keeping an open mind.

a few years ago, i spent Christmas/New Year public holidays working my arse off 12 hours a day dyeing 30,000 leaves of paper, finishing off an artwork for an Australia Day exhibition [i'd had a meltdown and had left it too late before starting the work].

after the stress of that experience, i made a decision that i was never going to do that to myself or my work again: i didn't enjoy the experience of the exhibition, couldn't really detach from the work enough to talk about it to people and then i got really sick straight afterwards - not even close to being worth it!

having said all that, i can acknowledge that, every now and again, creating something at the last minute can work a treat! there's something about the adrenaline, the focus, the singularity of purpose which can reveal a streak of genius that would be unachievable with proper planning. some of my best written work has come from the late night, last minute flurry of words.

so, despite/because of my better judgment (possibly thanks to a crazy lifestyle at the moment), i'm currently riding the wave of the last minute artwork and i know it will all come together right at the eleventh hour!

working in this way takes blind faith, schutzpah and just the right amount of stupidity, so that you're open to it all falling into place. and today, i had a small victory which was exciting in a very geeky way, and proved to me that i need to follow my whims more often. age mentioned my turntable hunt (for my work) and it was quickly descending into a shambolic merry-go-round (pun intended) when i decided to just pop into one of those 'value'/$2 shops in footscray just to see if there was anything that would work just as well. in the 5th aisle i stumbled upon something that is going to work even better, for about $5 and i don't have to pull apart a record player (which is tantamount to a form of sacrilege for me)!

infernal, baby. infernal.

this is the stuff which keeps me going with creating work in the way i do. it affirms my need to be resourceful in a way that is sometimes inexplicable and a reminder that the answer will often come in a form that i don't expect, if i let it.