must write blog!!!!!!!

it would be nice to think that i have not written a blog for two weeks because my life is so busy, interesting and fascinating that i have no time. well obviously thats true (huh!) but actually its cause i am so cold.

( pause to get cup of tea, move gas heater nearer and put thick fleecy dressing gown on over clothes)

i suppose because this blog is called my life as a story you may well think i am being a little free with the truth to make a point but i am not!

it does sound ridiculous , that here i am in the south of italy where the temperature rarely goes below freezing and has been , in january, as much as 20 degrees, but in my studio it is a whole different story.

i think my studio is lovely. i have 2 little village houses, called lammie, which have a narrow connecting door between them. (about 50sqm altogether not counting the attic( library ) space)

both have a door opening onto the street. i am almost at the end of the short street so its very private and as the street ends ,the countryside begins i have a great view.

number 8 is the bottom storey of three but number 9 has its own cute tiled roof .

the walls are 70cms thick . the back walls are right up against the hill.

in the spring, summer and autumn its great to be here but in january and february its sooooo cold inside.

last year i decided to use electric radiators to keep the temperature at least moderate and it was definitely better but the electric bills were horrendous so this year i am trying the" wear lots of clothes and move gas heater around "system of heating which works up to a point but wearing gloves while painting is not really much fun.

however its only for about 2 months every year and if i tell myself that often enough it will make me feel like an intrepid artist struggling against the odds to produce my life s work rather than listen to the wee voice in my head saying "go get a job back in the uk and a flat with central heating".

anyways enough of the cold and a little about my little car. ( my amica, means friend in italian), it is possible that it could ,maybe ,be on the road with me driving it by this time next week. but i am not holding my breath. despite lots of trips to the agency to sort out documents it still needs to pass an mot. i am not confident!

naked woman in toilet

this is absolutely true. at first i thought it was a picture of marilyn monroe covering the floor of the most interesting , bizarre, weird, artistic and just down right odd toilet i have ever been in. but the second time, i just had to see it again incase i had dreamed it, i realised that to dry my hands at the electric blower i would be obliged to stand on her er naked chest! she virtually stretched in a sort of curled up position from the toilet to the wash hand basin on a red glossy background.

on opening the door to enter , it was like going into some sort of medieval cave. it was shaped like a cocoon and the walls were plastered in large curved crescents and painted metallic grey. there was a delicate chain mail screen partly screening the toilet and another one underneath the wash basin which was actually a large rectangular greenish glass box surrounded literally by flowers. i have a feeling that there were several mirrors on the door, which was also painted metallic grey and some decorations on the walls.

another unusual feature of this italian toilet was that it had, a lock on the door, toilet paper, soap and a dryer that worked. usually there is at least one of these things missing.

and this toilet was not in some odd night club or s and m club ( not that i have actually ever been in either!) but in a perfectly nice little cafe in matera. its called the tiffany bar and is not far from the piazza.

now i am inspired to do something radical and ourageous with my shower room in my studio.

mmmm!

( painting is of sunday morning in matera)

can a new desk really make me a good blogger?

i have a new desk in the corner of the living room. its an old italian table with 2 drawers which j has restored and its very pretty. i have taken a photo of it sitting there with the table lamp and my italian dictionary and papers organised on it , and my lap top. it looks , i think, like the desk of someone who could write interesting things, who has good taste and style and likes corners. the pictures on the wall are not mine but maybe i will change them so that then it will be the corner of an artistic blogger. am sure that will help.

or is all this just part of the fantasy i am creating, and always have, cause its more fun than the reality.

i remember years ago desperately wanting a trug because i believed that if i had one, i already had the big straw hat, i would be a better gardener. ( i think a trug is a sort of flat basket for carrying flowers in and i never did get one- and i gave up on gardening.)

i really believe that having a scooter makes me a more interesting person, and calling my little house in town a studio with a small gallery makes it easier to believe i am an artist.

its certainly more fun going to my studio on my scooter than walking to my little scruffy, damp, leaky (freezing right now) one roomed house where the draughts whistle through all the gaps in the doors along with the dust, bits of plaster fall off the roof when the wind blows ( inside) and the plumbing leaves a lot to be desired.

to be fair in the summer its cool and dusty and all these other things.

but i go up there all the time cause its my studio.

and then there are clothes . when i wore my new fake fur outrageous leopard skin coat ( bought second hand at a market) to go out for dinner i felt like an artist. i teamed it with a grey thermal hat with a torch like a miners lamp on it so i certainly shone out. ( we had to walk along in the dark)

so can having a lovely new desk, instead of using someone else s table make me a better blogger.?

cant help but notice that after having been stuck all week for anything to say i have actually got started again.

any comments welcome, suggestions gratefully received and encouragement badly needed!!

bounceability

i am not certain that bounceability is a really good thing and am not sure if i caught it in italy or if it was always dormant in me and just started to take me over.

i have been noticing it in the last few years and this weekend was a classic example.

i was " doing the pisticci market" . that is spending two days in the piazza trying to sell pictures( and there it is , the bouceability bug) because immediately i wrote that into my head popped " you werent just trying to sell pictures ! you were having a wonderful time in gorgeous surroundings -true- being complimented on your work- true- doing something that people , including yourself , would only dream of-true so what's your problem?

but i was trying to sell pictures because i need the money and this is my main outlet. its where i meet people and get known and get commissions.

( and there it goes again byoing! , but you sold 6 pictures, hurray and got commissions for 4 more . brilliant!)

hope this is not too confusing but there is a point.

but i only made 120 euros , not counting another 60 for 3 small commissions. (byoing! thats great, you re getting known and getting more work and if you had just painted more paintings of pisticci you would have sold more.)

but i gave away two paintings. one to someone who asked , its complicated, this is italy, odd things happen here. the other one was to help clinch a deal for someone else. it worked

( byiong! karma, give and you will receive ........)

but actually i felt like a complete twit. i cant afford to give away pictures.

byoing! but you got lots of goodwill and possible free advertising and other things. its marketing!

then it rained and i went home early and i didnt sell the big one i wanted to and i got annoyed with my partner cause he sold more than me and it was his first time.

byiong ! but you never know what will happen next and you might get lots more commissions and the people who you gave the painting to as part of a deal have invited you for lunch any time and they are really nice people . and your painting s didnt get very wet did they?

so that s the problem, the bounceability. what actually happened this weekend?

did i have a wonderful time in a gorgeous place, meet lovely people and sell 6 paintings and get 4 commissions or did i spend 27 hours (6 of them really cold) and the last 3 in the rain to earn 120 euros selling work that took me probably at least 2 full weeks to create and finish up by falling out with blank blank because he sold one thing for three times as much. and not forgetting the 2 paintings i gave away ( worth 70 euros) . am i nuts!!!!!!

byiong!! or am i just beautifully crazy, very lucky to be here and it ll all work out eventually.

any helpful comments will be considered. ( sold this painting)

fireworks

staying in my studio tonight. its another feste. and i have just come back from the fireworks, round the corner. the feste is something to do with the little church above me.

i didnt know i liked fireworks so much till i moved to italy. but there is just something so completely fun about fireworks. its like burning money in a spectacular fashion.

i think that in italy fun and enjoyment are what life is about.

you dont have to earn it first.

i am not very italian in that respect but i am learning that quite often if i go for a coffee and chat i get more work done than if i say i must work first to earn coffee and a chat. i think i am still missing something but maybe if i stay here long enough i will get it.

the fireworks were gorgeous. i stood at the back of the crowd with my hands over my ears and despite the fog it was just so uplifting. ( even more than the glass of wine i had previously)

dirupo, which is part of pisticci, where i have my studio is beautiful even in the fog. its full of little narrow streets and little white houses.( you can find it on the internet if you are interested) it doesnt feel real, but it is. i know a lot of the people who live here and they are real. even if they are dressed all in black.

walking back from town tonight lots of people have christmas lights hung on balconies and someone has a christmas tree outside. it looks like fairyland in the dark. and if you should think that i am exagerating than then look for yourself on the internet or better still come and see.

so glass of wine, fireworks and dirupo. hard to beat.

farewell to the ape'

driving up to pisticci this morning i really tried to enjoy what would probably be my last trip in my ape'. but it was impossible. it was a lovely morning and way back in time i can vaguely remember going home singing at the top of my voice( ape's are loud) " i am driving my happy sappy ape', i am so happy in my ape' hurray hurry hurray!!!" sometimes i would sing flower of scotland but i dont really know the words, or westering home seemed to be good but again i could only remember the first line. but there i was racketing up the hills, tearing round corners and shouting /singing very loudly with enthusiasm and feeling!

but that was then. i can remember the first time i used my ape to take all my stuff to the market in pisticci and how there was a feste on and i had to drive through literally hundreds of cars in the dark and i was scared stiff that i would stall, or have to reverse, but i did it and i felt like a heroine when i got home. i also remember leaving that market loaded up and doing a very bad start up, jumping forward in gear at least twice and then just belting out of the piazza praying that i would not have to stop on the way home.

i have been embarrassed a lot in italy but never more so than when in my ape.

the last time i got it fixed before the summer ( that was the big fix of 2010) i had been threatening it and being very rude about it and decided that maybe it would go better if i spoke nicely to it. so i would drive up the road and pat it saying "good little ape" or "well done" or " that was a good gear change" ( maybe that was to me that time) and i even washed it. but sadly it was the beginning of the end.

i stopped enjoying driving because i was just waiting for the next thing to go wrong. i realise that old vehicles break down but who out there has had a window just fall out? or their window wipers go on fire? the accelerator sticking was nasty too, then the engine wouldnt turn off and then i got to working out what i would do if all the brakes failed at once, and i was lucky the last time the lights failed that i had my torch as i once had to drive up the main road with no lights as i thought i would be marginally safer on the side road than have something run into me while parked on the hill.

so i tried to enjoy it this morning but it was fixed with a bit of wire, instead of string , and every time it slowed down i wondered if it would stop . i was glad to arrive safely at my studio , i have given the keys to someone who thinks they can sell it AND I NEVER WANT TO GET IN IT AGAIN.

sold this painting in taranto also.

lingerie and seduction department

i didnt actually go into the lingerie and seduction department in the co in store in taranto. but i did go back to make sure i had read it right. i felt that being in a relationship perhaps i had better not be tempted by some seductive tall dark gorgeous italian.

or have i perhaps got that the wrong way round mmmm!! i was supposed to be doing the seducing??

changing the subject quickly.

what a lovely way to spend a day, sitting outside in the sun shine waiting for people to roll up and buy paintings .

getting up at 5.30am and then setting up a display is ok when its not raining, or when everything is damp cause it was put away wet the previous day . then its just a matter of hanging about and occasionaly refusing to sell things for a quarter of the marked price. out of about 80 paintings i have sold this summer about 2 were sold for the marked price ( and i was so touched by being offered the full price that i had to stop myself offering a discount out of pure gratitude.)

a big part of the reason i am writing this blog is because i need to earn more money. i have worked out that i need around 450 euros a month to survive, that is pay normal bills and eat. so that would equate to selling 2 paintings a week for 50 euros each and a bonus one once a month. i am well capable of creating 9 paintings a month, in fact over the summer i was doing more than that. but on average i was getting 30 euros each painting.

realistically i need to either put my prices up but i think i would then not sell at all, or find a supplementary income. so have decided to go with the second option.

i would be quite happy to teach english as a second language or conversational, but not not ever in a school with a class full of children. italian children are lovely but so confident and talkative that having been in a classroom on several occasions with a teacher there, i would be terrified on my own. ( or alternatively my allotted amount of bravery is all used up by driving and trying to speak italian)

and so my other option is to write riveting blogs , which will also inspire me to get out there and make things happen so i can write about them.

so back to my life as a story . the plot, is will i manage to stay in italy and make a living, how will i do it, will it be fun, will i get a job, will i ever paint something i think is good enough, will i be rescued at the last minute or plod on slowly earning more until i am solvent. will my macchinuccia ever pass its mot, and will i ever go back to taranto and check out the lingerie and seduction department?

( one of the paintings i sold yesterday)