Counting down

Attatching Blizzard to its (hand-me-down offcut) acrylic mount using buttons.

Three weeks until the Melbourne opening, a month until Imagining Antarctica opens in Hamilton.

The momentum has definitely tipped towards completion. More work finished than not, more work nearly finished than merely started, more work begun now than not. But the work, both finished and unfinished, is pushing hard at all my limits; limits of time, money and most of all space available to realise my vision.

This is the point where it becomes impossible to maintain any illusions that I can operate independently or am remotely self-sufficient in my creative work. I gratefully accept all offers: storage, transport, materials, help, advice. Well, advice is always the most difficult to accept graciously, but I am trying!

The everyday challenges of life feel like an unbearable affont for slowing down the pace of my frantic preparations. Another flat tire on my bicycle, incorrect prescription in my new spectacles, damp laundry, spilled food, bills I can't afford, relentless rain or missed connections all seem disproportionally dangerous for the threat to derail my attention from the deadlines.

I'm on an emotional rollercoaster that feels rickety, precarious, desperate. But, underlying the fear and exhaustion are my memories of going through all this before. I've skidded along this same terrifying path and survived in the past. The memory of my proven capacity to do this is what enables me to sleep at night. I know the secret of success, which is to just keep going. To take the next step and the next step and the next, no matter how hopeless or pointless or useless I feel. Just keep going.

The swirly mustard beneath is an old quilt that forms an integral part of my studio equipment, propping up and/or protecting work as its made.