not a lazy suzen

Y’know, I’m not really doing anything different than I was in the woods. Drinking coffee at the computer, crocheting a random thing just for the hell of it, listening to the world through open windows. The only difference is that there are no giant black ants crawling from the base heaters–I have a sooky cat prowling around instead.

I’ve been back in Montreal since last week and I’ve been taking my time to readjust to city living. Spending five weeks in Newfoundland really threw me for a bit of a loop and the residency left me more confused than anything else. I will be sitting down throughout the next few months to write about my experiences there with the intent that some of it may be published in a limited edition zine or small artist book.

In the meantime, I will tell you that my perspective has changed drastically. All that talk I was doing about homesickness and diaspora has left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth now that I have given into the homesickness I thought I had. Giving in to something as disproportionate as my nostalgic tendencies can only lead to disaster. My longing for Newfoundland has completely disintegrated. It took those long five weeks for me to come to terms with the relationship I have to Newfoundland, to my past. Yes, the whole experience rubbed my entire psyche raw and now I’m trying to build myself back up.

I closed a door, people. I closed a fucking huge and heavy door. Leaving St. John’s this time was easy, a feeling I wasn’t expecting but welcomed all the same.

There are still a few days left of the month and I’m determined to spend it focusing on non-things. Video games, mindless crochet, reading, extra long walks and planning suppers. Come the first of July I will be back into artmaking studio work mode. Between finishing projects, making samples for the class I’m teaching in September, packing up my studio at the school and trying to come up with a plausible thesis, this blog is going to be pretty busy.

* From “Boy with the Arab Strap” by Belle & Sebastian.

So my time in the woods is coming to a close. I have plans to scoot out of The Park on Thursday which means that I only have two full days left. I am probably going to spend the next two days down at the Visitor Centre where the marine touch tank is, attempting to knit hats for snow crabs. Well, maybe not. But I will be down at the centre sitting on the couch with my hooked mat and chatting with the few tourists that make their way through the gift shop. I was down there today for about an hour and a half, working quietly on a hot pink mat as kids emptied out from yellow school buses. Pretty much every adult stopped to say hello–the tourists were asking what I was doing and the staff shared stories about hooked mats that their grandmothers made back in the day. It’s so amazing to me how ingrained the language of textiles is here. Everyone that I’ve spoken with doesn’t even think twice when I tell them about what I’m doing. It’s pretty comforting.

I’m going to be happy when I leave on Thursday. There are so many things that I would do differently if I had to do this whole thing again. The biggest thing I would have done differently is come at a different time. I would have also got off my reclusive butt and interacted with the communities more instead of staying holed up like I have for the last three weeks. I also would have brought that drawing paper I decided to leave behind, even though I wouldn’t really have had a place to draw but still. Maybe I would have made more artwork if I had drawing paper.

More than likely, I will not be giving any artist presentations before I leave. Since The Park has only officially opened this week (or was it last week?) a lot of the program scheduling hasn’t even been made yet. I arrived at such a crappy time: limited staff, even scarcer visitors, schools in the middle of final exams, crap weather–there’s no way any presentations could have been pulled together enough to get an audience large enough to be worth it. So, instead, I’m going to hang out in that Visitor’s Centre so I can at least get this guilty feeling off my conscience about not holding up my end of the deal.

I’m a product-oriented person. To the people that know me well, this probably doesn’t come as such a surprise. The biggest challenge for this trip (Hell, this year!) has been the mulling period between projects. I get so pissed with myself when I end up stalling. I know breaks are important and integral to the creative process but when I’m stuck in a cabin in the woods under the pretense that I should be making art, it’s pretty difficult not to put pressure on myself to churn shit out. I know that most of the artmaking that will come from this residency will be in response to my experience here so I guess I shouldn’t worry too much. I’ve done a few things here so it’s not like I was sitting on my thumbs the entire time. I’ve shot some videos, taken photos, started and finished mat, started a new mat and finished knitting a sock. I’ve collected snow crab heads, broken mussel shells and driftwood. Lord knows I won’t be making work with them now but they’ll find a place in Montreal. Somewhere.

After Wednesday, I’m taking a break from everything. No hooking. No knitting. No thinking about art. Just breathing. Lots and lots of breathing.

While you wouldn’t really know it to look at my studio or my apartment, I  need a lot of organization to keep myself in check. Sure, most of the time my workspaces seem haphazard but there is a method to my madness. I am constantly adjusting my organizational methods, which is probably why things always appear to be a mess. I like sorting and filing and making piles. I just wish I had more shelves….

When I’m working on a written submission (exhibitions, grants, essays, jobs, etc) I tend to work in a similar manner. Just this year I’ve gotten into the habit of creating file folders for every written thing I do. There’s a folder for “PLACE” and another for “ZINE-LIKE THINGS” and even another that just says “THIS IS SERIOUS”. Right now I’m elbow-deep in a folder labeled “TEACHING” and it’s the most terrifying folder yet, if only because it is so sparse. I don’t even know where to start!

For the last week and a half I have been working on teaching applications for next year. I’ve never had to put one of these together. The closest I’ve come to this are the syllabuses I had to use for teaching CyberSeniors at the public library. And the few times I’ve taught knitting in shops. Sure I’ve been a teaching assistant for the last two years so I’ve picked up a bit of training that way but man alive! It is really overwhelming to dive into something when you only know 1/8th of what you probably should. The worst part about this application process has been my own second-guessing. I mean, in situations like these it is so easy to talk yourself out of being awesome and into being self-defeating. Every ten minutes I have to give myself a kick in the ass for being stupid because I know I can do this.

The weird thing about being in graduate school these past two years has been the lack of preparation for this very moment. Sure, not every person in the MFA wants to be a teacher but there are quite a few of us that do. In my experience there has been very little preparation from professors, even at a teaching-assistant level. Instead, it’s the students that are leading the students–a bit of the blind leading the blind. It’s weird because sometimes it feels like I missed the day they went over all this critical information because I’m the only one that’s totally in the dark. Or maybe people are just born knowing everything? Sigh.

The applications are due on Monday and while I’ve been working on them for a week already, I still have a lot of work cut out for me. I’m having a bitch of a time phrasing my assignments so they sound smart and interesting because I want my students to be just as excited about fibrey things as I am. This is something I want to be doing for the rest of my life and I’m right at the edge of it, building up the courage to jump feet first. It’s just that first step that’s a doozy, everything else is easy after that.