Nah. I really don't believe in all that. Putting massive pressure on yourself to be 'better' and subsequently making yourself feel really shitty because you 'fail'. No thanks. Been there and done that, like most people. No more, thank you very much. I can however get down with the idea of intentions. Like, one of my intentions for 2023 is to, I don't know, be more experimental with my cooking (it is, actually). I'm not saying to myself 'I am going to cook one new dish every week for the whole year and if I don't then I'm a total loser'. But just as a general thing, I will gently encourage myself to try some new stuff.

Anyway, another of my intentions for this year is simply to write more. I like writing. I am told that I'm good at it and people enjoy reading what I've written. Yet somehow (as you'll see from the date of my last blog post) I don’t actually get round to doing it very often. When it comes to writing, I find the mere thought of putting down all the words that are required to convey a thought or an idea quite overwhelming. It's not the physical effort, it just seems such a monumental task (how on earth do people write novels?!) I'll be into, say, the second paragraph (yes, exactly here!) and I'm thinking 'good grief, I haven't even said any of the things I came here to say! There's such a long way to go!' And that makes me feel quite weary. Maybe it's a remembered state from the last time I really wrote anything of any length which would be A-levels – and that was a particularly shitty time in my life. (Actually I just had another thought about this – I feel the same about painting sometimes and it isn't to do with how far I have to go, but the sheer number of options that are available! Infinite! The same with words – there are infinite possibilities – maybe it's that that I find overwhelming).

So anyway, I guess the thing to do is to just keep writing, and it will get easier, and less overwhelming. Just sort of burrow into it, get submerged, stop thinking about the end point – be mindful, is I suppose what I'm saying. And I've just had a little chat with myself, and decided that ok, this post can just be about the writing because it's gone off in that direction, and I don't have to strive to cover everything that I'd originally intended to. It's good to let these things flow, take their own path. It was going to be about my painting (eventually) but that can be for next time. In any case, the two are linked (read on!)

Part of what I want to cultivate for myself is a free flowing of ideas, a kind of cerebral lubrication that will help me with my art, with ideas, creativity, and mental health. I know I could write it in a journal, keep it to myself, not subject you poor buggers to it – but a large part of the writing thing is to do with the art thing. It feels like a missing piece, something that will make my creative practice fuller, more substantial and I want to embrace that. I haven't really written around my art since I was working with machine embroidery around 15 years ago. That's the last time I was really making expressive as opposed to ideas-based art, so I guess that makes sense. Coming up with funny captions for greetings cards didn't really require any sort of deep thinking.

It's that depth that I'm after – I've been feeling for quite some time now that I'm just sort of skimming along the surface – almost like I'm avoiding getting really engaged with it. I think partly this has been to do with that transition from - let's call it design – to painting. About having been trying to find my way with painting, and find my voice, but not really settling in a place where I want to stop skimming, and dive underneath to explore what's there.

So (and I apologise if you're one of those people that hates sentences starting with 'so', but I ain't gonna stop!) (also, my English teacher told me never to start sentences with 'and', but I like doing that too. I just don't care!!) - so, I'll be showing up here regularly this year, I'm not going to say once a month or whatever, that'll just scare me off. Regularly is fine. Sometimes there will be pictures, sometimes not. And thank you to Sam who inadvertently gave me the kick up the arse I needed to do this. Cheers Sam!