The waiting game...

I'm sitting here in a quandry. The curse of the freelancer has descended and as a deadline looms work has been halted...question now is should I forge ahead and hope no text has been changed, or do I take the weekend off, ignore the fact that the deadline is seriously close and enjoy life?

For those who dont know, amongst other things, I'm an indexer, I index books. You know when you pick up a book (imagine one of those seriously hefty tomes full of scholarly material that you have to wade through) and open up the final few pages to find just what you are looking for (or if you've been mentioned)...well that index isn't created by a computer...most of the time it is a finely crafted work of art created by a real person.

You wouldnt believe the amount of times in general conversation when the "What do you do for a living?" question comes up, when the word Indexer is mentioned eyes glaze over. Other people are genuinely surprised that people make indexes and it's a real life profession. Well, yes, its a real job, a very complicated one and it takes training and patience to become an indexer. We are the people who get a book last and have to wade through it, pick out the relevant bits and put them back into such a form that everyone can find just what they are looking for in the shortest possible time and with the greatest amount of accuracy. You have to not only understand a great deal of information, you have to be able to dissect a text quickly, understand what the reader will find relevant and then put it back in list form. And the deadlines can be tight...very tight. Being the last in the line usually means you have to work your arse off if the deadline has become more serious when other areas of the publishing have taken longer than expected. It's no ones fault, thats life, but it can make for a lot of 12 hour days and unsociable hours.

Freelancing can be great, work from home, tons of coffee and cake, the ability to do the school run and grocery shopping when you want. But it can also be a pain...isolation (thank GOD for Twitter) and lack of work being the main problems. The constant search for work can be soul destroying when work is thin on the ground, and as the publishing industry is changing so is the work load. Who knows...it may be time to diverisfy (into what I dont know...answers on a postcard please)

So..I'm sitting here, still in a quandry. I'm very lucky that these clients are lovely and I know that if the deadline gets way too scary they know they'll have to extend it. But I think I'll split the difference...I'll do what I can, keep my fingers crossed...then take time out to watch the Monaco Grand Prix Qualifiers. 

After all....it's the weekend :)

It's been raining...

Ok, so this not the most exciting thing in the world, but up here “on the Edge” its been raining on and off for a few weeks. We get some lovely rainbows but the rain is never off long enough to let the sun shine through and do his thing of drying the ground off nicely. While this isn’t unusual in Caithness, at this time of the year it is a bit of a pain. You see, as a result, I haven’t managed to get out and mow the lawn…..yes ladies and gentle-beans…we now have a jungle in the Far North.

yes, this really is part of my garden!

As a matter of fact, our “lawn” is so high the EBC (that’s Evil Black Cat) has been using it for stalking practice. One minute she’s there, the next she’s gone….until she tries to move stealthily through the undergrowth, finds she can’t and ends up jumping to try to get through the long grass. She startled one of our daft collies the other day….he *knew* something was there but couldn’t see what it was…until she jumped out at him. Comical, and I wish I’d had my camera...£200 would be winging my way from “You’ve been Framed”.

I knew that something had to be done about the grass when, amongst all the usual junk mail, I found a forlorn home-made “business card” (tiny piece of business-card sized printed matter on a piece of paper…v. professional!) offering specialist grass-cutting services. And here’s me thinking that our hedge shielded the mess from the outside world!

While there is a lot of grass there are a few pretty flowers

So today there was a break in the rain and hubby and I broke the lawn-mower out of the garage. The poor thing needed a good dose of WD40 to get it moving and she did try admirably to cope with two-foot high grass and creeping buttercup (the bane of my existence in the garden), but we only managed to make two paths through.

Sod it…if anyone asks, until the weather gets better, I’m cultivating a wild-flower meadow

Doesn't time fly!

I had a thought this morning...ok, I know...that's unusual!

Anyway....I've spent the last few days playing with Photoshop Elements, a trial version that I am actually going to fork out for once the trial has finished (oh how I wish I could afford the full Photoshop creative suit with Illustrator!). I usually use The Gimp for editing my fractals (did you know I do fractals?) and photos. Now Gimp is free and lovely, but opening up Photoshop was like using my Ultra Fractal program and Gimp put together. OK, so I can't create fractals on it, but its moved on since the PS version I owned way back when, and I just love playing with it. So much so that I had a horrible realisation.

If fractal programs and Photoshop had existed when I was at school, I might have actually got up the gumption to go to art school!

"Split", one of my fractals from last year.

It's the one thing Ive regretted. I'm crap at drawing, but my batik for my Higher Project was apparently brilliant (no false modesty here), it was a complicated design of a cobra sitting on a pile of coins in grassland...unfortunately it "went missing" at school when it went off to be assessed and I never got it back. Now, if I had bumped my backside into gear I may have made a portfolio way back then, but I wanted to do archaeology, didn't get one of my highers and ended up with second best. Typical bloody teenager!

All those years ago (my GOD I sound ancient) there were no home computer graphics programs, and even if there were it wouldnt have been seen as art...lets admit it, a lot of people still don't think digital art is art that has time, energy and passion put into it. But now...if I was a teenager now I'd probably do a digital arts course in a bonfide art school and get my degree (if I was good enough, there are some brilliant digital artists out there!). As it is I play at making fractals and photomanipulation artwork, but the play is becoming more serious. Yesterday I even went in for a t-shirt design competition.

So what is all this waffle for? Well no reason, apart from it struck me like a hammer...in twenty years we've gone from digital art being only for the likes of moviemakers and special effects folk, to being able to knock up a digital piece of art at home on a home computer. A computer that twenty years ago was unheard of in a domestic setting.

"No Escape", one I did a few days ago

 

Bloody hell I feel ancient! So much has happened in the last twenty years..I blame alien technology ;)

If you are ever bored and fancy having a look at any of my "artwork" you can find it
here:  http://genuinegenie.deviantart.com/ 
or here: http://elviratsquirrel.redbubble.com/

Inspired by glass...

On Thursday evening I had the privilege to be among a small audience as four artists in residence from Northlands Creative Glass told us of their journey as glass workers and how they have spent their time in Caithness.

As each speaker had a different take on glass and what it meant to them, so each piece that we were shown fit into their work as an artist in an individual way. The one thing that struck me was that each of the four glass-makers had travelled the globe in the search for knowledge, working with other makers and sharing techniques, and will probably continue to do so. Glass is definitely not a lonely pursuit.

During a question and answer session there was a very interesting comparison made. Glass working was likened to modern day alchemy and in order to understand glass and allow its creative properties to be unleashed, the artist has to perfectly balance the four elements. Without all the elements being finely balanced the glass can be unstable and brittle.

The four artists were Veronika Beckh, Holly Grace, Clayton Hufford and Edison Osorio Zapata.

Veronika makes amazing glass, working with light and form that is captivating. 

(c) Veronika Beckh

http://veronikabeckh.com/works/

Holly takes inspiration from her surroundings and has created some lovely bottle canvases

(c) Holly Grace

http://www.hollygrace.com/

Clayton uses his glass in a very technical way, taking everyday items and creating them in glass.

(c) Clayton Hufford

http://claytonhufford.com/home.html 

Edison specialises in installations, his glass rod creations are amazing and his fluency in many languages is transformed by glass rollers.

(c) Edison Osorio Zapata

 http://www.edisonzapata.com/zapata/contents/home/?language=english

I am fascinated by glass, but have only managed to make it a few times. I would love to make more, but so far I’ve only managed a fish and a glass block, although I must admit that I enjoyed the block making immensely and am proud of the result…even if I have no way of displaying it (it’s been stuck in a kitchen drawer since I made it two years ago!)

(c) Sara Donaldson

 Yes, I know...this is my attempt, but at least I tried ;)

These amazing people, through a talk that lasted less than two hours, have inspired me to do more artistic stuff. Although I have a love/hate relationship with Caithness, seeing it through the eyes of others has made me realise that I tend to take the landscape for granted. Caithness is blessed with Northlands, an internationally acclaimed glass centre that attracts amazing artists from all over the world, one day I’ll get to go on another course.

Ok, I could wax lyrical forever. I love glass, it is tactile, neither completely solid nor liquid and can be made into virtually any form. What do you think about this wonderful material?

Why not visit these websites and have a look at the work of these brilliant people.

 

http://veronikabeckh.com/works/

http://www.hollygrace.com/

http://claytonhufford.com/zoom/984x588/1423632.html

http://www.edisonzapata.com/zapata/contents/home/?language=english

http://www.northlandsglass.com/