Good-day to you! Well it is Monday, the last day of March, a lovely bright day.....but where I ask you has the last week gone??!! It only seems a few hours ago that I was writing my easter blog post and yet I have been a busy busy bee.
Last Monday we set out on our couple of days away in the Peak District. We had a slight moment of grumpiness on both our parts before setting off as I had just been suffering a bad weekend of back pain and was feeling pretty miserable. Our destination of choice, Castleton is lovely, but unless you are there to do some walking there is not a whole lot else to keep you occupied apart from coffee shops and cake! Lovely of course but possibly not enough to fill 3 days.
All was well however. We did stop off for coffee and cake on the way before making the ever so slight detour to Eyam better known as the plague village. It really is a quaint, interesting place with many of the houses dating back to before 1665 which is the year the black death took over the village. The villagers chose to quarantine themselves from the rest of the world in order not to spread the contamination further afield. Only 83 villagers survived out of 350 and many families were completely wiped out, a very sad tale indeed. We did manage (or should I say struggle) to make the walk up to the 'boundary stone' (Mompessons Well, I think it is called) where the villagers left money in little holes carved into the stone filled with vinegar to prevent infection. Here food and medicine was left for them to pick up from outsiders. Although only a couple of km's this was up a very steep hill, thank goodness for the way down!
The next day (after buying a walking stick) we decided to attempt a longer walk past Peveril Castle and down past the caverns. A modest 5 miles it was rather entertaining counting the numbers of walkers twice my age who passed us on the hike! However it only took us a little longer than the suggested amount of time even though we suffered snow and hailstones along the way (and a rather spectacular fall straight out of a comedy film which unfortunately did hurt a little more than my pride!) however it was a real sense of achievement as I used to do a fair amount of hillwalking before suffering with my back. Sometimes slow and steady is the way to go and it was worth it for the views, the fresh air and the visit to Treak Cliff Cavern on the way down.
Our 3 day I shall show you in my next post as I must move on! The rest of the week was taking up with teaching 3 classes - 2 involving the dance costumes which we are making steady progress on. A full day on Saturday working with the ladies enabled us to get alot done and I can now see light at the end of the tunnel. We have 21 panels finished and with 27 costumes to make this is wonderful. I am anticipating that some of the costumes will consist of one felted panel and some will have 2 but will have a clearer idea after I go to my first dance rehearsal this afternoon. With only 2 more 2hr sessions working with the group I am expecting to have some work to do on my own but certainly not as much as I initially thought.
The first panel here is one I made as an example to the group (based on planet earth as you can see by the inspiration image) and the others are panels the ladies have worked on. With the performance now less than 2 weeks away it will be interesting to see how it all pans out!
I do have to confess to feeling a little sad at the moment. With so much of my time going into these classes and these costumes, I miss my studio. No painting, no accessories, very little sketching, it all feels like a bit of a sacrifice. I have work to do for the gallery, ideas I am longing to develop, half finished accessories filling my loft space and no time. But after months of financial worries it is regular work that is saving my bacon. Hopefully after the dance performance I will be able to find some balance. I will have one class coming to an end and a new one starting, but after all the preparation and planning I worked on a few weeks ago I am hoping that this will carry me through future classes. I really need to refocus on my own work and make that more of a priority after this time of neglect. I am ever so grateful for the teaching opportunites and I think that I am growing as an artist and as an individual but it was never my intention to work on them quite so much. As someone who is naturally and quite happily disorganised, it seem as if I have overcompensated with spending hours upon hours writing worksheets and instructions, making prototypes and examples and buying materials, not to mention organising and reorganising the bags and boxes of materials and equipment I have to take to each session. However I think I have to learn to relax a wee bit and trust that I have now done the hard part, each session should now almost take care of itself. My own work has to come first (or at least equal!)
..... Umm did I tell you I am spending the day at a Junior school teaching portraiture to 5 and 6 year olds tomorrow? Perhaps I will make it to the studio at the weekend! (Sorry for the novel!)
(click images to enlarge) 
Just one question. Why oh why does it take money to make money? I have been scouring the internet searching for potential craft fairs to apply for and when a table costs £50 - £80 ($100 - $160) what is a girl to do? The same goes for exhibitions. I think I may have said it yesterday and I shall say it again today........ Ho hum. 
