when doing exhibitions. I would leave things to the last minute so that I had to work like a crazed banshee. I definitely got an ‘art high’ from making art in a frenzy of all-nighters but I simply don’t have the energy for that way of working any more so I try to avoid it, even though I’m undoubtedly still wired that way.

And frankly, a lot of my last-minute art wasn’t as good as the art I made when I had more time. Sure, sometimes it was great- deadlines do focus the mind wonderfully – but often it wasn’t and when that was the case, there wasn’t time to fix it or make something better. Work made in a frenzy of passion is not intrinsically better or more ‘artistic’ than work made by plodding along – it’s just a more glamorous and seductive story.

Of course there’s still a place for the heroic in art. Just as there’s a place for the tortured genius, the rootless nomad who travels the world in search of inspiration, the debauched drunken artist who pees in the fireplace and the art prodigy who burns out and dies at 25. These things are just not a necessary ingredient for all artists – many of our great artists lived surprisingly boring lives.

Art is a very wide church and there’s room for all of us and our myriad ways of working and living. An artist who works best in tortured bursts of madness is no better or worse than an artist who gets to the studio at 9am and puts in an eight hour work day every single day of their lives: they’re just different people, with different needs and different ways of working. We do artists a huge disservice by insisting that ‘real’ artists must all conform to a stereotype of tortured genius.

That said, I’d never criticise anyone for following their muse into the wild dark places because I’ve travelled those roads and I know there’s beauty and art to be found there. If you are creatively energised by more extreme ways of living and working, then I genuinely hope you have an absolute blast and that your stamina holds out! If mine had, I’d probably still be working that way because I did enjoy it but it wasn’t any more noble, artistic or intrinsically valid than the way I work now.

……

Naturally, I’m not alone in discussing this subject:

Daniel Sroka, a regular commenter on this blog, dislikes the tortured artist myth.

Anna Williams feels the tortured artist myth also damages writers.

Artist, Megan Chapman acknowledges that the myth has some basis in reality.

Unsurprisingly, it’s all The Romantics fault!

* Edited to Add:
CopyCatFilms on Twitter felt I was judging poor people in this sentence. I’m not at all and I apologise if it read that way. I’ve been poor in the past and it absolutely sucks.

Yes, my life is nice now but it wasn’t always this way. I’ve been so poor that I’ve had to look down the back of the couch for pennies so that I could eat. I’ve been so poor that I knew exactly which order to pay the bills in and exactly how long I could leave it before a vital service was cut off. And in my experience, it wasn’t romantic or creative or fun, it was depressing and yes, boring. It was soul-numbingly, grindingly, depressingly tedious. Of course, your experience of poverty may vary – I had postnatal depression and was an overwhelmed and isolated single parent of a small child; no doubt this strongly coloured my experience.

Do I regret having been poor? No, I don’t. It taught me many valuable life skills, made me more compassionate towards those who are locked into generational poverty, showed me just how much middle class privilege I have always had (even though I was poor, I was educated and I knew I wouldn’t be poor forever) and how our life choices can spiral us into poverty. I certainly don’t regret the choice to keep my son, which was what temporarily sunk me into real poverty in the first place.

However, no longer being in a constant state of bio-survival anxiety makes it far easier for me to make art. I make more art than I did then because I have more support, both financial and emotional for my art now. I know that I’m extremely lucky to be where I am and believe me, I am constantly aware of this. And no, I have no desire to go back to living in a neighbourhood where the local children threw stones at my window and I cowered in my living room and wept with fear.

So, I reckon it’s time to show you what I’ve been working on for the last couple of months. I’d have blogged about this sooner but it’s an absolute pain to photograph and I had to do four or five different photo shoots before I got anything I could bear to publish.

Meet my sequin apron!

Kirsty Hall, Sequin Apron, July 2009

Yep, in my infinite wisdom, I am covering the whole of this apron in sequins.

It’s part of a triptych of apron pieces about motherhood. I’ve had the three aprons for several years but it took me a while to decide exactly what to do with them. This one represents the ‘yummy mummy’ aspect of motherhood; all the good, precious and wonderful parts. The other two aprons will be much more conflicted and darker in tone.

Kirsty Hall, Sequin Apron, June 2009

The back of the apron: I’m being very good and sewing in all my ends as I go along.

Kirsty Hall, Sequin Apron, July 2009

This piece had a bit of a rocky start. In February I bought samples of different kinds in creams, white and translucent sequins and after some thought, I decided on the ones on the left.

Kirsty Hall, Sequin Apron, June 2009

Unfortunately, when I’d used up the small test amount I’d bought, I discovered to my horror that the shop where I’d bought them had replaced them with a very similar but slightly brighter version that Just Didn’t Work. I then spent about two months trying to find the correct ones before finding the cream ones on the right and deciding to completely start over with them. As you can probably imagine, I bought lots of this replacement colour choice!

Kirsty Hall, Sequin Apron, June 2009

It was annoying at the time – especially since I had to unpick that large section on the left – but I think the cream ones are a better fit for the piece. They’re a closer match to the colour of the apron whilst still being iridescent from certain angles, which is what I’d originally been aiming for. I wanted a subtle hint of bling but nothing too over the top.

Kirsty Hall, Sequin Apron, July 2009

Now that I’ve got over that bump, the apron is coming on well although it’s a slow piece to make. I’ve been working on it for at least an hour most days for the last six weeks but I’m expecting it to take me at least another two months. A couple of days ago, I was feeling very pleased with myself for filling in an area of about 6 square inches over a period of three hours. Then I hung it up, held it out and realised just how much there was still to go and I just started laughing hysterically at how utterly mad I am.

I was reading this post about titles over at The Painter’s Keys.

Here’s the original question:

“What are your thoughts on changing the names of artwork to fit a venue, exhibit, or buyer? For example, is it okay to modify my often generic titles to more specific places, particularly when sending things off to shows? Is this wrong or deceitful? And, if changed, should new titles stay that way?”

In my opinion, if you need to change the title, then you just didn’t get it right in the first place!

Of course, this doesn’t apply to ‘working titles’, which are merely placeholders until you have a proper title but I think that there is a point at which the title is set in stone. For a book, this is when it goes to the printers or when the advance publicity goes out. For a work of art, it’s usually when the work is exhibited.

There are exceptions, of course. If you’re constantly remaking a piece in different places, then altering the title for each remake can be an appropriate way to differentiate them. Antony Gormley does this with his well known piece, The Field but they all still contain the word ‘field’ in the title. Repeatedly changing a title could conceivably also be an important conceptual part of a work – for example, if your actual subject matter is the way that perceptions of the art change depending on how the work is ‘framed’ by the title. But I see a big difference between both these examples and changing the title just to suit other people or to try and score a sale.

I know that titles aren’t important to all artists but for me, they’re a vital part of the work. I don’t consider a piece properly finished until it has a title and I think about them a lot. I keep lists of possible words or phrases in my sketchbooks and often find scraps of paper scattered randomly around the house with prospective titles written on them.

The only time I’ve ever changed a title is when the title I’ve given it didn’t ’stick’ for some reason.

For example, this piece was originally called Do More With Less. The whole piece was my sarcastic riposte to my college tutor telling me to ‘do more with less’ – because naturally, when accused of ‘gilding the lily’ my response was to do exactly that!

Kirsty Hall: Gilded Lilies, 2001

But the original title was clunky and I could never remember exactly how it went, so it was discarded in favour of the more prosaic Gilded Lilies. And in retrospect, I can see that the more fanciful title was, er… gilding the lily.

Kirsty Hall: Gilded Lilies, 2001

I’ve also accidentally named things twice when I’ve forgotten that I’d already titled a work. When this happens, it’s obvious to me that the original title wasn’t quite right or I would have remembered it. When I name my work, I’m trying to find a title that so precisely and elegantly captures the essence of the piece that a name change would be utterly inconceivable.

I try never to change a name once the piece has been formally exhibited (although I couldn’t swear that this has never happened). Changing a title in order to make the work more palatable (something I’ve been asked to do only once) or simply in order to try and sell the work, makes me very uncomfortable. Certainly, I think that changing titles multiple times simply in order to suit the audience, venue or exhibition is confusing and dubious: the work needs to have integrity.

So what do you think? Is titling important to you? Would you re-title a work in order to sell it?

I am lazy.

“What’s that?’, I hear you cry, ‘you spend months patiently tying knots in string, sticking pins through fabric or drawing every day for a year, how can you possibly call yourself lazy?’

Ah, but it’s a very specific kind of laziness and over the years – as I have come to understand it – I have adjusted my art practice to accommodate it.

I know myself and if I worked with the sort of materials that needed a specialist working environment like a forge or a foundry, I wouldn’t get much art made. If I undertook huge expensive projects that involved lots of paperwork, funding bids and meetings with planners and architects, I would never get any art made.

Heck, even if my studio was in another building, I would struggle. When I graduated, I hired a studio space on the other side of town because I thought that’s what you were meant to do. I kept it for a couple of months before recognising that I was working extra hours to pay for it but was hardly ever there and even when I was, I found it an uninviting place to work.

Eventually I realised that when I’d been a student, I used to make most of my work at home and then take it into college when it was finished. I tended to use my studio in college as an experimental installation space or somewhere to think, rather than somewhere to physically make work. I’m sure this is partly because I’d grown accustomed to fitting my art around parenting when my son was young. Having evolved as an artist whilst making work in the evenings on the kitchen table, a separate studio space felt like a barren and alien environment to me.

So now my studio is on the top floor of my house. Yet even that is not close enough and I tend to make my art in my study, my bedroom, my living room, my garden, on the dining room table and only occasionally in my studio.

I do enjoy the quiet and contemplative space of my studio, especially when I need to think, draw or make more mess than usual. But I also need my art to be part of my daily life; something I can pick up and put down as easily as the morning paper or my cup of tea. So art, for me, is largely a domestic affair and you’ll often find me making my more repetitive pieces in front of the TV or while listening to a podcast on my computer.

In addition, the sort of materials I use in my art – small, unregarded things like matches, pins, sequins or envelopes – are easily available, safe to use and relatively cheap. This is a deliberate choice on my behalf. Partly because I’m very interested in everyday objects that are so commonplace that they become effectively invisible but also because I am passionate about ‘owning the means of production’. I hate to be dependant on other people before I can even start to make my art.

I’ve never done well if I have to go through multiple steps to get something done and so wherever possible, my practice is organised to minimise that. For example, when I graduated I took out a loan so that I could upgrade my computer equipment and digital camera because I wanted access to the technology I’d used at college without having to go off to a library or rent out office premises.

My materials are a continuation of that desire for independence. I don’t need to work a day job to buy the sort of materials I use. Nor do I need to scrabble around for grants or sponsorship or jump through anyone else’s hoops before my work can come into being. I’ve learnt from experience that projects that do need access to specialist knowledge or equipment or more funding than I can provide myself are the ones that invariably end up on on the backburner.

Again, I’m sure my formative years of trying to combine art with parenting also informed my preference for cheap, readily available materials. Although I always bought the best I could afford, I was on a low income and got used to making do with what I had. And I found that I actually preferred it because it was easier to be loose and experimental with thousands of cheap, everyday things than with very rare or precious materials.

Some artists need the heroic struggle; it motivates and inspires them and forms a vital part of their practice. Others find that getting out of the house and into a separate studio space makes them more focused and dedicated. Yet others relish the challenge of working in very expensive materials.

But for me that stuff just gets in the way.

I need the path of least resistance because I find making good, meaningful art quite difficult enough without adding extra obstacles. I am perfectly capable of putting mental road blocks in the way of my own art practice and I realised early on that it would be disastrous if I added further restrictions such as the need for funding, planning permission, specialist studio requirements or expensive materials. So I have consciously set up my practice so that the only thing standing in the way of my art is myself – and believe me, that’s usually more than enough!

It’s vital as an artist to recognise your strengths and weakness and to play to both of them. Don’t make it any harder than it needs to be.

Kirsty Hall: Pins In Cotton Reel, May 2009

Yesterday was a glorious sunny day, so I made the most of it by taking one of my current projects out to the garden. Soaking up some fresh air and Vitamin D whilst making art, what could be better?

I’ve done a huge amount of work on the garden this year and it’s really paying off: it’s a lovely place to sit and work now.

The view to the left of the bench:

Kirsty Hall: Looking Across The Lawn To The Air Garden, May 2009

The view to the right of the bench:

Kirsty Hall: The Shubbery, May 2009

I needed to turn the hem on a piece of linen so it can be hung from a wooden pole but it already had a thick seam and wouldn’t fit in my sewing machine, so I decided to hand sew it.

Kirsty Hall: Work In Progress, May 2009

Sitting in the sunshine listening to the sounds of birds, bees and children while I pulled my needle through soft, white linen, I experienced a profoundly productive peace even when my thread tied itself into subtle knots.

I’ve always said that I hate sewing and only do it when it’s necessary for art purposes but yesterday, I finally reached an understanding with it and I suddenly felt that I could actually come to like sewing. It was a deeply satisfying experience.

The all-important cup of tea, without which no art would ever get made!

Since I’m currently in the midst of a Chronic Fatigue relapse, I thought I’d do a post about how to continue making art whilst managing an illness. I know it won’t apply to all of you but hopefully it will be useful to some.

Be Realistic
Firstly, it’s important to recognise that ALL artists have challenges in their life. Although it may seem incredibly unfair that you’re limited by your illness or disability, in reality ‘normal’ artists may be struggling just as much to make their art.

It’s easy to look at healthy people and feel jealous but try to remember that NO ONE has unlimited time, energy or money. Many artists need to work part or full time jobs to pay the bills, which drastically reduces the amount of time and energy available for art. Children or other family commitments can also be a serious limitation. Artists working on large, expensive projects may face endless frustrating delays while they scrabble around for funding. No one ‘has it easy’.

Identify Strategies
Don’t make yourself more sick by carrying on doing something that is clearly too much. If you are finding it hard to walk or you’re in a lot of pain, then a very active practice that involves shimmying up and down ladders or hours of gruelling physical work may be impossible. Instead, tailor your practice to what you can do and find creative ways to continue to make art.

If you want to carry on making physically demanding things, then maybe you need someone to do a lot of the prep work for you. When Eva Hesse became ill with a brain tumour she employed assistants to make sculptures to her specifications. I employ The Wonderful Zoë two mornings a month to help me with things like admin, framing, organising and anything that involves heavy physical work.

You may need to change the scale on which you work or employ different materials or new techniques. When her almost constant migraines kept her bedbound for months and she could only paint for small stretches of time, Sarah Raphael divided her canvases up like strip cartoons and painted in tiny daily chunks. She also had to switch from oils to acrylics because the smell of the oils was a constant trigger.

When his eyesight started to fail due to cataracts, Monet loosened up his style and began working on his famous waterlily paintings.

I’ve found that having a small, manageable, daily practice like my current ‘Objects For March’ project or The Diary Project is helpful – ‘little but often’ apparently works well for me. I’ve also annexed an old spare laptop and I’ve written most of this in bed over the space of several days: right now it’s making the difference between being able to blog and not.

Don’t Compare
It’s easy to feel jealous when your peers can accept exciting opportunities that are impossible for you but try not to compare yourself to others too much: it just leads to despair.

I’ve found that it’s more useful to look to people like Frida Kahlo for inspiration – she carried on painting despite being in shocking amounts of pain. Or I look at my college class and realise that even though I am not making art as fast as I want to, I’m still unusual in that I’m consistently making work and showing professionally.

Acknowledge Success
Give yourself props for what you ARE doing instead of mentally punishing yourself for what you’re not.

I have a terrible habit of berating myself for ‘not working’ when what I really mean is that I’m simply not doing as much in the studio as I’d like. I tend to discount anything that isn’t physical making as Not Art even though experience has shown that things like reading, writing, research, thinking, documentation and admin are all vital parts of my art practice.

If you’re not strong enough to make art, take a break and if you’re able, do something connected to your art instead. When I’m ill, I often use the time to catch up on my reading and documenting.

Allow Yourself To Stop
Art is a higher brain function and creating any sort of art takes a surprising amount of energy. Unfortunately when you are very ill, sometimes you have no choice but to put your art practice down completely for a little while. This can be difficult for artists since many of us are very driven by our art but it’s sometimes necessary. Concentrate on getting well and promise yourself that you’ll find a way to pick it up again as soon as you can. I tend to use my art as a ‘canary down a mine’ – when the thought of doing anything art-related makes me want to cry then I know I’m ‘crashing’ and need to recuperate. If I don’t try to force things and make the relapse worse, then the art comes back on its own as my health comes back into balance.

Pace and Plan
Find your own rhythms and what works for you. I no longer apply for things that require me to make new work for a deadline because it’s too stressful and it never ends well. Instead I only apply for exhibitions with work that already exists. I don’t apply for residencies either because I can’t guarantee that I’ll be well enough. It can be very frustrating but knowing and (mostly!) accepting my limitations allows me to make more art in the long run.

If you’re exhibiting, do as much as possible well ahead of time. Pace yourself and schedule some downtime for after the show. Ideally you’d schedule some days off beforehand as well but in my experience, that’s rarely possible. Often opportunities seem to come in clumps but try to space things whenever you can. Know your limits and your body and how long it takes you to recover from a show.

Find Support
Depending on your condition there may be specific grants and/or opportunities available. While you may not be comfortable with the ‘disabled’ tag, there’s no harm in seeing what help may exist. Online forms and support groups for your specific condition can also provide valuable information and resources.

It’s also vital to support yourself by pacing, eating healthily and getting enough sleep, especially when you’re experiencing a relapse or if you know that you’re going to be under extra stress. Easier said than done, I know! Accept that you might have to let some things slide. While delicious fresh homecooked meals might be the ideal, remember that getting your vegetables in tinned soup or out of the freezer is better than no vegetables at all!

Finally, do whatever it takes to get yourself through a bad patch, even if that means the house isn’t as clean as it could be, your email doesn’t get answered promptly or you don’t go to all the private views you’d like. Accept that to conserve energy for your art, you may have to let some other things go.

Kirsty Hall: Pin Drawing at Prick Your Finger, London, Feb 2009

Alas, I have The Exhibition Blues, or more accurately The Post-Exhibition Blues.

This is a normal part of the creative process for me, although somehow it always takes me by surprise.

Here’s how it goes. You finish a big piece of work or do a show and when it’s over, you fall into a few days of lethargy, depression and general grumpiness with maybe a bit of “my art is really crap” thrown in. It’s a documented phenomenon and I’m sure that many of my readers are already nodding their heads in recognition.

My Exhibition Blues are never a sign that a show has gone badly or that I am disappointed by it, in fact, I suspect it’s the reverse and the larger and more successful the show, the harder the drop is afterwards. My art assistant, The Wonderful Zoë, says it like catching a great wave in surfing and hitting that perfect high and then suddenly the wave throws you back up on the beach and you just don’t have the energy to swim out for the next one quite yet. And you look around and realise that you don’t want to be on the damn beach and what’s more, there’s rubbish and dog shit on the sand!

It’s not usually too bad for me – most times it’s just a couple of days of ‘blah’ – but this time it’s hit me like a ton of bricks. I am extremely weepy, depressed and being regularly savaged by my internal critics and demons, both artistic and personal. Apparently there is a lot of dog shit on this particular beach!

It’s almost certainly because I was tired before I went to London and now I’m deep-down exhausted but I can safely say that I am NOT enjoying the process. Neither, I suspect, are my family, although as usual they are wonderfully patient and kind with me.

The temptation when faced with The Exhibition Blues is to throw myself into something new, and indeed I’ve been working on two projects since I got back from London – one brand new one and one fairly new one. However, in my experience it’s also important to take a little time to recoup and rest. I know that I’ll be OK soon; I just need to rest up, read some fun, unchallenging books, nap a lot and sit in the sunshine thinking happy thoughts about my garden. And in the meantime, I’m working away on a couple of fairly gentle projects.

As I slog through this little patch of pain, I just need to hold onto this knowledge that I am still working and that this feeling will soon pass. Ah, us artistic types – so prone to temperamental fits of the vapours!