I’m typing this just as I’ve finished my tutorial with Jonathan, whilst I can still remember what we discussed – I did start taking notes at the beginning but ditched them as the act of note-taking became too intrusive. Consequently, I will probably forget bits, but this is the gist.

I explained that I’m feeling really positive about the course – just to be in the process is enough, and anything over and above is a bonus. Jonathan asked me what I wanted to get out of the course. What I would like is to find out who I am, which is a bit of a cliché, and to develop a rhythm of working so that art becomes a major part of my life: up until now I have had to carve out time to spend making art.

Jonathan asked me what my life is like in terms of whether it is ordered: no, it’s totally disordered with no real routine, fire-fighting issues and dealing with lots of things at the same time. Jonathan commented that the idea of spinning plates has its own rhythm. It has, but I feel that I need to develop a discipline in my artistic practice – I have no real self-discipline in many areas of my life.

Jonathan then asked me what my strength is. It’s getting things done: I can be determined, persistent and I don’t give up. The downside to this is that I’m goal driven (which causes issues in terms of concentrating on the end product, rather than the process), and I tend to jump right in. Thinking about it now as I write, not giving up can result in me being relentless and not knowing when to walk away and leave something – my mother used to describe me as a terrier.

Jonathan mentioned the story on my blog about my shopping habits: the act of wandering from shop to shop contradicts the idea of jumping in. I agreed that actually I should shop more like my husband in terms of reaching a goal, and that the act of wandering is not enjoyable but full of pressure: to find something which meets the criteria by the deadline. Not buying the first thing I see which would suffice, may indicate a reluctance to commit before exploring all the options.

What does it feel like to be working at my best? I lose all sense of time. I’m lost in time. Nothing else matters. I can look up and find that it’s dark and it’s 9.30pm and the dogs and my family haven’t eaten. But then I can look at what I’ve done and, if I’m not happy with it , think how I’ve wasted those hours of my life which I’ll never get back and which I could have spent doing something more productive. Jonathan commented that there was a paradox in terms of being lost in time and losing time. He asked me to describe the sense of loss of time: it’s huge and full of resentment in the moment, but then dissipates as everyday life starts to take over again, until it eventually disappears.

We talked about some of the things that I’ve been trying out, and I explained that I’ve been purposely not viewing things as good or bad (although I did on my last post!) or as a success or failure. You can only fail if you have an expectation and that every experience, whether good or bad, is a valuable learning experience. Jonathan agreed and commented that the purpose of the act of mark-making is to tell us what to do next and if it does this, then it’s done its job, even if it is to tell us not to carry on. He sensed a real frustration in my experiments with the iPad. I did feel frustrated but even though I had reached the view that it wasn’t something for me in terms of producing a final piece of work, I did appreciate its usefulness for preparatory work. Jonathan mentioned that a lot of artists use it for this purpose in terms of working things out, like composition, and referred to Justin Mortimer who produces large oil paintings.

I explained that I have been doing a lot of thinking recently and have a lot of ideas inside my head – In fact, I can’t stop thinking about it. I’ve also been getting a lot of inspiration as to how to express these ideas in terms of producing work. If we had had this tutorial a few days ago I would have been excited and energised, but I now seem to be less so, as I feel a resistance to attempt to translate the ideas into actual work. It’s not a fear of failure as such, but a reluctance, or maybe a fear that once I try to capture the idea it won’t be as good as it is in my head. I would usually jump straight in and, more often than not, end up feeling frustrated or disappointed. I’ve recently found that thinking about and planning a work results in less dissatisfaction in the end result, but it seems that the act of stopping and thinking creates a barrier, an inertia, to moving forward. It’s a bit like how I would imagine doing a parachute jump: I check that I have everything I need in order to jump safely, but I still can’t get myself out of the plane. The other side of me would just jump. I mentioned the blog: I’m not on social media and I like to keep myself to myself and fly under the radar, yet I enjoy the process of writing the blog and this is fine as long as I don’t think too much about it ie that it’s public (as an aside whilst I’m writing this, I have actually searched for it on Google and it doesn’t come up so that makes me feel better!).

I then told Jonathan about a proof-reading distance learning course I signed up for many years ago, as I thought it could be something I could do whilst my daughter was young. I received the first couple of modules in the post and did the first assignment. The feedback was good but finished with a reminder that the marks from all subsequent assignments would count towards the final mark. That was it for me, I couldn’t carry on. We discussed why this might have been the case. I think it was because I hadn’t done perfectly on my first assignment and that I might not even do as well in future assignments. When I was young I would come home from school eager to tell my mother how I had done in a test – then she would ask me how everyone else had done – I didn’t understand at the time, why she couldn’t just be pleased with my result, like I was. I grew up to be a perfectionist, with a view that if you are going to do something, you should do it to the best of your abilities – I have since realised that what is your best can be influenced by the circumstances at the time. Jonathan reassured me that that is why the course is the way it is – there is no assessment of a final work or comparative approach for the very reason that it would cause students to freeze up.

Jonathan commented that my perceived weaknesses are actually also strengths in that the tendency to rush in, would deal with this issue. He observed that I had mentioned the word ‘fear’ quite a lot and asked me to describe the fear. It’s like a barrier in front of me but it’s not insurmountable and it’s transparent in that I can see beyond it, to where I need to get to. Having said that it clearly wasn’t insurmountable in terms of the proof-reading episode, but that was a long time ago! To get past it I need to act, and in this respect, Jonathan said that’s where I need to draw on my strength of jumping right in without thinking about it.

We concluded that there were many paradoxes in what we had discussed and that perhaps the solution is to try and combine the two sides of me in terms of moving forward in my art practice. I commented that perhaps the paradoxes are caused by me thinking that I’m one version of me when actually the real me is someone else, which is what I want to explore. Is the real me the baby who was born, or the person I now am with all the baggage I’ve collected along the way? I recognise that my strength of getting things done is probably as a result of my career. Jonathan commented that it is the question of nature and nurture and who they are is something artists ask themselves, so it’s far from being a cliché, it is actually what art is all about.

I then asked Jonathan about something which has been niggling at me: I draw inspiration from various sources to help me see ways to express my thoughts in work. I gave the example of the Two Fridas and the passage I had come across in a book I had seen in Waterstones about siblings and the primal connection through umbilical cords. In drawing on these sources, am I creating anything new, unique, or will someone just look at it and think ‘that reminds me of the Two Fridas’? Is it enough that it is coming from me and about how I feel? Jonathan assured me that it is ok to draw inspiration from others – the Two Fridas was personal to Kahlo and painted 80 years ago – I would be making it now, in 2024, and it would be personal to me.

What will I do for the next hour? Go away and write up my note of the tutorial before I forget it, which will be a useful process to consider what we discussed. Jonathan pointed out that at the beginning I had said that I had wanted to make art a bigger part of my life and that during our chat I had said that I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I’m on my way and I should just keep doing what I’m doing.

I’m still feeling positive, and I would venture to say, even more so. I need to cogitate on what we discussed to move forward, but for the moment, everything is all ok.