Spinning Plates & Other Stories

This week has a been a joy in many ways, plenty of snow to tramp through in the woods and around the farm and photograph. 

I have also been preparing proposals and giving quotes for a number of jobs and am in that very challenging situation that many artist makers find them selves; tendering for commissions that have overlapping time frames and not knowing if you are going to get any of them or all of them.

It is probably one of the most difficult aspects of what I do.  I get a potential commission in my mind and am inspired and thinking through how I would do it, then another one is in my mind too and it’s all getting really exciting and I am also thinking through the current commission that has yet to secure funding.  Suddenly the wall planner looks like a jumble of coloured lines in wipe-off ink and the smaller commissions get squeezed out and there just aren’t enough hours or days to get through it all and panic sets in! 

Then I sit back and realise that chances are that none of it will happen and I am back to square one!  Then the disappointment hits me; those ideas that I got so excited about are going to be shelved for now and the quotes I chased around for will be stored up for future reference.

Then I look at the snow melting and wonder if those bird prints in the snow I saw yesterday are slowly fading away and looking less like a bird break-dance party and more like a waltz.