So it may or may not be Rishi.

Rishi does not read the blog, unfortunately, so I won’t bother too much talking about tories for the forseeable future.

Boris was a frequent visitor from 2016 to about 2020, then the visits tailed off a bit.  I had never previously heard of Cliveden and was unaware of government dens of iniquity having their own servers.

I doubt they will select Rishi, but whatever.

Anyway, the aim was, as I said, lifetime access to Chequers, an extra 115k a year of taxpayers money and free security, so he doesn’t actually need to run again.  I was surprised he even bothered cutting the holiday short.

Very bored at the moment, but making a millinery inspired coat.

Bawbag’s shop has been done out by the new tenant, they threw what was left of the oil can out this weekend, which was rather sad. Expensive tiles sitting out awaiting the bins.

Another sad end to a sad story. Poor Bawbag.

Ina

Hello to my apparent new fan in London.

Spent the last 24 hours moving Little Shiva to the next stage in preparation for the next few layers of the shell.

The big sticking point has been caused by the problem of turning the egg inside out, but I think I have managed to solve it, another few layers should indicate whether this has been a success. I suspect the planned window panes would actually make Little Shiva less comfortable so I am rethinking those.

It is amazing how often large scale structural issues can be solved by indcreasing the horizontal tension on the sewing.  Sometimes your knowledge of stitch engineering can be as strong as adding inert weight.

Haven’t been doing much other than stitching and sculpting, hoping to see some real results soon.  I am digging my heels in a bit about winding this up as a project.  I don’t think trauma is particularly good for achievement as you spend a lot of time cringing and second guessing yourself.

Working on some new clothing ideas, Ina is getting a revamp as an avatar. I think it is now safe for me to be a bit more feminine than it used to be, so I am looking forward to messing around with my image a bit now there is nobody around to shame me out of it. It is most unfortunate that my ghastly family, Little Shiva and Bawbag chose shame as a weapon as it means I have to put some distance in.

It has been nearly five years since my mother died.  I don’t need to listen to quite as much intense music now and value silence a bit more.  It was not an easy thing to have happen to you and so many unforgiveable things were done that I was intensely upset for a very long time. Not good for your health.

Chewing over the film project that will follow this collection.  I don’t particularly want to create a course or do ‘how to’ type videos, so I have spent a lot of time listening to youtubers whilst working to evaluate what will work for Ina.

I have a number of non art related ideas and some entertainment planned.

Still a ton of work to do.  Little Shiva is very much key to this collection, so it has to be right.

Ina

So, I have encountered a lot of assumptions in the last decade or so, usually by people who would not be buying expensive carpets anyway, so I don’t pay too much attention.

The number one assumption is that in order to be an artist, you cannot also be anything else.

This is rubbish, for a variety of reasons.  For one thing, my father was also an artist, and although he did it for a living, warned me off ever doing it for a living.

This was because he wasn’t actually all that happy working commercially, and felt that doing quite as much work for other people compromised his time to do anything self motivated.  Hence he said to do anything but art, and let the compulsion dictate how much I did.

In my case the compulsion was largely repression led, hence the number of male peers and large scale themes.  I don’t find your everyday codependence very interesting, so nobody that I have actually had a relationship with has ever featured heavily in my work.  It is always a superficial flirtation, often with someone I don’t even feel a relationship would ever work out with.

In any case, I think he was right.  I would be heavily diluted if I actually had to do it for money, so it is worth it to me to be free to say whatever I want.

The number two assumption is that you are a parasite and funded by some mysterious art god.

This is entirely untrue. I have always been self funded, and the reason I can afford to be self funded is because art is the only thing that actually matters.  I work in order to pay to do more work, essentially.  It devours any sense of style, love of entertainment or whatever because it is not only the thing, it is the only thing.

The number three assumption is that you are known therefore you are wealthy.

This one is quite funny.  For one thing it takes staggering effort to be known, and staggering self belief, which if we want to be any good, we don’t actually have.

I have two friends on Facebook, Philmy Reyes and Sandeep Sinde.  Both of them make more money than I do.

Philmy does rapid crude drawings of personal photographs and makes at least four thousand a week, and Sandeep makes philosophical statements in the form of drawing around his hand and turning it into a chicken.

They are also both far more well known than I am.  I am more in the exclusive quirky market, and promotion consists of the free books.  I don’t take the writing terribly seriously, it is mainly to get more pics of artwork out and balance the brain, however it is interesting sometimes.

The fourth assumption is that you are elitist

Whilst being elitist is a good idea from the perspective of price and claiming to do something unique and special, it is not at all necessary.  The people most interested in my work are not the buyers, but people that pass me in the street.  My perspective is that art is life itself, and because I put no pressure on myself to earn, this is more of a process of self development than assumption that I do something nobody else can do.

On the contrary, whilst my perspective turns out to be rather singular, my work is very childlike and simple, and there is no reason why people could not do it themselves.

The original purpose was to engage an entire village to up the volume at some point, and whilst life has not gone in that direction so far, the work is still possible without electricity.  This is less relevant than it was when I started, hence the investment in automation.

I find artists who believe in finicky technicalities and exclusivity in terms of skill are often the most insecure, which isn’t great for their wallet.

Having said that, I have been perfecting what to some is a basic craft form for three decades, so I am sort of guilty of this too.  Far better to put out work you aren’t in love with and make a living, I guess.

The fifth assumption is that art has to elevate your perception.

This is a dangerous one because it stops you working.  Art is a visual representation of the intangible idea.  That idea can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be.

The sixth assumption is you have to talk bullshit.

No you do not have to waffle in a pretentious and complex way to describe what you do.  That is also up to you.  You may sell more if people feel they are struggling to understand, I have no idea, but I really doubt it.

As Twisty used to say – art is untold misery and extreme emotion that happens to look nice in someone’s dining room.

Not necessarily, sometimes it just describes a feeling, but he wasn’t wrong.

The seventh assumption is that it has to be original.

I found an American artist who had completely ripped off this teapot, made it in cotton fabric and changed the name very slightly in an art magazine this week.  I was very pissed off, but there is very little you can do.

Anyway, that is enough for today.

Ina

Happy birthday to my beloved Wolfe, who is 52 today!

So, I am wondering where Bawbag is, as he has made himself scarce of late.

His shop is now let, which makes me wonder if he has in fact just negotiated himself right back in and is taking a privileged holiday in Libya prior to returning. I did notice his own crew whitewashing the windows a month or so back.

I actually quite miss him, which is strange.  He didn’t make himself much of a source of happiness all things considered.

Little Shiva has been on this website more often than I have recently.  Do not worry, Little, I am working on the rest of the collection.  The chair is a big problem, but only because I was concerned about other things.

Went down the rabbit hole of Hedge Fund Research last week, and discovered a dying art.  The business is being disrupted by web based offerings and is not a good career move, as it turns out, although had they been paying an even slightly realistic rate I would have given it a shot.

I am now investigating the world of freelance business consultancy.  Were I to go into this, I could be clearing a couple of thousand a week, however I am wary.  I was under the impression from the material on offer that English teaching, which I also do from time to time was a growth business, and as it turns out it is the most ageist field you could possibly pick.  The Chinese like very young thin blonde, preferably American teachers according to many schools, so although I loved it, because Chinese children are incredibly good fun and wonderful characters, I was not going to make a full time income from it easily.  I am considering an evening gig, but I may be considering it for longer than it takes to set up a dropshipping website.

The collection, which has now been underway for three years, is still an epic task and I am hoping to build up a decent budget for filming by the time it is complete.  I am very disciplined now about how I work it, so that I do not experience illness or burnout, so by the time it is finished it will have been entirely funded by my day jobs. Thereafter I will be moving further into media, as this is a worthy cause for time investment.

Anyway, still on the hunt for an income that exceeds the time put into it by a more impressive degree, and am considering dabbling some more in the property world. This is because last week was my highest earning week ever, so I am feeling unusually positive.

But where is Bawbag?

Toodle pip,

Ina

Congrats on freedom.

Moving the health idea on a bit just now, work on my yellow piece is quite slow but going very well, moving a lot of stuff to the studio for the messy bit.

Feeling a lot better, but still in a bit of pain and had a massive anxiety attack today.

Losing a lot of weight rapidly, which is a good thing.

Hopefully will have a finished website up and running shortly, and this one will be getting a redesign shortly.

Ina

It is similar to this.  I am not using it for the current work, but the fact it has arrived means I can work on Predate, a piece I wanted to do featuring Wolfe and I.

These used to cost about 600 gbp, apparently millenials like doing dull things with them, so they are now relatively cheap.  I am yet to see much in the way of good work online so we shall see if I can sex it up a bit.

This is quite exciting and will involve the construction of a very large frame.

I will work on it next year or so.  Just now I am finishing up the work for Joy is Power.

This will take until Christmas, especially with the new project work.

I am having difficulties motivating myself to get back onto some computer work, which will be necessary to launch my health project.  Unfortunately, although I know exactly what to do this time, I was still too out of it and exhausted to get decent footage of the skin issues prior to curing them, so I will just have to talk about them.

The Long Covid has made exercise a more tactical project than previously, but with the benefit of not having to spend every waking minute looking for work, I should be able to tackle it over the next year or so.  This is important for one of the new projects.

Next up is probably going to be a long series of footstools.  They are pretty odd.

Ina

The music has changed again, and I am still working on the same collection.  This switches up the end result every time, and the music has gone, since Little Shiva, from disco to electro swing to funk and breakbeats.

Spending this weekend relaxing and setting up cameras and computers for the next phase, which will take a little while to perfect since I am planning to do a lot of filming whilst I finish up this lot.  There is a lot of work to do.

I am working on a completely separate collection of items which will take about a month, but this will not take up a lot of working time, just a lot of studio space.

Also trying to get a lot of old stuff shifted, which is going to be irritating in the extreme.

Anyway I will work on perfecting the video elements in the meantime as I have a separate project that has needed my attention for the last few years and because of Little Shiva I had to waste a lot of time on work.  This problem is, all being well, solved.

Ina

You my be wondering why I am making funky lace jumpers at the moment.  The plan is to develop construction lace to construct furniture, and this is the by product of me learning how lace works.

Lacemakers may think this is a very odd way to look at lace, and yes it is a different direction for a different purpose.  Whilst the end result may involve more emblems and complex lacemaking, currently the priority is to work on how it hangs and how to strengthen it without compromising on drape, therefore the Fire Coat has been a worthwhile development on Lady Victory.

I have also approached these garments as sculptures, which has made it interesting.  As it turns out, the reason most plus sized clothing looks crap is because they make it in 2d, similar to smaller sizes.

When you approach it as a sculpture it is much easier to make a one size seamless garment. Lady Victory, in particular, is enormous and even drowns me without looking all that unusual in size.

Anyway, I think both of these items followed the same theme as the handbags and the shoes I still haven’t started working on, so I am pretty happy with the overall idea of them.  I will do one more gilet, I think before I start moving on to the next stage.

I wore the Fire Coat today whilst out and about, and the response was pretty positive.  You can tell without even seeing the whole thing that it is a special item, and it turned quite a few heads, although the younger people I spoke to did not seem to understand the idea of making something, which I found incredibly sad.  They also seemed to be frightened rather than finding it fun.  The people who have seen me working and know what I do thought it was very good fun, in comparison, so that was interesting from the perspective of context.

Basically if you don’t know that I am in the business of iconic wool, it just seems like I have just beamed down from another planet, which is sort of gratifying in a weird way.

In the meantime I am working on finishing the carpet components of the new range and will be entering the studio once I have caught up with the house and updated the website.

I also have the new items to construct, this will take over a month although it is one day’s work.

This week has been kind of mad.  I ditched a couple of jobs, got a couple of jobs, generally a money week overall.

Long may that continue, although it won’t.

Need a good health week now I think.