With acknowledgements to Lynn Semple
New year, fresh start.
Well that’s what we all hope. Somehow at the stroke of midnight as our eyes light up under fireworks, we watch Jools Holland become more incomprehensible on the Hootenanny or we’re clinking glasses
on New Years Eve, there’s supposed to be a big reset.
Everything we didn’t like about ourselves will fall away and we’ll be reborn in the glare of a new dawn. Aye right.
I’m becoming cynical in my old age. Or maybe it’s that having my studio in what should be a spare bedroom in my flat has marred my home life for some time. It’s been creeping up on me, a feeling of anxiety and stress about work. I can’t shut the door on it because work is spilling out of the home studio and filling cupboards and other rooms. I can’t escape it. It’s like the Blob*. The worst thing is it hits me at night, a fear that I should be, could be doing more, better, faster,
I should meet more people, network more, get bigger commissions, contact more shops etc. etc. ad infinitum.
More than that, working at home is lonely. My husband gets home after being in an office full of people all day, looking for quiet home time and I just want to go out and meet pals or attack him with an animated verbal list of everything I’ve done that day.
This new year, fate lent me a hand. Through a web of pals, acquaintances and chats, I have moved into a new studio! It’s 25 minutes walk from my flat or a 15 minute cycle. Ideal distance. Too far to travel home for lunch and far enough that it feels like a mini commute. I’ve moved into a studio with three other creatives; two photographers and a designer who are all genuinely lovely. The space is airy, white walled and watertight. The heating is good.
Each time I enter the studio, I feel more at home, more professional, more like I should have done this a long time ago.
I can now go home some nights and play Zelda with impunity, I can be in the kitchen for chats at lunchtime, I’m meeting new folk all the time, I am out of the flat and happy to be at the Barras. It’s one of the best areas of Glasgow in so many ways. It’s a tricky time, January, but I feel like this is one of the new year changes that’s going to stick.
* Schlocky horror film of yesteryear about a big ball of space goo that eats people.
