I often wake up and look forward to doing my CIT homework. Currently my favourite class is Colour Theory. We are making a huge number of our own colour swatches from only yellow, blue (cyan), and red (magenta). It’s a great, practical way to learn about how colour works. But I also miss words. I’m not engaging with them any less, but my focus and perception of my future is different.
I’m starting from the beginning again in a way; soon I will be building up portfolios, trying to get recognised, collecting contacts in the design industry. It’s been a bit humiliating to be starting over because my degree that took me five years is unrecognised. Those years of study and adoration for the conventions of Victorian fears imbedded in literature feels wasted. I always have what I know and I might find a way to use my knowledge in an unpaid manner, but that direction of learning seems a little dimmer. I’m doing something not totally unrelated, design is still in the field of the arts as writing is, but the skills I previously honed I’m sad to not be continuing to develop in a formal or paid manner.
I can be too concrete about my future, wrapping too much of my identity in what I do. None of us are only made up of what we do for a day job, but being a writer (and future publisher/editor) has been who I thought I was for many years. I miss it. The slowly solidifying dream of working for a literary/feminist/philosophical publication aches. In part it also aches because a question was posed to me about what kind of jobs in the art sector I want. I wasn’t sure how to answer as I don’t have a lot of clues about what jobs exist and what skills beyond admin are needed. But the question has beckoned me to dream into that dim space. From it I feel I should keep pushing forward in the writing/publishing world as well as see what develops from Interior Design. I don’t have to be one thing with one direction.