Design 21: Social Design Network

Today is more difficult than usual! I feel utterly blocked, stuck in mud, cannot begin anything, cannot finish anything! Each task meets with frustration, another failing goal/ lack of tool/ unknown words. And yet, looking at what IS working today, I realise that I was hugely rewarded by the cleaning organising, cooking and fixing, and managing to communicate with a neighbour, already... if in doubt about the way forward, almost always a bout of clearing up/ out will suffice to return me to the centre!

I realise my mounting frustration is partly around simply the lack of familiarity: it is a joyful freedom to embrace the new and the exotic, but after a while, I can feel my 36yr old craving for stability, familiarity and The Normal. I guess this moment requires a more significant breakthrough; my work has to adapt not only to a new country (climate, language), economic structure and so on, but to my change in personal circumstances: I am no longer a singleton bumbling day after busy day from one easily- managed engagement to the next, and always with every resource to hand: I'm now in a completely new landscape, a travel partner at my side, with whom I must work as a team.

I struggled this morning to break through this wall, and found that, as intense as it appeared to me, it was no more than a passing glitch in the matrix; a few words over the phone and scribbled (as it were) into a Word document, and suddenly there was perspective again. It amazes me how easily things shif...

The niggling doubts and weight of tasks waiting, they all slip quietly away as I return to painting for the first time proper since arriving in Italy. Realigning the molecules and emotional body! The sun and breeze come in the window, I pause occasionally to reassure the cat/ drink tea/ eat crisps. The world seems easier.

The house is gaining stability- it is laid out better, and my mind feels in a similar state! Nothing like reorganising the external space, to reciprocate a feeling of order within... as above, so below.

It is a little nerve-wracking always, to begin afresh after so long not painting, but this time there is so much space, fresh air, clean silence and nourishing warmth surrounding me, that the settling into it is much simpler.

I began looking at the instruction manual for my new website today; this is a real step- beginning again with my public profile/ presentation of work and ideas. My current main website www.claregalloway.co.uk has been through multiple transformations, and has been an immensely useful tool in gaining understanding and structure of my own work, and in my relationship with the public... the new site will afford me a little more objectivity, and will secure my distance from my audience.

Everything is a new beginning: relationship, work, business organisation, house, garden, language, food, air! It is a real rebirth, but slow and hard slog! My mind struggles at moments, to digest and to express, but on the whole, this is a truly immense...