I have had a BUSY MONTH! Sometimes too busy, and definitely sometimes too hot, but as someone who errs towards liking doing too much and the sunshine, I come to the end of it feeling... quite contented actually (albeit also sweaty, slightly sunburnt, and a little stressed)
One of the main things occupying my mind is that myself and colleague/co-conspirator/work-pal Keir won some funding to build and run an installation piece at EMF camp in mid July. On the one hand, it is a very silly, frivolous, stupid thing. On the other hand, the university are paying like £1500 for all the materials I need to do it (because they are convinced it has some kind of academic merit?!?!?!?), and it is one of the more professionally ambitious/creative things I have ever attempted to carry off. For stupid bureaucratic reasons, even though the festival is not until mid July, a condition of my funding was that all budget had to be spent by the end of June, which meant getting a lot of prep work done early. On June 1st, I was feeling... overwhelmed. (Spoiler alert, on June 30th I was still feeling... overwhelmed)
Sometimes the best thing to do when feeling overwhelmed is go for a little walk. Bonus if you see several neighbourhood cats just vibing.
I'm not actually teaching on any undergrad courses right now, BUT, my old UX students graduated this year, and it was extremely exciting and heartwarming to go to their grad show and see all their wonderful projects. (Just a small selection of, here!)
Another good thing to do if you're feeling overwhelmed is go out on a cute date. <3
The masters course I teach on (MA Design for Data Visualisation) ran a collaborative workshop for our students with those from MA User Experience Design. It was extremely silly and colourful and everyone involved seemed to have a brilliant time. (This is an abstract representation of that day)
Self explanatory, finger-painted visual diary. (I spent the day at my Quaker Meeting House as a volunteer for the London Festival of Architecture)
Popped down to Brighton to see Jade (and have the best hot chocolate of my LIFE at Knoops, I cannot stop thinking about it)
Part of my silly EMF installation involves making some weird experimental stamps. Here are some weird, experimental stamps of my friends.
We have a cute little bird bath in our front garden, which is pretty much exclusively used by crows.
Having my fruit moment (I love a nectarine)
ALSO having my Vinted moment (apparently a few years behind everyone else)
I am sad about David Hockney!! He was one of my favourite artists. His ipad paintings have been a big inspiration to me. Also my garden is poppin' off, so I tried to do it (vaguely) Hockney style.
Walked the first section of the Vanguard Way with friend Alice. This is admittedly a bit of a distraction from my main London Loop goal (which I have not found the time to do in many months), but the Vanguard way is tantalising because it is SOUTH and thus much easier to get to. Gorgeous day for it too.
Then I went to the very good Hurvin Anderson show at Tate Britain and decided to try the same garden scene in his style (even less successfully, but fun to have a go)
Having a brief moment of fun with the digital 'oil' brush though, I also decided to do another bit of Disco Elysium fan art (I am playing the game very slowly because uggghhh it is so good and I do not want it to end!! It is a little treat at the end of very busy days)
Work asked me to get some professional headshots taken for a thing and I have not yet received them back but I already know I am going to hate them, because I hate my face in pretty much every photo, and even though the man was very nice, there's only so much he can do isn't there
In other 'oh god this is too much work' news, I also organised and ran a mini conference at LCC (with Keir) — it was GREAT and lots of fun but a great deal of my day was spent furiously attempting to combat the stifling heat in the space we had booked, running around bringing attendees ice lollies and cold drinks.
Immediately after the conference, I ran straight over to Liverpool Street and got on a train to Norwich for a mini mini break with V, old GFSC pal honor, and 5 other lovely folks from the White Pube discord, for a weird little artists retreat/bird-watching/river-swimming/hot-tub break.
It was EXTREMELY wholesome. We booked a huge sprawling airbnb in the countryside and on Saturday drove in two cars over to Norfolk for a swim in the Wensum (I had never done a river swim before! The weather/water was PERFECT) and a ferocious wood-fired sauna on the riverbank. We also went round the cathedral, had delicious home-made dinner by one of the others, and lay in the garden hot-tub until late, gossiping as the sun went down and bats flew around. VERY NICE!!
But also very brief — home on Sunday morning via cursed rail replacement bus, but here is a depiction of hot-tub aglow with bats, which is a much nicer thing to draw. I felt very welcomed by this lovely gang of people, over half of whom I didn't know before this weekend.
The weather in Norfolk was just lovely. Warm but not too warm. I am quite tolerant of high temps, so the next day being 30 degrees didn't worry me too much.
A lot of teaching got cancelled this week. I kept up my scheduled tutorial session, simply because it was in one of LCC's only air conditioned rooms. This is fine.
This, however, is probably not fine. All week curtains closed, windows closed, just desperately trying to keep the flat cool (we are actually quite blessed with this place, in that it's ground floor, gardens front and back, solid old brick construction, so it could be a lot worse). Still though, my focus and productivity were kind of shot, but I had to just keep pushing as there was too much to do.
Weirdly this day was the worst day, despite being slightly cooler than the previous one, technically. The cumulative effect, I guess. And yes these are very lazy visual diaries, but in my defence IT WAS VERY HOT AND I HAD A LOT OF OTHER WORK TO TRY AND DO OKAY
Part of the reason I had a lot of work to do was because I was going on holiday (yes, again — I have had a silly couple of months, but with the exception of EMF which feels more like work than hols, I don't think I am going away again this summer/year)
Anyway, this was a holiday with my parents, which is not something I have done since probably being in my teens!? But you know, they're not getting any younger (and neither am I) and we don't spend loads of time together, so I suggested that it might be nice, and they were kind enough to bring me along on one of their 'Warner breaks'. Runnymede on Thames is basically still London (on the same commuter train line I used to take to get to Battersea, just around 35 mins further out), and is very scenic. The hotel's clientele were almost exclusively 60+, but I was mostly just OVERJOYED to arrive at a place with AC, and both an indoor and outdoor pool, which I immediately submerged myself in after a sweltering journey.
On Saturday we had a day out to Hampton Court Palace which was fun enough but it was still TOO HOT and I was very glad to return to the hotel and immediately get back into the pool.
On Sunday the temps were much more reasonable, so I went out for a brisk solo walk along the Thames to the site of the signing of the Magna Carta (where there are a number of cool art things), and looped back along into Egham with the intent of going to Staines and Egham Quaker meeting... but it turned out to be permanently closed! Very sad, but equally: more pool time for me, back at the hotel.
Talking of which, in the afternoon mum and I went to aqua fit and it was extremely silly and fun. Maybe I could get into this old people holiday thing...
Would I do it again, though!? The food is all inclusive dinner and breakfast, and while it left some to be desired for me (as a vegan), I think for most people it'd be pretty good. The room was lovely (I really like staying in nice hotel). As mentioned, pretty much everyone else there was like, 60+, so I didn't exactly socialise, but the vibes were mostly chill. The evening entertainment was extremely not my thing. (But my evening entertainment was going back to my room to play disco elysium after several games of backgammon with dad). The spa and general hotel facilities were SWEET, and the location was real nice. Honestly I would return!! (Esp if mum and dad pay again ;)
The weekend was not totally without work though, as I did have to do some marking and freelance work while I was there, which was a shame. But in part that was because I knew the day after I got back me and Keir were taking our students on a field trip to Kew Gardens, so I wouldn't be able to get anything done! Again, the weather was just perfect and we had an absolutely lovely day doing a cute little data gathering/visualisation task with them. Here's my silly data vis of all the plants me and Keir spotted in the temperate house that were born in the same year as me. (This was lovely — then I went home and worked straight through from 18.00 until like 22.00 because several clients need everything all at once, ugh, but also thanks clients I guess).
July looks set to be similarly manic but also filled with lovely stuff. Pray for not another heatwave at EMF pls, or we will all die 💀
