Half agony, half hope....

Perhaps I should start off this blog post with a quote that Emma used last month: "Half in agony, half in hope".  

February can be a tough month for self employed artists and makers;  Emma talked about January feeling like a bit of slog in last month's post and often February feels much the same, particularly in terms of sales.  However, the promise of Spring is here, the days are getting lighter, and with the change of seasons come the months where we can see our plans being put into action. 

February is a great time of year to wrap up warm and get out for winter walks.  This is one of my most favourite places to go-Sycamore Gap on Hadrian's Wall

It may come as no surprise to those of you who know me, that this month's blog post is late, (eye roll) but perhaps that is for good reason.  As we mentioned in last months post, you have to look after your number one employee when you're self employed, which is...yourself!  So I won't beat myself up about the lateness of the post (therein is another blog post entirely) and I can also officially say that I haven't spent the whole of February hoovering up Labrador hair (just half of it). We have both spent the month working on ideas and I suspect I speak for both of us when I say it's been an "admin" sort of month.  February is a time to put the reflections and plans of January into action.  We've each been frantically typing and have sent approximately 432,654 Whatsapp messages to each other when tackling artist statements and agonising (overthinking) over the finer details of application forms and which photos to attach to emails.  We've buoyed each other up, we've told each other to give our heads a shake, we've offered each other constructive criticism, Emma has actually consoled me remotely all the way from Manchester, when I blubbed one Sunday evening (yay for self employment!). In amongst all of that we've actually applied to each create a piece of public art, to attend art fairs, to run workshops and more...phew!  This is something we promised each other we would crack on with this year...so back to the original quote..."Half in agony, half in hope".  There's the usual worry about the beginning of the year being quiet but we've set some things in motion (I personally wasn't at a point where I felt like I could do that this time last year) ...and now we wait.

Just yesterday Emma received the news that she has been selected for Saltaire again and will be exhibiting there this summer!http://www.saltaireinspired.org.uk/saltaire-makers-fair/
It's a well-deserved achievement and also a personal boost when you receive news like this because you feel like you can momentarily shrug that little devil Doubt from your shoulder and give yourself a pat on the back.  It is worth it, we are working hard, we are doing well.  In a total contrast to last month's reference to Persuasion, I'm going to end February with an entirely cheesy quote...

Oh and also Happy Birthday Yak! x