I’m only writing this as I have about one hundred pieces of clay that I need to sand the backs of, and then clean up with very strong chemicals and I really, really do not want to do it. I’m feeling a wee bit giddy ever since my walk yesterday evening. I headed out in a t shirt and shorts as per usual, and for the first time since spring I finally felt a chill in the air. It almost made me start skipping. I’m an autumn girlie through and through. There is something so delicious about autumn. It is the sexiest season of the year, I mean even the trees are slowly undressing themselves.
There was a familiar sense in the air yesterday, it tasted a lot like autumn 2021. I spent the entire walk trying to decipher this. That was a significant autumn for me personally. It’s where a lot of things started falling into place for me with regards to who I am, what I’m doing and where I’m going. I loved autumn 2021 a lot. It was new, and it was easy going yet exciting. Life is extremely different now though - for good and for a hell of a lot of bad. I’m wondering does that sense of familiarity correspond to entering into a new cycle, perhaps. A regeneration. I would welcome it. I’ve felt extremely detached from myself and the world for the past year, but ever since Stockholm I have started to slowly fall back into myself. I don’t want to get ahead of myself but it has been quite nice.
Yesterday I was unusually productive, I was almost like the old Maeve again. According to my stats.fm app, I listened to 807 minutes of music. This is almost 13.5 hours. Christ. I would also like it noted that my hour long walk was a silent one. I was fairly locked in, and I think it was for two reasons: the first being that I was disgustingly sleep deprived, to the point of shaky nausea, so I wanted to completely exhaust myself so I could sleep that night. The second was that I decided to allow myself to try and create something I had been envisioning in my head for a while. I usually do not afford myself this privilege so close to a market, as I feel like I need to focus on creating what I know will sell, and I can’t be taking risks and wasting time and clay on something that might fail. Also, I fucking hate failing. Especially when I’ve been in such a fragile mental state that I need to see myself succeeding in what I do as fuel to keep going, because any time I fuck up what I’ve been trying to make it makes me want to drop it forever.
The pieces in question are still not finished (part of the hundred pieces of clay I mentioned at the start) but my god, I adore them. They are look so rich, elegant, beautiful and grounded (like me xoxo). They took a lot longer than anticipated to create as I unfortunately did not follow my gut. I wanted to create a textured border between the colours on the pieces, which would then be inlaid with metallic gold ink. It’s quite an intensive process making them - my elbow was actually aching by evening time yesterday.
I had to condition the clay so it was soft and clear enough to use, then split it in three for the colours I was using to make the marbled logs. I then mixed the colours in, chopped them all up, added the accents and mashed them all together into the logs to slice from. I then made the pearly gold slab, and individually sliced about half of the brown log and then used an organic shaped cutter to get some irregular circle shapes from it, which I then inlaid within the pearly gold slab. I then rolled it through my clay machine, and then framed what would be the final pieces within that slab. Then, I went to use a dotting tool to generate the texture effect I desired within the borders, and once I had one piece done I was very unimpressed, and could not see myself achieving the end result I had envisioned in my head so I decided to leave them as is, as I did not want to potentially fuck up a very laborious slab of clay.
I regretted this choice immensely as soon as I applied the resin on the one piece that I had made. It was what I imagined someone who decided to take home the money on Tipping Point feels when they see if that if they had taken the risk and put the three counters in, they would have taken home the ten thousand. They were so beautiful that I couldn’t continue with the plain pieces because looking at them filled me with resentment for my past pussy self from 2 hours prior. So, undeterred, I examined how I would be able to achieve the effect I desired even though the pieces were already baked and cured. I had some burrs which would have done the trick nicely, but they were too big to fit in my rotary tool and I was too impatient to set up my flex shaft, so I just went with the plain drill. I am pleased to say that it was a very messy success, and I slept six hours last night.
Anyway, I have just finished my two cups of herbal tea (three mint, and ginger & turmeric). My sheltered self best get back to listening to songs about selling drugs whilst sanding the tips of my fingers off. If you want to see the aforementioned beautiful pieces, come along to the Marina Market this weekend, where I will have them from Friday to Sunday!!