The past month or so has been filled with a wonderful variety of creative activity and opportunities. From making to showing, playing to performing. 

It actually started for me at the end of September when I joined Spike studio artist Rod Harris in an informal series of workshops introducing us to ways of working with clay.

It’s been a rich and busy couple of months. I’ve been incredibly grateful to have worked with a mix of wonderful people in different landscapes and environments, exploring my moving body, my writing and my creative process. I’m sharing these experiences here as a marker – of the importance of being fed creatively, and of a boost to my creative confidence.

I feel like I’ve spent weeks doing very little but applying for opportunities - primarily in an attempt to support my practice financially, but also to support it creatively. This is hugely time consuming. It’s also time spent with the full knowledge that the likelihood of the outcome being successful is minute. The uncertainty and sense of vulnerability this instils, both in the doing and in the waiting for the result, is quite intense.

Movement Mediation, an explorative session where we would ‘gently move among and with Adébayo Bolaji's artwork 'In Praise of Beauty' exploring the space and connecting to our senses. The session was run by Anastasia Dahl, a Bristol-based performance artist who only moved to the city a short while ago but is already offering much needed spaces for movement as research.

We judge ourselves so harshly as artists, and are judged by others in terms of our track record - of exhibitions, sales of work, funding and commissions. The definitions are drawn for us and we impose these on ourselves. Yet surely there’s room to interpret the word ‘artist’ in as many different ways as there are creative responses in the world?