The PPD lecture from Rosalind Davis was very informative and fast paced, it provided the doom and gloom again of the future ahead. She gave a lot of useful points, but overall the message seems to be: be proactive and friendly to everyone to get opportunities your way. Which I know, but the frustrating thing is - what if you are a shy person in nature? What if you have a sort of social anxiety? Is that it for my artistic career? I think a strong perseverance and confidence is needed for this career, and I am not sure if I have that. I am constantly feeling like I lack the artistic skills, lack the logic and intelligence, lack the outward personality, to talk to people so openly, or to create opportunities for myself and in turn, I do not have the confidence to project myself to the world. And there is no one to blame but myself. And I know I just need to try, but I don’t know if I can or know and it’s pathetic. I do not know how to improve, I am just barely above the water all the time. And the water is constantly moving, never a moment of stillness. Well, sometimes it freezes and that’s when I really get stuck and explode. When waves crash they crash hard. I feel I will hit a rock and drown. Anyway, I never even considered doing an MA before this year but, after last week’s talk from tahmina and ben, I feel that maybe I need it… I do not know how I am going to survive how I am now… seems like there is a chance of more opportunities doing an MA… but I do not know.. I don’t know anything.. to be honest, having done foundation and a BA, 4 whole years, I feel like I just want to get out there and have an actual job and be an actual artist, but I don’t know if I need the MA or I am just scared.. I am scared either way. Plus, time is slipping away so soon… it feels like I could die at any time, but that is just the reality of being human. Ah, to return to childhood.. even so, I do not wish to relive it.. there is gloom and doom everywhere, no matter your age. Sometimes I get a burst of joy, when I look at a painting I did, because I simply didn’t think I had it in me. Yes, there are little bursts of confidence that trickle through the water that help me float just a bit higher, only to be harshly pushed back down. I suppose that’s the only driving force forward, I Know I have some sort of potential that I want to nurture, and I constantly put myself down because I know I don’t have the traditional skill, and all I really have is pick out silly lines from the paint, that’s really all I have, and I am going to cling onto them like it’s my life source, because it really really is. There are several things to live for, reasons why I am not really dead yet. My mother, sister, grandpa, good friends, painting, films, music, collecting material things, and the beauty of the world, urban and natural, all of it, keep me breathing. Otherwise I’d have departed by now. Leave this goddamn selfish planet and to somewhere far far away.
When I look out my cosy-sized flat, filled with too many things I own that don’t fit it, I feel a sense of how strange existence is. Here I am, hearing the constant racing of cars outside on that grey specked dirtied road, and this moment right now is so mundane in context of my whole life, yet it is so significant. I am in my third year of a BA painting course in London, UK, in the best art university in the world, and I have travelled so far to get here, on the funds of my family, just letting that blow away in the wind, like turning on the tap, wasting away. I don’t know what I am trying to say here, just that I am grateful for everything I have, and I am NOT going to let other peoples’ care for me go to waste, my family, friends, tutors. So I am going to pick myself up every time and keep pushing forward even if it feels like I am walking on a field full of shattered glass. I will not let death get to me before I achieve something great, something proportional to what my mother has given me, and that may be impossible, forever, but I have to try. I have to do this for myself too. I KNOW there is something I have to offer to someone out there, to the general world, whoever, for myself and others. By painting, I learn more about myself, I progress as a human being, and I can hopefully offer something to others. I just need to keep breathing and not let myself drown. I Know there’s a purpose of me being here, right here right now in this cold London flat.