Many artists approach the world from a place of fear.

‘Am I good enough? What if no one likes my work? Why can’t I sell? I’m rubbish, aren’t I! If I’ve not made it by the time I’m 30, I’m never going to. Picasso worked really hard every single day, what the hell’s wrong with me? If I don’t have lots of shows every year, they’ll all forget about me.’

And so on and so forth…

Photo by Alex E. Proimos, used under a Creative Commons license

I’ve been actively trying to get away from that angst-ridden headspace in recent months. But taking a step back from those ingrained fears feels like stepping off a mountain path in the dark. I don’t know if I’ll fall. Maybe there will be soft mossy grass under my feet or bouncy heather? Or maybe there’s a 50ft drop!

My own first lesson in letting go of these Art Fears is to ignore the temptation to desperately apply for exhibitions in 2010. While applying for exhibitions can certainly be useful and necessary, I’m tired of it. If applying for exhibitions works for you, that’s great. It used to work for me too. However, right now it makes me feel sad, pitiful, powerless and often quite angry. It makes me feel like a beggar outside the temple of art and I’m DONE feeling like that.

Naturally, if things come knocking on my door, I’ll certainly consider them. I do still want exhibitions and other cool opportunities. Nor am I sticking my head in the sand: I’m still visible and active both off and online and I wouldn’t rule out applying for something if it was perfect for me. But I’ve stopped pushing constantly. It’s a difference in attitude.

Somewhat to my surprise, this new approach seems to be working, I’ve been offered several great opportunities lately including the ECCA talk in London last month and I’m taking part in this exhibition later this month. Yet it’s still scary as hell to stop pushing. I want to believe that the Universe will catch me, that I’ll be OK without all that frantic busyness but believing that goes against a lifetime of conditioning.

What are your Art Fears? Can you trust yourself enough to walk away from them? Can you step off a mountain with me? We could hold hands and jump…

Photo by danorbit, used under a Creative Commons license

I’m very sad to report that while I was away in Scotland, the lovely Pepper was nabbed by a fox and she is no more.

It was upsetting but we always knew it was a possibility because our chickens room around the garden most afternoons. Even though we keep an eye on them when they’re out of their run, the urban foxes around here are quite bold & unfortunately they only need to get lucky once.

When I got back, Ginger was clearly very unsettled and lonely. It’s a bad idea to keep chickens singly because they are flock birds and need at least one other hen around. So on Saturday we headed over to our local supplier and scored a new chicken.

Meet Colette.

Kirsty Hall: Colette, February 2010

She’s a beautiful Cou Cou or Cuckoo Maran – the ‘cuckoo/cou cou’ part refers to the speckled silver and black colouring. Marans are originally a French breed, so naturally we had to go with an appropriately French name. She’s a ‘point of lay’, which means that she’s not laying yet but should start in a week or two once her comb grows in.

Kirsty Hall: Colette, February 2010

Because Ginger & Pepper had always been such good friends, I didn’t anticipate any problems introducing Colette. Boy, was that a rookie mistake! Ginger took huge exception to this interloper in her run & was absolutely rotten to poor Colette. She wouldn’t let Colette anywhere near the food & water and defended her territory with quite shocking levels of violence.

After a day of a traumatised Colette refusing to come out of the coop, I admitted defeat & asked on Freecycle for a spare run. Fortunately someone had a small rabbit run that they were planning to take to the dump, so I collected that on Monday evening and ever since Ginger has been spending her days in solitary confinement with a dish of food and water. She is less than happy!

Fortunately this is just a temporary measure – I’ve ordered another set of feeders from ebay & when those arrive, I shall divide the run with bamboo canes during the day. They’ll be near each other but they’ll both be safe and Ginger will have more room. I’m going to carry on separating them during the day until they can get along, which apparently can sometimes take months. I am making progress though, they managed to room around the garden together today without fighting and they’re sleeping together quite happily: the problems just seem to be over food.

Thankfully Colette has been slowly regaining her confidence over the last few days. She’s still jittery though – I let her out of the run today so I could clean out the coop and then she wouldn’t let me anywhere near her and wouldn’t be persuaded back in again. I couldn’t even tempt her back in with food. Fortunately she went back in on her own accord eventually & I was able to shut her in. Ginger is easy to get into the run – she’ll go anywhere for a handful of grain, the wee strumpet!

This is a very quick update because I’m meant to be packing. My son and I are heading up to Scotland this evening to visit my folks.

Firstly, the talk went well on Thursday. I was quite pleased with the Powerpoint that I put together – only having a week to master the software made for a bit of a steep learning curve and a lot of late nights but I managed to put a simple presentation together. The talk itself was very well attended & the organiser said there was a good response to it. I think that I did OK, although my mouth was so dry from nerves that I got through two bottles of water in quick succession! But apparently I didn’t look or sound too nervous, which was good. I had practised at home a lot, which definitely helped. I also watched this long but fantastic video by Garr Reynolds on how to structure Powerpoint & do presentations, which helped immensely. If you’ve got a talk coming up, I thoroughly recommend watching it – it’ll be time well spent.

There was so much that I wanted to put in but had to leave out – 20-30 minutes isn’t nearly long enough to give a good overview of blogging – so I may do some basic intro posts about the subject in the next week or two.

Secondly, I’m taking my laptop up to Scotland with the aim of writing 5 blog posts. I want to take my blogging up to the next level this year and my first priority is increasing the frequency of my blogging. I’ve been blogging ‘hand to mouth’ for far too long. I need to get a good backlog of posts written so that my blogging is not dependant on my dodgy health. So, if you’ve got any burning issues that you’d like to see me address, please let me know and I’ll try to write about it. On a related note, if there’s anything that drives you nuts about my site, please do let me know and I’ll see if it can be fixed.

Lastly, congratulations to Gwen from Murphy Grace Home who won the Gary Vaynerchuk Crush It! giveaway. Thanks to everyone who commented. I wish you could all have won.

Right, I must go and pack, I’m just procrastinating now!

Edited to add:
Oops, I forgot this bit of news. I’ve changed a whole bunch of my photos over to the Creative Commons license. I’m retaining full copyright on my art photos but the more documentary ones are now available to use commercially. I would appreciate a Flickr comment if you do use them but it’s not obligatory.

Awesome sauce – I got a paid speaking gig. Apparently the University Of The Arts in London think I’m some kind of blogging expert. I tried to tell the nice lady on the phone that I wasn’t really but she said lots of lovely things about my articles page and how they were looking for an artist who blogs and I guess I qualify on the later.

Did I mention that the speaking gig is next week and I have to learn Powerpoint between now and next Thursday? And right after I said I was going to be taking things easy too – ha, the Universe does like its little jokes. But I’m certainly not complaining; it’ll be cool and this could be the start of an actual income stream for me. Fortunately I’m feeling significantly better I was than last week. I’ve been doing lots of pacing and listening to my body, so I should be fine.

The event is all booked up but they’re going to be taping it and putting it out as a podcast, I’ll let you know when that comes out.

Kirsty Hall: Waiting For Seeds, April 2009

Other cool things have been happening – without very much effort on my part, I might add. It’s slightly odd that I decided to stop pushing and just let things come to me and they promptly started doing exactly that.

I’ve started guest blogging over at the wonderful Make & Meaning blog. I was hugely flattered to be asked to be part of a venture that includes such incredible bloggers as Dudecraft; Craftypod; Kim Werker; Craftivism; Meet Me At Mike’s and Futuregirl. To begin with we’re going to be reposting some relevant posts from this blog but I’m planning to write some original content for them soon. Just as soon as I’ve got this speaking engagement out of the way!

I’ve also joined the brand new Third Tribe initiative, which I’m enjoying a lot. It’s the first time I’ve joined a subscription site like this but so far it’s definitely value for money as the calibre of bloggers involved is just awe-inspiring, plus you get monthly seminars and other exclusive content. It’s half price at the moment but the price goes up at 6 pm Central US Time today (that’s Friday 5th Feb) from $27 to $47 USD a month. If you join today, your subscription price will remain at the lower rate for as long as you’re a member, which is great because otherwise I couldn’t afford to do it.

Finally, for no particular reason that I could see, the lovely people at Vaynermedia sent me a second copy of Gary Vaynerchuk’s fantastic book, Crush It. I hope they meant to because I’m about to give it away! You can read my review of Crush It here.

If you’d like a chance to win this great little book, leave a comment on this post telling me what your passion is. I’ll draw a winner on Wednesday 10th February.

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…

Hi everyone, sorry for being so quiet. Unfortunately I was so exhausted after the Front Room art trail that I collapsed in a heap for several days and then promptly caught a virus (possibly the mild version of Swine Flu) from my son. So I’ve spent most of the last two weeks in bed with a pile of books.

I’m hoping to do a proper art trail update in the next few days but since my muscles still feel like lead, I’m not making any promises.

I’m currently doing Alyson Stanfield’s Blast Off course. It’s challenging and intense but I’m finding it incredibly revealing and useful. One of the daily lessons was about reconnecting with what made us want to be artists in the first place. Here’s what I wrote on the subject:

……………..

I’ve been thinking back to some of the ecstatic points in my life that made me an artist.

1. I would have been about 16 – 17. I was still in secondary school and we were taken on a visit to Glasgow university. I had some free time and went into the Hunterian art gallery, where I was utterly transfixed by a full size Victorian/Edwardian painting of a woman. I can’t remember who it was by – I think it was possibly John Singer Sargent – but I sat there for about an hour, totally engrossed in it, with tears running down my face.

2. Standing in the Sacré-Cœur in Paris with clear December sunlight streaming through the Rose Window while the choir sang in Latin.

3. Seeing Eva Hesse’s drawings for the first time – I’d always loved her sculpture but the subtlety of her grey-toned drawings blew me away when I saw them in real life.

4. Walked round a corner in the Pompidou Centre and being confronted with Cubist paintings by Picasso. I was in my early 20’s and had only been seriously drawing for about three years. I had seen them previously about two years before and been singularly unimpressed – at the time I liked the Impressionists and I thought Cubism was ‘modern rubbish’. But when I saw them for the second time I’d done a lot more drawing and reading up on art and I suddenly got it. It was a surprisingly visceral moment, like a punch to the stomach! It’s a moment that’s stuck with me because it reminds me that even if I don’t initially like or understand a piece of art, it’s always worth taking a second look because my understanding of the visual world is constantly evolving.

But my defining moment was when I was 18 years old, sitting in an English lecture at college and getting absolutely FURIOUS at the way the lecturer completely pulling this book apart and remaking it in his own image. I found it so disrespectful, I was sat there thinking, “write your own damn book, mate!” and it suddenly hit me, “I don’t WANT to do this, I want to be the person MAKING things, not the person analysing things!”

Now I look back and I think, yes, THAT was the moment when I stepped through the looking glass!

………………

I’ve had many other meaningful encounters with art in my life but those are a few that stand out. Was there a defining moment in your life that took you down the path you’re on now? Have you ever experienced a piece of art that overwhelmed you with emotion?

Chickens were first mentioned on this blog back in May 2008 when I was in the midst of an art lull and had started edging into Mad Project Stage.

Here’s what I originally wrote:

So… last night I decided that I wanted to own chickens. I’m doing up the garden, I want to grow more vegetables and our family is interested in environmental things like micro generation of power (we have solar panels that heat our hot water) and getting off-grid as much as possible. So a couple of urban chickens producing lovely fresh eggs wasn’t that out of left field – food yards instead of miles, it would be great!

Actually, I originally thought that both chickens and a beehive would be the way to go but apparently I’m learning because I recognised that bee-keeping was probably a bit beyond me and discarded the idea before enthusiastically announcing it to my bemused family. But I honestly thought that the chickens were perfectly reasonable. One little chicken ark and two chickens – how hard could it be? My family kept chickens when I was a teenager so I know how to look after them – in theory. What could possibly go wrong?

Yes, well… apparently, my family did not share my wild enthusiasm for this wonderful idea and I was told in no uncertain terms that there would be no chickens unless egg prices went through the roof or the fall of civilisation seemed imminent.

Somewhat to my surprise, my family came round on the chicken idea without any further pleading from me. So back in January, ‘get chickens’ became one of my ten goals for 2009.

After a spring and summer spent concentrating on the garden, it was time to decide whether I was up to challenge of chickens. I borrowed several books from the library and immersed myself in the details of chicken-keeping. Hours were spent online pricing up chicken coops, feed and accessories and weighing up the various options. Finally I decided that I could probably manage it as long as I bought a plastic Eglu. Apparently chicken purists often frown on these but I love the funky design and more importantly, because of my health I needed something that was lower maintenance and easier to clean than a wooden coop.

So, a couple of weeks ago, I placed an order online for a green Eglu, two chickens and a bag of Layer’s Mash. The chickens were supposed to arrive on the 6th October but earlier this week, we got a phone call from Omlet (yes, that’s really the name of the company) saying they were delivering in our area this week and would we like our chickens this Friday?

Why yes, yes we would!

The friendly and helpful man from Omlet arrived promptly and installed the Eglu and run in about 15 minutes. While he was doing this we read the handy chicken instruction manual. He told us all about feeding and watering them using the ‘glug’ and ‘grub’ containers – they actually have this embossed on them; it really is Chicken Keeping for Dummies!

Finally it was time to meet the girls and they were brought from the van in a cat carrier. He showed us how to hold them and how to clip their wing feathers (you do this once a year, so that they can’t fly away). We practised picking them up and marvelled at how incredibly soft their feathers are. After further instruction on their care and plenty of reassurance that we could call their chicken expert or ask on their online forum if we had any problems, we were alone with two somewhat bemused chickens.

We spent the rest of the day totally engrossed by them.

Kirsty Hall: Pepper And Ginger, September 2009

Here’s Pepper. She’s a Mrs Pepperpot breed and is the older of our two hens, although she’s not quite fully grown yet. She should be laying in a week or two. She’s the more wary of the two but she’ll come close to humans if there’s a treat involved!

Kirsty Hall: Pepper, September 2009

Ginger is a Ginger Nut Ranger. Hmm, are you seeing the theme with the names here? I’d just like to point out that I was not responsible for the somewhat literal naming. I had planned to give them old-fashioned Victorian style names but was over-ruled. I don’t mind though, Pepper and Ginger are good chicken names.

Kirsty Hall: Ginger, September 2009

Ginger is a couple of weeks younger than Pepper, so she looks a lot more like a dinosaur! Her comb is still quite tiny and she’s a fair bit smaller than Pepper. She’s got at least three weeks of filling out to do before she’ll be giving us eggs. Despite being smaller, she’s often the more assertive and braver of the two and she’s more likely to come close to be petted.

I’m finding there’s a lot to be learnt from chickens. They are sort of Zen – they’re very ‘in the moment’ and their movements are often so slow and deliberate that they remind me of Buddhist monks doing Walking Meditation. When I’m near them, I often slow down too. This afternoon I sat on the lawn feeding them bits of cooked rice from my hand and I felt deeply and completely at peace.

But they can also be amusing. I especially like when they put their heads on one side and give me a quizzical look. They have definite characters and opinions about things (slugs good, cats baaad!) They’ve already learnt that if I come up to the run, it can mean that treats are in the offing: slugs proffered on a garden trowel were squabbled over enthusiastically and quickly devoured. I just love the idea of turning the bane of my garden into delicious eggs!

They fit in well with our rather ramshackle garden. And I love looking out of the kitchen or library window and seeing them placidly going about their chicken-y business.

Kirsty Hall: Eglu in garden, Sept 2009

Having bought them for practical reasons – fresh, organic, ethically produced eggs with low food miles, droppings to accelerate our compost bin and a handy slug-disposal method – we were all quite surprised to be so enchanted by their actual presence. But they are lovely and my family, originally so resistant to my Grand Chicken Plan, are utterly charmed by them and go out to visit them often. Even the teenager has been observed inspecting them.

And Chiana thinks we’ve bought her The Best Present In The Worldtm Because, as we all know, everything is for the benefit of the cat!

Kirsty Hall: The Chicken Menacer

The chickens aren’t quite so enthusiastic about her!

I’ve just done the prize draw and the free Creating A Blog Audience e-book by Diane Gilleland goes to Linda from the Tortagialla blog. Congratulations, Linda, I hope you enjoy it.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to enter. There were some great comments on the review; I found it fascinating hearing all your thoughts on the complex subject of marketing. Wow, my readers are so smart – you all blow me away with the insight and intelligence you regularly bring to my blog and I do appreciate it.