Dreaming and planning

I want to go on a big trip next year and I'm starting to think about and research where I want to go. My main aims are the north of Scotland and Norway. I want to be far north. I want to experience long hours of daylight and the change in season. I want to travel to places that historically speak of solitude and experience them as they are now. I want to see the harshness of the landscape and exist in relation to it. I want to live away for six months or so and record my experiences through drawing and writing.

I fondly remember a little drunken conversation I had at a gig in Stockholm in 2013, excitedly realising how I was on the opposite side of the world to Melbourne. My spontaneously-booked month in the Swedish Summer. What a distance to travel to escape bad feelings and refresh my perspective. It feels far away in time but close in my memory. I perceive time to be moving faster.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the importance of routine in my practice. I often work with whims and feelings but I'm finding myself a lot more disciplined with my studio time lately. For some time now I have been trying to figure out my money-work and art-work balance and although it is often stressful or demoralising (thank you, Centrelink) it has meant that I value my time a lot more than what I may have in the past. I generally feel focused and relieved when I enter my studio space knowing that this is the time that I have set aside for my creative work.

I have aims of undertaking a few art residencies. Hopefully a mixture of short and long stays. Solo and amongst other artists. I am very keen to focus my mind in one space for a few months and see what I can produce. Although I often find myself saying that I don't know what I am doing right now, I know that my aim is to dream and plan, and put my head down and work in my studio and earn/save some money to make those dreams and plans happen.