The 4 creative projects I let die
And my Blood & Bile exhibition coming soon
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Last week, I was interviewed by freelance cheerleader extraordinaire Steve Folland on his podcast Being Freelance. (Go follow him on Instagram, smiles and bonhomie guaranteed)
One of the pre-podcast prep questions he sent over was about side projects, aka how we spend our time when we are not busy doing everything else.
We didn’t get to this question in the end but it got me thinking about what modern philosopher
has to say about finitude and how we spend our time.We live one life AND 21st century choices of how to spend it are almost infinite.
We have to (often painfully) choose how we spend our time. We just don’t have enough of it to taste every pie. And living a content life is coming to terms with that very fact.
(Those are not his exact words but pretty much cover the gist of his argument.)
There are inequalities in the array of choices each of us has but modern life is nonetheless having constant visual access to them somewhere online.
Starting a business. Writing a book. Being a digital nomad. Moving to the Cotswolds. Become a diving instructor in the Maldives. Going on a silent retreat. Entering local politics.
I started thinking about all the creative side projects that (still) live in my brain. Creative projects I have let die.
Or maybe they are not dead, dead. Just dormant, waiting for me to choose them.
Here are the big four:
Photography exhibitions. I got quite into photography in my teens and twenties and while I have zero patience these days to get my head around analogue photography and red room printing (it was fun though!) all over again, I do have a decent eye when it comes to photography. I have two exhibition ideas. One called Lordship Lane - a snapshot of life on the street that runs from Wood Green to Tottenham ( 5 mins walk from me) with gritty stills of street life: the 24 hour Turkish shops, the betting shops, and the chicken shops. The other would be a collection of some of our best shots from our world adventure back in 2018/2019. Here’s one of my favourite shots. My family in Baja de California, Mexico, whale watching. The other tourists didn’t turn up and we had the boat and the ocean all to ourselves. Some other pictures to look at here.
Art installation - about women’s health probably called something provoking like Blood and Bile. I have been prodded and poked for an array of ills, all linked to being a woman. I have a bulging medical file to prove it and even the recording (on a CD-ROM no less) of a keyhole surgery I had in my late twenties. I have endometriosis (undiagnosed for nearly twenty years), low ovarian reserve, crippling hyperemesis gravidarum in pregnancy and then at around 40 I was told I have premature menopause. My vision is to have all the paperwork - test results, appointment letters all strung together somehow and invite my fellow females to do the same.
School - As many of you know, my child was out of school for the whole of 2024. I am confident I could create a school my child would love to attend. I know what is needed, what kind of staff to employ and know where to find out how to actually set one up. My child wants me to. But it feels such a big endeavour I’m not sure how ready I am (or whether I’ll ever be ready) for this one.
A novel - I never thought I would want to write a novel let alone try. It seems very hard. I feel more comfortable with the crispness of facts. But lately buoyed by a longer than usual fiction reading phase - I usually snap out of it by September but this year it’s just kept going (current read which I am enjoying immensely is Same As It Ever Was by Claire Lombardo ), I have a green shoot of an idea about two families living with the same challenges but dealing with it in very different ways - one of which leads to devastating consequences. It’s a story about societal pressure, appearances and a cruel reminder of what really matters.
I have others. Ones I have actually chosen to do something about - like write more non-fiction (am working on a proposal about how businesses can better support neurodivergent customers or starting a brand new newsletter Broken Fishfingers).
But the four I shared with you today are the four that came quite quickly to the forefront of my mind when thinking about lost creative endeavours, which probably means something in itself.
Have a beautiful week. The weather continues to be glorious here in the UK and I do hope the sun is shining where you are too.
Before I go, help me decide which project I should maybe, just maybe revive?
I am Katie. I help businesses understand their customers so they can build and create things they want and buy. I have written two books on this very topic which will change the way you think about your customers forever. The award winning Do Penguins Eat Peaches? and Other Unexpected Ways to Understand What Your Customers Want, now available to buy straight from the author (aka me) and How To Get To Know Your Customers - a pocket guide to all my best tips and tricks on Market Research.
I want to vote for all of them. Just not all at once!