Planning verses Spontaneity

A busy few weeks ahead. Started this week when the Sculptor went ‘sculpture delivering’. Taking the overnight Ferry from Hull to Zeeburg, he then headed to Beukenhof-Phoenix Galleries. It was a very quick, last minute booking and it always takes me a little bit of time to get my head around these kinds of impromptu plans. We had been in touch with gallery and it was part of a plan but I just hadn’t anticipated it happening so quickly as for some reason we hadn’t realised they had an exhibition panned to start at the beginning of May.

I do like spontaneous plans for myself, however. At the weekend we went to see Leonardo Da Vinci’s drawings at Leeds City Art Gallery and watched the Tour de Yorkshire pass rapidy, both were last minute plans. The exhibition was wonderful, small beautiful drawings in a dark blue painted low lit room. The youngest took his sketch book and smugly told me an old lady called him the next Leonardo. The cycle event didn’t have as many cyclists as I was expecting but we enjoyed it and the eldest took a rather cool slow-motion video of them cycling past us.

We also did a completely spontaneous trip in the Easter holidays and decided to go camping the day before we went. The sculptor quite baffled, kept telling me I hadn’t thought it through, but the weather was so glorious, no thinking was called for. So literally with just a tent, and a whole boot full of sleeping bags, clothes and sandwich off we went for one night to a site with just a tap and a ‘gents’ toilet at the foot of Gordale scar. The boys and I, in a two man tent equated to no sleep for me. So I must invest in another tent and a camping stove as the lack of a warm drink was also missing if we want to do a more planned out camping trip this summer.

Are you a planner? Do you plan ahead and have things in your diary for months beforehand? I really struggle with planning ahead, I find it so difficult to think ahead despite knowing there is a lot of logic to it. Yet I really feel like my whole body has a physical reaction to last minute planning when it’s not me in control. So when it is my husband is doing the ‘spontaneity’ I have a kind of small internal freak out which often results in me saying something that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. As I become more aware of this, I am able to try and take it all in and breathe. Realising that I can manage it and all will be fine. My usual initial thinking is that I can’t do it all when the sculptor is away. Who am I kidding! It is important to have flexibility and movement in our plans and our thinking, especially when we live with others.

Ultimately it is also a really important life lesson to learn that things don’t always happen the way we want them and that we are not the ones in control. As much as we can plan things they may not happen the way we plan them. When we were watching the tour de Yorkshire we were talking about what time the cyclists were due to pass us. They had worked it out according to what speed they might travel at. However, learning to be in the present moment teaches us that things occur when they are meant to. The cyclists passed at the right time. These sculptures arrived in Belgium when they were meant to. Life happens now, not in the past or the future.

However, I am awaiting glorious images of sculptures in situ, outdoors in Belgium to upload here before I post- planning it to be Friday, we shall see!

Here they are, all to plan.

Two years past and the year ahead

‘Year Planner’

Years….having said there isn’t such a thing as a new year I am titling this post with years and year as I look back on 2 years of blogging. I have gained in confidence and as I write my 100th post I feel a real sense of achievement. I have had small stirrings of ideas of other things to write, perhaps on paper rather than a blog.

I heard the quote “Blogging is not writing. It’s just graffiti with punctuation” in the film Contagion which made me turn a shade of crimson. I think Graffiti is a pretty good art form thanks to the likes of Banksy. Legal Productivity blog has made some very good comments about this quote ‘click here‘ to read more. For me, if it gets me writing then, who cares, my punctuation isn’t that great anyway. If it’s something to do with shelf life then in some ways I am glad it doesn’t linger to long. It makes me a bit nervous to think that things can linger in the web of the worldwide internet for too long.

Blogging has enabled me to ‘practice’ at something. I have become lazy and unambitious in just wanting to see an end result without perfecting the art of practising and talking myself out of doing anything. Odd really as I grew up ‘practising’ the piano, the flute, the saxophone, netball, duke of Edinburgh expeditions. Perhaps I was all practised out. Maybe I have finally found something I want to practise.

My intention with this blog was to write about my husband’s practise to give me motivation to promote his work more. Two years on and his work has really developed, into a definite brand and style. He has up and coming exhibitions. One of my jobs was to fill in the year planner before writing this, I feel I have cheated a bit to use this image in this post as obviously it is not a sculpture and it would have been better to have had all the dates filled but some are not completely finalised and it required another job to search through emails to fill in. However, it is useful to have a picture of the year and know that there are events and exhibitions happening, Nancy Victor Gallery is currently exhibiting work in the show, ‘It’s a wonderful life’ and The Store street , The Curious Duke, galleries and FPS (Free Painters and Sculptors Society) all have work in exhibitions over the next few months and then there is the possibility of The Affordable Art Fair and London TENT later in the year. The most nervously and eagerly anticipated project is the FIRST@108 which we are finishing up this week and will be taken down to London this month to The Royal British Society of Sculptors. So there will be much to write about. 2013 is looking good for sculpture and blogging, let’s see where it take us! 🙂

Three or Four P’s

Is planning and organisation better than spontaneity? I can never decide, in my indecisive nature, I don’t think I am much of a planner but having children requires you to have some sense of routine. I believe as humans we do require some order and daily rituals. The negative side is when things don’t go to plan. Expectation is a heavy load. Read ‘Outside Air‘ about expectation.. I think I tend to procrastinate a lot, which is not great for organisation. I recently read that procrastination is associated with perfectionism. Is that good or bad? As in all things, balance is key. My husband does everything in the moment, now. He doesn’t procrastinate but it most probably a perfectionist.

As an artist my husband has a dual personality towards planning. In making his sculptures there is a sort of plan. He sketches, almost constantly. Then revises and choses to develop a certain piece. After it’s made the colour is then chosen. We currently have two new pieces sitting in our hallway. One of which was designed to be something but has since become something else. So there is always room for manoeuvre. We are having to be a bit more organised at the moment with his regular trips to London. He is on his way down again today. Since being selected as an artist with Debut Contemporary (currently curator’s pick if you go through to the link) he has featured in Candid Magazine, also been selected for The Other Art Fair and is having his work showcased on a large board outside BOXPARK  in London. This Saturday he is back down in London again for his Debut and Debut with his workshop. So it is a busy time.

In preparation for his workshop it has been interesting seeing how he has approached the planning side of things. Various email exchanged have happened to organise the curatorial side of his sculptures in the gallery. When he was first thinking about organising it, the worrier in him kicked in, he really started planning, went out and bought all the various equipment for what he was thinking of doing, had some great ideas. Then it went on hold. Now the spontaneous artist has appeared and what will happen on Saturday, who knows. Why not plan a visit to Debut Contemporary to find out …..

Saturday 21st April 2012 12-6pm