I'd rather be in the studio

I'd never heard of a 'blog tour' until I read Kirsty's blog this evening, it's one of those terms like 'blog carnival' that potter around blog land without ever explaining themselves to me. So this evening i've been visiting some of the other blogs on the blog tour that's linked to this new book and getting an insight into the thinking behind it's author, Alyson B. Stanfield. Kirsty has suggested other books to me in the past that i've found useful (Art +Fear being one) so i'm happy to trust her judgement on this book!

Having spent the last however many years promoting other people's work (to a greater or lesser extent) I always seem to struggle when it comes to promoting myself. I have spread myself all over the internet- if you google any of my assumed identities, or even my real name, you will come up with pages of links that refer directly to me, but in 'real life' I am less able to promote myself and constantly feel like an idiot who will be caught out by some unknown art police force for ever daring to suggest I am an artist.

I've hidden behind curating other people's work, because I am scared of promoting myself. I deliberately 'dumb down' what I do, because I am afraid of people thinking i'm grandiose if I talk about my work in the way I want to. Instead of explaining all the ins and outs of just why I turn things gold, I just tell people 'yeah I turn things gold' and leave it at that, as if it's nothing more that some kitsch thing I do. Inside my head is full of 'art wank' I could tell you about my work, but what comes out of my mouth is just something dumb that devalues what I do. I guess the first rule in promoting yourself as an artist is not to devalue your work, actually that's probably the second rule, the first one is probably not to tell anyone that you're doing it.

More on books and houses

I have some books to give away, I will take them to the charity shop if no-one wants them, but if you are interested in any of them then just let me know and i'll pop them in the mail to you.

There are three box sets of Beatrix Potter books- the books are all in great condition, it's just the boxes that are smashed up a bit- each box has 4 books in. Taken

Paperback copy of 'The Girls' by Lori Lansens

Paperback copy of "Gorilla, my Love" by Toni Cade Bambara

Paperback copy of "The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana" by Umberto Eco

Hardback copy of "The Gift:How the creative Spirit transforms the world' by Lewis Hyde

I'm on a de-cluttering mission in my house, I never thought I would class books as clutter, but it seems I have too many books that I either picked up on a whim, read once and have no real inclination to read again or rescued from charity shops. Over the last year i've been primarily buying books from charity shops and operating a kind of release program for them. When i've finished reading them I set them free again in their natural habitat, yep, what I mean is they go back to the charity shop they came from. None of these books are terrible books, I just don't need them in my life, but maybe you do? (Actually I hated 'The Gift' but lots of other people have loved it so...)

And in case there was anyone who was thinking I shun blogs and books that feature photos of people's wonderful houses I thought I would add this photo:

It's not quite as dreamy as some homes in Elle Decoration (to which I have a subscription) perhaps, but this little patch of my house has recently been tamed by the use of some cheap cardboard magazine files and a noticeboard. Actually if we panned away from this photo you could see the hole in the wall from a previous post, the crack in the ceiling and the rotten window frame, but this section at least is organised.