I'm not sure I like this one - it looks a bit like an Easter egg.
I'm not sure I like this one - it looks a bit like an Easter egg.
I finished off another vase today.
This weekend I painted a ceramic vase I made a while back. I tried out various colour combinations like pink and greys, black and white and primary colours, but I decided to settle (somewhat daringly) on orange, white and blue.
For those who don’t remember, these are the colours of the old South African flag. The flag has understandably disappeared since the change of government in 1994, but in a way I miss the familiarity of it.
]]>I think most of us have fantasised about what life would be like I we had a lot more money. Usually it involves quitting your job and doing something more meaningful with your life, like travelling the world or going back to school or opening your own business or writing a novel or doing volunteer work. The more diligent among us might cram such ‘meaningful activities’ into the few spare hours we can salvage during the day and by making the most of weekends and leave. But even so the things we wish we could do full time remain pretty much a daydream as we get on with the grind of making a living.
Of course, the thing that prevents us from doing what we really desire to do has more to do with a lack of gumption than a lack of money. It is possible to travel the world on a shoestring for example but it requires intrepidness. So too is it possible to plunge into volunteer work at any time but it requires a degree of selflessness. It is easy in comparison to settle into a nine to five job with bovine complacency, simply looking forward to the check at the end of the month.
Nancy asks me if I enjoy my job at the art school where I teach. I say I do because it centres round talking about art and making art, which is what I primarily interested in. More importantly it does not take up too much of my time and energy. I have enough of both left over after my last class to do my own stuff. In many ways it is a dream job. Finding something else that is equally satisfactory on so many levels would be very difficult, especially in London where I might find myself in a few months time. Even in a good school I will probably be horribly tied up with various commitments leaving very little time to do my own thing. I like teaching. It is not a bad job, just as long as it is not the main thing I do. I want art to be my cake and teaching merely the icing on top.
This made me wonder if I am doing the right thing by moving to London. Would I still go if I had the money to do anything I wanted? The answer is yes; London is brilliant. But I wouldn’t want to teach in a high school. I would much rather spend the bulk of my day working towards a Masters degree in Fine Art with the intention of going into tertiary education instead. To accomplish this without sufficient finances would be highly unlikely though, so I’ll probably end up as regular teacher in London with the bovine complacency of a secure job.
On the other hand, Nancy and I are fleshing out the idea of my moving back to Taiwan where she is if it means that I can continue my studies and find more time to make art there. Taiwan is not a place I like very much (to put it politely) but the thought of being able to do something meaningful to me there changes my outlook on the country dramatically. Overall it is a difficult decision to make: Would I rather have the life of a slave in paradise or that of a master in hell?
I suppose the answer to that question lies in the initial question of what I would do if I had all the money I desired. I wouldn’t necessarily quit the life of an artist in Taiwan but I would definitely quite the life of a teacher in London.
]]>Show us something special/unique about your Sunday.
I've been in a creative jam this whole year. Ever since my proposal for a Masters Degree was rejected I have not been able to produce anything. Today I decided to get over it by just starting a painting, any painting, and seeing where it takes me. I already feel better.
I wish for what most people do: a place to call home, a job I don’t mind waking up for and someone to love. Very few people have all three. Many would say you are lucky to have even one of those things. Since I have two (a nice job and a loving wife) I should be pretty satisfied but it is not that simple. It never is. There is always a dark side to the bright side.
On the bright side I work at an art school that suits me fine. It does not drain me of my time or my energy and is very low stress. This allows me to pursue other things like further study and my own art. My salary provides some financial security while the work I do on the side feathers my nest. It is an agreeable situation. On the dark side the school is in a small Eastern Cape town in South Africa, which is just not the kind of place my wife Nancy can settle comfortably in. After only a few months she found it unbearably quiet and uneventful. It is a world apart from the 24-hour hustle and bustle of Taiwan that is her norm. Her boredom and frustration was further exacerbated by her inability to find a job and in the end she decided to return to Taiwan and wait for me there. On the bright side our split up was temporary. I would finish my studies and then work back the bursary I received by teaching in South Africa for a year. After that we I would be debt free and we could choose somewhere else to live that was mutually acceptable.
So far things have been going bang according to plan. In less than 6 months I will have settled my dues and Nancy and I have already decided where we will go next: London. Actually we sussed it out for two weeks last month and both found it to be the right place for us. As a teacher I’ll manage to get work and if Nancy does not I have enough savings for her to study further in order to better her chances.
Also on the bright side I think England will be a step up for both of us. Taiwan is a dump. It is massively overcrowded, polluted, noisy and ugly. South Africa is undoubtedly beautiful but unfortunately equally dangerous. Crime is out of control and anything to do with the government is a shambles. Considering these two things alone, I would rather live in Taiwan, but only if I had no other options available. Thankfully my little European passport provides a key to a desirable section of the world and it is with this that Nancy and I can go to the UK and make a new life for ourselves.
Of course there is a dark side to it as well. As time goes by Nancy and I are feeling increasingly apprehensive about moving to England. Nancy is reluctant to leave her country because unlike me she feels quite happy there. She has a good job, friends and family and the sense of belonging that comes with being in your home country. I am reluctant to go to London because for the first time I have a job that does not swamp me. In London I’ll certainly be swamped with school stuff and most likely roundly abused by kids I teach as well. This is hardly something to look forward to. Most of all I worry that I won’t have anything left in me at the end of the day to produce art. Nothing could depress me more.
The uncertainty of what lies next (Will I get a decent job? Will Nancy get a job? Will we make enough money? Will we be able to live in a good area? Will we fit in? Will we make friends? Will we have time for each other? Will we change?) weighs heavily on us. Sometimes it feels like too much to talk about.
For some days now Nancy and I have stopped talking about the move to England and all that it entails because it just seems too daunting after while. But not talking about it has left an unspoken gap that makes our everyday talk sound hollow. So now we don’t talk about light things either. This worries me because in all our years together Nancy and I have always enjoyed long rich conversations...
Perhaps the three things I wish for in life happen separately rather than together, and should they fortuitously occur together there is no saying how long they will continue to do so. When I look back on the life Nancy and I had in Taiwan I recall both the brightness of having a home and being together and the darkness of hating the country and what I was doing for a living. Right now I am aware of the brightness of doing what drives me as well as the darkness of being estranged from the only person in this world who loves me more than anyone else.
Ryan and I went out for coffee today. We used to go for coffee almost every day last year when we were studying for our teaching certificates. At the time Ryan was hoping to find a teaching post in Grahamstown because his family and friends were here, but in the end he got a job about an hour away by car in Port Alfred. It is also an old English settler town but is even smaller than Grahamstown. The main attraction is the beach and Kowie river, which you can navigate upstream for about 28 kilometres. Apart from outdoor activities though there is not a whole lot to do there. Many working adults live in Port Alfred for the peace and quiet but work in the neighbouring towns. For the kids who are pretty much stuck there all the time it can be a hellishly boring place.
That is why I wasn’t that surprised to hear that Ryan has some real discipline issues to contend with at the local high school where he teaches Maths. His situation is exacerbated by the fact that he is overworked. At the moment he is teaching Natural Science on top of his regular Maths classes, even though it is not his subject area. To add insult to injury he has to teach Natural Science to Grade 8 pupils who are a very different kettle of fish to Grade 10, 11 and 12 pupils which is the band he is qualified to teach. In the beginning he found the situation completely overwhelming and it was not long afterwards that certain parents came down on him like a tonne of bricks. He says that things are running much smoother now, but I am still left to wonder what makes him stick it out. Evidently it is not a job that earns him much respect, either from his pupils or their parents and the pay is hardly seems worth it.
At least in the art school where I teach I am never openly abused. The worst thing my pupils do is to neglect their work and skip lessons but even these are isolated cases and to be honest they don’t particularly bother me… I am there for those who want to learn. I am also not overworked - quite the opposite in fact. Even when I have several classes running concurrently, the kids generally get on with their work on I leave them to their own devices. My input is merely to discuss ideas, show techniques and supervise - hardly strenuous.
I wouldn’t want to teach core a subject like Maths or English, which requires endless explanations, demonstrations and painstaking corrections. I wouldn’t want the pressure from all sides that every kid gets through these subjects either. Particularly if it was in a school like Ryan’s where many of the kids don’t particularly care about even finishing school. I realise there are selfless teachers (perhaps Ryan is one of them) who take it upon themselves to ‘save’ the lost causes no matter how slim the chances or how difficult the process and for these kind of teachers I have infinite admiration, but I am not one of them. Nor do I intend to be. As I mentioned before, the onus I place on myself is simply to teach to the best of my ability - regardless of how many kids actually benefit from it.
I guess this approach is suited to teaching Art and Design because it is not a subject kids are inclined to loath, like Maths. Most kids find making art fun, so they tend to be open to what I have to say in class. My subject area is not the jagged pill that Ryan’s is, that needs to be coaxed down my pupils’ throats with fury and frustration. Thank God for that.