Today I was forced to take my second day off 'work' work in 6 weeks.
My first was Tuesday of last week, when I drove to Melbourne to catch up with Andrew Chan, an artist friend of mine who was visiting from New York. Andrew and I exhibited together at Jackman Gallery in Melbourne some time ago. It was an enjoyable day, albeit somewhat rushed. I live a fair distance from the city centre so I don't travel there as often as I used to, or would like to.
I call it 'work' work because it has nothing to do with painting, or 'making art', other than the fact that in some way it will help me be able to afford the supplies I need to do so.
The past few months have created a number of extra financial woes and several weeks ago I took the opportunity to take on some extra work outside of painting and hospitality. This resulted in me working 7 days a week for close to 5 weeks until my day trip to Melbourne.
Today, I am home with a nasty cough that has gotten progressively worse over the last few days. After a sleepless night and several violent coughing fits, I managed to fall asleep this morning at around 6:30am, after turning my 7am alarm off. I re-awoke just after 9:30am and whilst my head was thinking about going in to work for a half day, my body would not allow it. My stubborn cerebellum had to surrender to my weary and continuously coughing corpus.
My painting hiatus has played on my mind every day over the past 6 weeks but I have been so physically busy that I've not had an opportunity to dwell. I am sitting only inches away from a tonne of art supplies but my fuel tank is empty. It's taking enough energy to type a blog entry. Although I am well aware this is just another one of those temporary pauses, I do feel a sense of both guilt and frustration that I am not in a position to offer the attention my art desires.
Sometimes in life we are forced to just stop and rest for a while, even if it is against our will or our ethics. It's against both for me but I'm doing it anyway!
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