The irony of art-student creativity

Posted on 19 June 2016 by beckybendylegs

Today I have been drawing. This is the first time, beyond random sketches of people in coffee shops and on trains, that I’ve drawn for weeks. I love drawing. I love drawing more than any of the following:

  • painting
  • blogging
  • making videos
  • casting in bronze
  • playing with plastercine
  • animating
  • pairing socks
  • eating orange chocolate

I don’t spend enough time drawing. I carry a small A6 book with me for impromptu sketching of people in coffee shops. However, beyond that, I don’t do nearly as much drawing as I’d like to. This is largely due to lack of time and perhaps pressure to produce.

But today, as work has moved from Code Red to Code Green thanks to the Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook and the Children’s Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook going to press, I’ve had time. Time to draw.

This book has ruled my life for the last five months

The 2017 edition of this book has ruled my life for the last five months

Today, I’ve drawn four things. I’ve drawn four balloons / balloon fragments.

My drawings aren’t very exciting. They relate to a project I’ve more-or-less finished now that my first year as a part-time Level 6 student has finished. I gain nothing in terms of grades from this. I gain nothing in terms of enlightenment or advancement. All I have gained, is therapy and practice. I had no reason to draw balloons today. I just wanted to.

Random balloon bit

Random balloon bit

Another random balloon bit

Another random balloon bit

And another random balloon bit

And another random balloon

Final random balloon bit

Final random balloon bit

It is as if the freedom to do nothing, or draw anything, for no ultimate goal has loosened my hand and my eye. I just want to draw. I want to draw more. I want to draw every day. Oddly, I’ve worked really hard today. I spent about 4 hours drawing which is more in one sitting than I’ve spent in the last year. I don’t really know or understand why. I’m tired now. More tomorrow perhaps.

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And where is the rest of it?

Posted on 13 June 2016 by beckybendylegs

This is a question I’ve been asked by more than one person (one of which was only six), about the work I have on display at the Fine Art Degree Show in Wolverhampton. I don’t mind that I’ve been asked this question. It is a very honest, and expected, question.

But being asked this throws up a worry in my head. It bothers me that what I’ve put in the show doesn’t look much. I’ve answered each time I’ve been asked this with, rather apologetically: ‘Well, this is it’. But should I feel the need to apologise for lack of stuff?

My bronze balloons - blink and you might miss them!

My bronze balloons – blink and you might miss them!

On face value, it looks fairly pitiful. Four bronze balloons and a sound track. Is that it? Physically it is quite small. In terms of hours spent creating these objects compared to the number of hours in ten months, it is few. Is that all I have to show for ten months work? As my six-year-old son asked: where is the rest of it mummy?

I didn’t explain to him but the rest of it is under the bed at home, in my head and in my sketchpad. It is also on the Internet and flowing around the ether through my thoughts over the last 10 months.

My sketchpad (devoid of sketches on this page)

My sketchpad (devoid of sketches on this page) where the ideas are

But it still irks me that it does not look, to the six year old at least, that I have done much. It is niggling me. Should I have more to show? Does it look as if I haven’t tried hard enough?

So I have been doubting myself and asking myself: what was I trying to achieve? Is it to make a point, encourage thought about a particular idea, or to show what I am capable of in terms of art practice? I argue that in this case, for me at least, it is the former rather than the latter. But perhaps there is something missing if the first impression to the viewer is: where is the rest of it? If that is the case, that makes me feel that I haven’t fully succeeded in my aim. The viewer shouldn’t need to ask the question. I don’t know whether people have understood my piece or not (I haven’t had the chance to do much eavesdropping). But my six-year-old critic thinks there should be more.

I’m supposed to be exhibiting somewhere else in two weeks time and I’m wondering if I should include more work on the same theme. I do have it. I have a video (more than one in fact). I have drawings, paintings, photographs, binders of photographs, I have a poem, I have text, I have sketches, and I have some word clouds. I have the original balloons. I have plaster balloons. What do I include and exclude?

The decision of what to show when the end of a project is reached is a really hard one. It can be temping to show everything, or almost everything. After all, I want people to know how hard I’ve worked so they should see it all, surely? They need evidence. They need to see that I can draw and paint. But then does all that quantity cloud the message?

What I really need to know is: is there a happy medium between the two?

I think I still have a lot to learn about this: what to show and what to leave at home. I don’t know where the happy place is.

This is perhaps too much art

This is perhaps too much art

In this case, I would like to stick to my gut instinct and believe that what I have in the Fine Art Degree Show is loaded enough to be sufficient for ten-months thought and work. But on some days, when I am asked that question, it feels as if I am fighting against the tide of popular expectations.

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The best way to read a highbrow book is quickly

Posted on 30 May 2016 by beckybendylegs

There are a lot of verbose and obscure articles and books in the art, art / philosophy and art / critical thinking world. I’ve had the (dis)pleasure of reading a few of them.

During my recent assessment, one of the two tutors assessing me (the intellectual one) recommended a book to me. That book was Jacques Rancière’s The Emancipated Spectator. Being the good student that I am I hurried off straight away after my assessment to Amazon to purchase a second-hand copy of this book. I decided that this book would be a good read for a train journey to London. There would be few distractions on a long train journey and my life is currently full of little distractions (including a very talkative six year old).

Jacques Ranciere and his cat

Jacques Ranciere and his cat

I started reading it a couple of days before I went to London but didn’t get very far. So I picked it up again as we pulled out of Shrewsbury station and continued the read with much hope for enlightenment and enthusiasm for some intellectual stimulation.

The highbrow book in question

The highbrow book in question

However, shortly after starting, I was soon frustrated. The book is not an easy read. The language is as verbose and obscure as the best of them. After reaching page 20 by Birmingham New Street I was tempted to finish reading at the end of the first chapter (to return to later) and pick up my spare book to read instead (Owen Jones’s The Establishment in case you are interested). However, something made me persevere as we boarded the London-bound train (I don’t like giving up). I struggled on through sentences such as:

It might afford an occasion for a radical differentiation from the theoretical and political presuppositions which, even in postmodern form, still underpin the gist of the debate on theatre, performance and the spectator.

This is a good example of a sentence I was having to re-read at least twice before I felt able to move on to the next sentence. This way of reading is slow going and painful. It makes you question why you are trying so hard and usually renders you more angry than enlightened.

Then around page 44, I decided that giving up would be the wimp’s way out and to keep reading would make me proud. So I decided to keep reading and to not stop, even if I was confused and to not analyze or try to unravel. So I just read. And once I had made that decision, I read and I read. I couldn’t put it down and some lightbulb of understanding in my brain clicked. I got it. I could understand it. I knew what he was on about and it was good and interesting and pertinent to my art practice. The tutor who had recommended it to me was right.

The basic message of the book can be summarized as thus: Historically, there is a division between the actor (read: artist) and spectator (read: viewer) as expressed by Plato. Plato believed that theatre was evil and pointless (i.e. theater with a message dished out to a passive spectator). In this scenario, the actor / artist is seen as intellectually superior as he transmits his message to a passive, ignorance spectator. This is Not A Good Thing. The spectator (viewer), argues Rancière, needs to be emancipated. The artist and viewer are on an equal intellectual footing and should be treated as such (despite what the modernists might have you believe). So the role of the artist is to present a piece of artwork that assumes that spectator is capable of reading into it a message and gaining their own knowledge from it, even if that is different from the artist’s intention. The way to do this is through the notion of the ‘pensive’ image. In other words, the image that thinks or allows for thinking to take place.

Now that, to me, makes sense. So my recommendation to anyone reading a challenging book is read, keep reading, and keep on reading. It will make sense. I promise.

 

 

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Everyone is an artist

Posted on 22 May 2016 by beckybendylegs

I’m still reading about post-Internet art (just about, I’m near the end). One of the points made in one of the last essays in this book has made me observe more closely than normal the humdrum, every day activity that flows in front of me 18 hours a day on the Internet: the Instagram photos, the Facebook photos, the tweets, the links, the questions and the provocative confessions.

The essay in question, ‘May Amnesia Never Kiss Us on the Mouth’, argues that everyone, to some extent, is an artist in the post-Internet age. As it states about the Internet: ‘Here is everyone’.

My current book

My current book

What it meant by this, is that with the resources available to us through the Internet, anyone can observe, upload, photograph, comment and have an impact. Many people who use the Internet in this way, through Instagram, Twitter of Facebook and the like, probably don’t even realise that they are being artists. Anyone can be an artist. Everyone can be an artist.

You don't need a paintbrush to be a good artist

You don’t need a paintbrush to be a good artist

This is a Good Thing in my opinion. You don’t need to be good at drawing to be an artist and the Internet allows people who might not have the confidence in their drawing or making skills, to comment like an artist and observe like an artist. It is a misconception that to consider yourself an artist you need to be good at drawing. A few months ago I overheard a conversation between two students walking out of the Art School building in Wolverhampton which ended with: ‘I’m not even sure why I am doing this degree, I can’t even draw!’. To be an artist you need a good eye, curiosity and the ability to form an opinion or make a statement. That is all.

The Internet is a mass of images, comments, poems, essays, statements, videos, blogs, vlogs and sound bites. It is an archive of the contemporary. However, unlike more traditional archives, it is ephemeral. It is there. It is constant. It reflects life. It is huge. but that hugeness only lasts for an instant, and then it moves on. It is like a wave. We take it so seriously, but only in the present. It rules our lives. It has a good short-term memory, but a rubbish long-term memory. Most art created on the Internet dies as suddenly as it appeared. That, is my one regret about the Internet. I see so much wonder there. But can I remember the next day what I found so wonderful on the previous day? Not likely.

We use the Internet to express something of ourselves that previously perhaps all but the ‘creatives’ of the real world kept hidden. Once the Internet became universal, it was a brand new communication tool, the likes of which we had never had before.

So that is what I mean by ‘we are all artists’. The Internet is the pencil that everyone can use at the same time, and you don’t need to worry about your artistic abilities because it permits all abilities of expression from the completely banal and stupid to the astute and sublime. We all think we are good at Internet engagement whereas we don’t all regard ourselves as good at art.

That is the reason that I love the Internet.

References

Abbas, B. & R. Abou-Rahme ‘May Amnesia Never Kiss Us on the Mouth’ in Kholeif, O. 2014 You Are Here: Art After the Internet Cornerhouse: Manchester

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The anxiety of the art student life

Posted on 17 May 2016 by beckybendylegs

This time yesterday, I was a ball of anxiety. I felt sick, my stomach was in knots and my mind was full of catastrophe. Yesterday, was the day before my final assessment for a module I’m taking at Wolverhampton this year called ‘Final Major Project’. Yesterday, I was really, rather nervous. I am sure my family were close to divorcing me. I was not nice to live with. I often visited MAT rehab los angeles  for the best anxiety relief. 

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This was me yesterday

This was me yesterday

Now I am on the other side. I’ve had the assessment I was dreading. This assessment consisted of a 20-minute tutorial with two tutors in which the student (me) explains in 10 minutes 5 months worth of exploration and research and the tutors (my main tutor and another) spend 10 minutes asking questions and suggesting a next step. For this short 20-minute activity, I will receive 70% of half of this year’s grade. The other 30% comes from a similar assessment I went through in January and the other half comes from my dissertation. So this was A Big Deal. This was worth getting nervous about.

Just before the assessment, I came across this article. Reading this from the train station to the art building really helped get me through today. It gave me that boost of (false) confidence I needed.

But back to yesterday, when I was feeling enormous pressure to perform reasonably well. In my head, this time yesterday, I was imagining complete failure, being struck dumb, saying the wrong things, not saying enough, saying something stupid, bursting into tears, running out of the room or fainting or vomiting on the floor. Luckily, none of my fears came true. It was fine. It was positive. It went ok. I didn’t embarrass myself and that is the main thing.

The relief I felt after the assessment was over was immense. The knotted feeling left me immediately. Hunger kicked in. And I felt, for a moment, euphoric. The euphoria comes after the disappearance of the worry. I get it when I leave the dentist. The euphoria wasn’t so much about content of the assessment itself, it was just the ‘its finally over’ feeling. So for that moment I felt the realisation that I am not A Total Failure.

Not another Keep Calm It's...?

Not another Keep Calm It’s…?

So as today’s events unfolded, I came to the conclusion that this is the life of the art student (and probably the artist too) and I need to just suck it up and get on with it. Twenty-four hours ago everything was awful, it was rubbish, it was boring, it was pointless, it was not going to work. I was going to fail. The whole thing was going to be a disaster. They were going to tell me that they didn’t get it. I was not going to be able to explain myself. I was not going to be able to finish my degree. I was going to cry, a lot. I was going to have to pack up my belongings in a box, hand back my student card, and leave. I was sure that was going to happen. Today, I want to do an Masters. Why not stop there? I could become a real artist! Life is great. This is fun. I love being an artist! Who wouldn’t love this life!

The creative life is about extreme ups and downs. The downs are horrid. They don’t feel as if they will ever end. They are the wells of despair. Yesterday, I was in need of Leo McGarry’s wisdom. I needed him to offer his hand to the bottom of the well. Today, I feel normal again. I’m out of the well. I was off balance yesterday. The litmus test would have come out acidic. I felt toxic. Today, I feel calm and lovely. The world is an okish place to be. The ups are nice. I like the ups. We need more ups.

Tomorrow, things might change. I still have to exhibit. I still have work to do. And then, there is next year. I still need to have ideas. That will never stop. The self-doubt? That won’t stop either.

 

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We are all post-Internet artists

Posted on 8 May 2016 by beckybendylegs

I’ve  been reading recently all about post-Internet art and what it is. Initially, I thought it sounded like it should be something revolutionary and exciting but I now know that it isn’t really. In fact, the term has been around for a while. It is actually as ubiquitous as drinking coffee in coffee shops. In fact, the two often come together.

The ‘post’ part of the term might imply that it succeeds the excitement of the ‘newness’ of the Internet, making one think of something avant garde, but the term in this context actually refers to a stablisation that comes after the excitement of the new. Just as ‘post’ modernism refers to a sort of backpeddling from the ‘new’ of modernism. Post-Internet also refers to a sort of backpeddling from the new.

Writers such as Marisa Olson, Gene McHugh and Artie Vierkant are well-known for their attempts to describe how virtual technologies have shifted artistic practice and production in recent years. They variously talk about how the Internet has infused art practice and how it has evolved from the domain of geeks to the domain of more ‘ordinary’ artists. Post-Internet art has been described as the new pop art. I quite like that. Perhaps it is.

What I find ironic and disturbing is the realisation that anyone who practices art and uses the Internet in some way for inspiration, for source material or as material, or to promote themselves is a post-Internet artist. I had been a post-Internet artist since I started learning art again and I didn’t even know it.

My current book

My current book

I now use the Internet extensively in my art: to find material, to post material, to gather material (from other people) and to create artwork. I am a committed post-Internet artist. One of the key symptoms of post-internet art practice is blogging about art on the Internet so the day I wrote my first blog was the day I signed the post-Internet artist contract. ‘Exhibiting’ my art online puts me firmly in that camp (along with all the millions of Instagram users).

This is post-Internet art

This is post-Internet art

But post-Internet art is only half about being on the internet. It is about straddling both online and offline. It is about picking, mixing, hybridizing, playing and rehashing. It is about being an alchemist: turning the plethora of virtual ‘stuff’ into gold. Just as post-modernism was about those things. I am being a post-Internet artist when I’m commenting, liking, sharing, procrastinating, avoiding. I am the epitome of the post-internet artist in a coffee shop with the phone in one hand, the sketch pad in the other.

We are at the age where it has all been done before, and it can all be found online. So is the trick is to accept my post-Internet label and take what has been done before and twist it into something original and beautiful, or look at our digital existence and make a thought-provoking metaphorical statement about it? I guess that is what I am trying to do most of the time. I’m interested in how we view objects via the Internet and how we can have a ‘love’ of the objects of the Internet (and indeed those that give us access to the internet such as this laptop). My obsession with things filters into the online world.

If post-Internet art is so prevalent, is it, in fact, actually quite boring and bland now? Would it be better to be artist who lives beyond the post Internet? Should I aspire to be a post-post Internet artist? I’m not sure I know how to do that. But I think the time is ripe for something new.

References

Kholeif, O. 2014. You Are here: Art After the Internet. Cornerhouse & SPACE, Manchester

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Am I an internal or an external artist?

Posted on 2 May 2016 by beckybendylegs

I have been wondering for a while what sort of artist I am: whether I am an inward-looking one or an outward-facing one.

It has been well documented that there are various kinds of art (and various kinds in between the various kinds and various kinds which cross the various kinds). These are: representational, abstract, conceptual. In addition, there are different channels of expression and media to use. There are too many to mention: sound, vision, paint, performance, pencil, paper, stitching, colour and food to name just a tiny few.

But whatever area of art an artist dabbles in, I believe that creative people are generally either motivated by a need to express something within themselves or from their environment. The former ‘type’ is the stereotypical existentialist artist who uses art as therapy (although that is a rather crass definition). They feel compelled to create to try to lessen the burden of their own thoughts and troubles. They need to pore out the contents of their mind onto ‘canvas’ (the metaphorical kind). This is the art of isolation. It is the art of the void. If there were to be a Venn Diagramme about it, this sort of art would overlap with the art of abstraction and abstract expressionism. The Dadaists flourished at the art of the internal. Jackson Pollock is the patron.

Francis Bacon may be one of the only both inward and outward artists

Francis Bacon may be one of the only both inward and outward artists

On the other end of the spectrum is the artist who observes, the watcher, the stalker, the silent witness. This artist wants to express what they see or play with perception. Their motivation is either to spread a message, share with others the joy of what they have experienced or seen, change perception or challenge it, or pass on a social message and change something bad about the world. They see themselves as the vessel. In the Venn Diagramme of art this type of artist has a toe in both the representational camp and the conceptual camp. (Note though that the conceptual camp also overlaps with the internal artist in this imaginary Venn Diagramme.)

A Venn Diagramme

A Venn Diagramme

I think that I am the latter type of artist. But why is that? It is partly because the thought of using art to express what is in my mind terrifies me. What if by doing so I find out that I am psychological damaged? What if people don’t understand what is in my head and that leads to confusion and rejection? What if the process of inward art sends me even further over the edge? It is the same fear one might have about embarking on therapy. What if I find out that there is no hope for me and I am a psychopath?

That aside, I’m an external artist first and foremost because I love to watch. I am an introvert (I think both types of artist are generally introverted). I love to watch. I love to listen and record and enjoy what life throws at me in the way of stimuli from people and things. I live for things. Things rock! But I also love people. They are so fascinating. Sophie Calle is the artist I would stalk, if she wasn’t already busy stalking someone else.

Sophie Calle is a watcher

Sophie Calle is a watcher

Artists, and specifically art students who share the same studio space as me in Wolverhampton, who are of the inward kind both fascinate and terrify me. I think they are so brave. I am in awe of them. I wouldn’t know where to begin using art to look inwards. I really don’t think I could. The whole idea of it truly terrifies me. There is one particular art student (and I won’t name or shame) who creates the most amazing inwardly-looking art pieces. His paintings, if placed next to mine, couldn’t be more different. So perhaps it is impossible to cross that divide. I wonder if an artist can move from the outward camp to the inward one (and indeed visa versa).

The patron saint of inward artists - and look where he ended up

The patron saint of inward artists – and look where he ended up

I’m not ready to try just yet, maybe one day I will. And perhaps, like Francis Bacon, it is possible to combine the two. Ignorance for now though really is bliss.

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Oh to have a book about me

Posted on 13 April 2016 by beckybendylegs

Today a guest speaker came to the art school at Wolverhampton to give a talk about reality in British painting. It was very interesting and extremely relevant to my art practice. It was about the importance of contemporary painting and the influence and importance of reality painting to modern British art. However, one thought that came to mind while listening to this lecture was: Do I need to wait until someone writes a book about me  before I can reach that point of notoriety in the art world? Do I need to be studied and analysed? If that doesn’t happen, will I fade into obscurity?

The guest speaker, Rina Arya, has written two books about Francis Bacon. She had come to talk about her research on Francis Bacon (and other artists). Francis Bacon is obviously a very well-known and iconic artist with both feet firmly in the time-line of art history. He’s had a lot of books written about him. I’m not expecting that. But just to be remembered by someone, anyone, my question is: do I need to persuade a person of academic standing to write a book about me so share that same time-line? Do I need to be the focus of someone’s PhD? And do I have to die first?

Francis Bacon: Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion

Francis Bacon: Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion

There must be many, many people who call or have called themselves artists or who have worked some of all of their life making art who cannot be found in the University of Wolverhampton library.

I think perhaps I just like the idea of being in a book (that is, if I can’t publish one myself). I know that with the current technology of self-publishing and crowd-funded publishing I could probably engineer myself into the University of Wolverhampton library if I was that keen to do so.

But it might be better (and more enjoyable) to just plod on and keep painting, drawing, photographing and videoing the boring little things we ignore. Maybe one day I’ll be in a book somewhere, perhaps as a footnote, and by accident.

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When process is the main artwork

Posted on 4 April 2016 by beckybendylegs

Four years ago, when I started my Foundation Degree at Shrewsbury College, I was a painter. I painted things and the sea. I also painted people when I was feeling brave. That’s all I did. I signed up for the course to learn how to paint better. That was my art. At the time, that is what I wanted to do.

One of my many sea pictures

One of my many sea pictures

Fast forward four years (nearly five) and my art practice has transformed dramatically since those days. I rarely paint now. I do lots of things: draw, write, paint, create videos, take photographs and even make stuff on occasion (despite often telling people ‘I don’t do 3D art’).

However, there has been a more dramatic change than a broadening of my media: I now engage with the public. This is a change of my art practice that I am surprised by the most and in fact, ironically, I enjoy the most, even more than painting and drawing. I love blogging about art and getting feedback and I love engaging in dialogue with people about art in general and my art. I am addicted to the buzz I get from persuading people to do stuff for me. I like it when they respond, positively or negatively, to my art and help me develop. This is extremely fulfilling and addictive. The more I do, the more I want to do more.

So in four years my art has changed from a focus on the end product to one on process. It now occurs to me that the end product and people’s response to that (staring at a painting in an art gallery or even watching one of my videos on YouTube) is less important to me and less satisfying than seeing those same people engage in whatever mad idea I have (currently, finding balloons) as part of the process.

Last year this process took the form of visiting local people who owned objects from the First World War – interviewing them, talking to them about their objects and sharing cups of coffee with them. The year before that it was interviewing staff at Powis Castle and talking to visitors to the Castle about the objects in the castle. This year it is getting emails and images from people who have found burst balloons.  I owe so much to these people (more than they know), and they give me much in return. At the least, if I feel that I have  made my mark on their consciousness with my mad quirky obsessions then it was worth waking up on that day. Knowing that I have on some tiny level made them re-look at some aspect of the world and consider it for longer than they might normally, gives me a warm happy feeling inside.

My friend the Roman Cat

My friend the Roman Cat

So now my art work is the process. The end product (the paintings, the video, the models or whatever) is a mere by-product. The art work is organic. It changes over time. It develops. It is also virtual. It is in a blog, on Facebook and if I can be bothered, on Twitter. It is hard to pinpoint. It isn’t paint on a canvas. It is so much more than that.

So what sort of artist am I now? Is this a performance? Not quite. Is it an installation? No, there is no physical boundaries. Conceptual? Perhaps. But even that isn’t quite right. This process I’m talking about is more than just the idea.

My current obsession

My current obsession

What I love about art today is that the definition of ‘art’ is so much more difficult to make. It encompasses so many activities and there is no limit to what it could be. I feel freed by that. I don’t feel stuck in the box of ‘painter’. I feel I can travel wherever my mind takes me. So long as there are other people there too, it will all be good.

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What do you think?

Posted on 12 March 2016 by beckybendylegs

One of the main benefits to my art practice of being a student at the University of Wolverhampton is the view. My studio is on the seventh floor. From my little corner of studio space, I have quite an amazing view of Wolverhampton and beyond. I have seen Wolverhampton in the sunshine, at sunset, in the rain, in the snow, in fog and in nothingness. In fact, I don’t just have one view. I have many views. Each view is different. No two views have so far been the same.

As a consequence, I often find myself just sitting and staring out of the window and thinking.

The view - Wolverhampton in the fog and snow

The view – Wolverhampton in the fog and snow

If I’m not staring out of the window and thinking, I’m staring at my desk, my coffee, my phone battery and my balloons and thinking. Or I’m staring at that painting in the left-hand corner of the picture below (it’s been there for a few weeks now and I can’t stop staring at it) and thinking.

The close-up view

The close-up view

I think a lot when I am sat at my desk. I think about art. I think about my balloons. I think about what to do next. I think about life. I come up with things to write about here or in my other blog. I think about the future. I think about things (I like things). I think about coffee and how much I like coffee.

Last week when I was sitting in my chair, in my corner as usual, just thinking, I had a big thought: is thinking just a big fat waste of time? And then I checked Facebook. Then I checked my email. Then I stood up and looked at the view out of the window. Then I sat down again. And then I started to think again: am I just procrastinating? What am I not doing? What’s the point of thinking? Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

I told myself off for not ‘making’ anything or writing anything that day. I asked myself: what have I spend my £13.20 train travel on? I can think at home for free!

But after thinking about this for a while, I concluded that thinking is not a waste of time (or money). I wouldn’t think at home because I’d be distracted by work and children. I need to sit in my corner without distractions and think. If I didn’t, then I wouldn’t come up with any new ideas and have any interesting thoughts that I can blog about (such as this one).

Was my day spent thinking worth it? Discuss.

Is Henry right?

Is Henry right?

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