I got another funding denial. I’d sent off three different applications for the Walking Home project, and all three came back with no. I could feel that familiar spiral starting — the quiet doubt about whether any of this is worth anything — and I made a decision: I wasn’t going down that road again.
So I took some time off.
What always helps me when I’m in that place is sorting through my stuff. I built two little cupboards, sorted through papers I’d been putting off for months, cleared another quarter of my space — box by box, pile by pile. I put a timer on and worked an hour, then another hour, then another. It’s a strange kind of work, but it keeps me in focus in a way almost nothing else does.
Then, entirely unrelated to any of it, I decided to make a pair of trousers. I’d found a big piece of cloth at a flea market — it had some paint on it and a few stains, so I had to cut carefully around them. The piece I was making needed eight sections, and it only just fit. I dyed it, washed it, and hung it up to dry so I could wear the trousers to Rotterdam. I went to bed far too late that night.
The next day I went to Rotterdam to visit my friend Shelley, and while I was there I saw Wim T. Schippers’ Peanut Butter Floor. He made it in 1962 and sold it to what’s now the Witte de With Museum. He died recently, and in his honour they’ve put it back on view — an entire floor spread with peanut butter, with a sign warning you not to enter if you’re allergic. It was extraordinary.
I also went to the Phoenix, the new Migration Museum in Rotterdam. I think anyone who blames refugees for everything should go and see it. It’s about everyone — the people who left for the Americas and Australia, the people who came to Rotterdam from Indonesia and everywhere else. It’s about movement, about how it could be you, how it can be you. It gives you a perspective that’s hard to get any other way.
In the evening I had a lovely time with Shelley, and I got home very late.
Today I’m sitting down. I’ve got four days to work out how I continue and what my priorities are for Walking Home. I’m doing this mostly without money, and I have no other income right now, so I won’t pretend that part isn’t real. But I’m an artist. I make beautiful things, and I make real connections with people, and something good is going to come out of this.
I already have a mountain of things made from before and during this walk — shoefaces, little freestanding pieces, small collage and sewing work in two dimensions. It’s time I started putting proper prices on them and getting them out into the world. If that’s something you’d want to be part of, keep an eye out, or drop me a message.
I’m walking home
Restarting the walk on the 13!
Doing a lot of related work at home
