On my housemates being Unbelievably Excellent: They banded together and bought me an iPad pro and an apple pencil as an early birthday/Christmas gift – which is just so nice of them that I’m finding it pretty overwhelming.
I guess I ought to talk a little bit about my living situation. I’m told that people like to hear Romantic Notions of Artist Life and there’s some of that going on here. I live in a large three story house that is walking distance from the Brisbane CBD. Its a really cool place! I am a disabled poor artist living on centrelink and if I don’t even consider that fact I never would have thought I could live somewhere so nice. Its like a mini-mansion, its incredible.
So, given that I’m living on an amount of money that is significantly less than the poverty line (starving artist lyfe – minus the starving bit and all that entails, I guess.) how is that possible? I live with six other adults and two cats. Most of the people living here are working full time and we divide the rent like a bunch of socialists – which is to say its based on percentage of income (though with the distribution modified a little bit because the people on lower incomes were horrified by the amounts the people on higher incomes would be spending on rent if we did it as a flat percentage.)
These folk aren’t a bunch of random strangers that we happened to come across. There’s connections, and years of history and community. We all naturally have different relationships with each other. One of my siblings lives here and while they are obviously very close and connected to me, they had not met some of the other housemates much at all before moving in. I feel close/connected to everyone here. Also because of some of my own personal history it really means a lot to me to say that it feels like a community. Its just such a wonderfully supportive community house. It really is.
So. They banded together and got me an -incredible- gift, and I am just so touched. Like overwhelmingly touched. Its not just that its a big ticket item, its also that it was so thoughtful and supportive of my art career. It was noted that an apple product was picked because they thought it would give a better impression to future clients and that historically there is a lot of support for art and design software. Its just… so thoughtful, so sweet. I’m so touched.
So – I recently started a Redbubble Store. I’ve had it for about a week, and I’ve spent much of the last few days using the iPad, getting used to the software and designing things for the store. I’m digging textile design. Patterns and repetition are a beautiful puzzle. Here is some of the work I’ve been doing:
I’ve actually been doing a lot of work you guys – like a lot. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it on the blog yet but a big part of my life is that I’m dealing with mental illness (specifically recovery from PTSD) and that this has odd impacts on my ability to do anything in my life pretty much, but also odd periods where it impacts my creative work. I’m currently going through a phase where I am very productive when it comes to this sort of work but struggling in other areas like making sure that I’m eating and showering. I can get very focused on the work though, so this has been a rather productive period for me.
