The Tryer.

I live in a big old terracotta former school house, boys playground, girls playground flanking the main building demarcation carved in sandstone atop brick pillars, stained glass details, wide end grain block staircases, dry rot and leaks. She's a venerable old girl. I moved here in the early 2000's and I fell in love with the place. My brother quipped I'd bought an apartment like most people buy a shirt. He was right of course, rather more forethought would have been good, but the heart ruled the head - again.

It's Grade 2 listed, so where possible the original features have been preserved apparently including some of its crumblier aspects. The apartments themselves are modern double height affairs with a bed deck, and of course the original windows. It's a nightmare to keep warm in winter, and got very hot in summer as there were no opening windows for 18 years, this annual 'dog in a hot car' scenario was the housing associations fault for signing the place off from a slovenly cost cutting contractor who repurposed the place from its last incarnation as a college.

It's a lovely place though, like a big terracotta cake, full of details, the displays of conspicuous wealth from its benefactors in the rich detailing. I think it was built in 1897 so right off the back of the arts and crafts movement when people took a pride in what they made.

There's problems with the place though, we pay a maintenance fee but the housing association has invoked a Section 20 clause meaning over and above this they can pursue the residents for monies used for emergency repairs on a listed building, this equates to over ten thousand pounds per lease holder. Let's face it, it was a bodge job from the initial conversion given the scale of the place. The fact I don't earn much this is one more aspect in life that I can do without - it's gone legal.

My window ledges in my apartment are very deep at about 18 inches at a conservative guess, I had a couple of windows replaced under this section 20 work, so now I can breathe fresh air as they actually open, even if reaching the handle across the worktop in the kitchen requires a fair bit of dexterity, and my plants don't get nearly enough attention. Dusty succulents I'd bought with a pretty girl in 2017 still keep going. The new windows at least aren't rot held together with paint anymore. I did have woodlice, terrifying to think in prehistoric times these little blighters were once 2ft long trilobytes!

I had a visitor, I'm not sure how he got in, but a tawny coloured spider with little stripy legs set up shop in the corner of my window. He wasn't much bigger than those dot stickers you put on the office holiday calendar. I thought it was a daft place to put a web but I thought hey... what do I know? you're the predator. God loves a tryer apparently.

I'd open the window to the outside world hoping he'd catch a fly, I'd dutifully flick water onto his silken web to hopefully keep him hydrated. I like spiders, they are benign little do-gooders in nature and quite beautiful up close if you've ever seen one through macro photography. Some with vibrant colours and patterned markings. There's 650 species in the UK out of which only 12 can bite humans, not that they would. They cut us a lot of slack. I had the fact they can go without food for 30 days very much at the front of my mind. I was worried, guilty as I helped myself to something from the fridge.

Day after day I'd watch him, he'd either be in the corner, or sitting in the middle of his web patiently waiting for something, anything,  I'd open the window to turn the odds in his favour, even if it was cold. I felt a connection, I'd built my own web in a stupid place too in life when I moved here. The curse of Graphic design and a lack of faith in my own ability. It's brought me a lot of heartache over the years, cost me money, love, health and some run ins with addiction. On the last point someone said if you're not punished for your sins, you're punished by them. It's very true.

I'm in essence trapped with a web of my own making, my recalcitrance to reach that pivotal escape velocity has held me back for years and cost me a lot in terms of relationships and professional development, lacking the confidence to navigate my own path. To say I'm unambitious really doesn't judge me fairly - Apparently I have ADHD, according to a friend who's middle daughter has it, a psychologist friend and two online tests. I always thought this was just naughty kids full of fizzy orange.

Much of the time I too sit alone stuck in my own 'web.' When my mum was alive she said the place looked like a 'ruddy secure wing'. I thought it was the epitome of minimalism on a budget, perhaps she had a point after all. It was okay when there was someone else in my life, not so much when there wasn't. Where I live isn't the sort of town where you make friends. It's blue collar, it's drunk and fighty and likes fried chicken and shouting.

Take for instance the other night. This biker that looked like a Lord of the Rings dwarf in a leather jacket, diminutive but stocky stature and a big grey beard was in the Greek takeaway and I'll swear he was the loudest person I've ever heard. Schoolyard tales and stories of people who were all 'nutters' delivered with a Peter Kay affectation anyone round here does when they think they are funny via his own built in PA system. Every time he spoke it pushed me back in my chair. No doubt he could give his all in the mosh pit. I bet he rides a Suzuki Bandit and an old Fiat Panda in an overgrown front garden. Thank God for free Ouzo. My food couldn't come soon enough.  

I'm a natural artist I know for this for sure. Business Studies certainly didn't pan out, despite the hawkish careers officers advice to the contrary. She did say I'd never make any money in art, so I'll give her her due.  

With the Business Studies accounts module assignment plonked on my desk I soon realised it just wasn't my side of the brain. My doodles saved me and I was able to jump ship onto an art course. I started out with fine art many years ago on my foundation course, it blew me away. In 'A' level art you'd spend 3 hours drawing a realistic apple, whereas on foundation they'd give you a ten foot square of paper and the apple tree branch and say, paint an apple. 

It was all about loosening you up, giving you less pondering time, honing the neural connections to give you possibilities rather than one line of thinking, building a fast creative response. It was an amazing boot camp. 3 minute life drawings became common, capturing a naked human pose with a stick of charcoal on large paper against the clock soon stops you noodling over detail - you literally see the bigger picture. 

Its given me lateral thought powers over the years to such an extent that even now people think I'm not listening to them in conversation when I'll seemingly blurt out an unconnected reply, my mind just jumps 4 steps, it's really not personal. It's not remarkable, you're just wired different - neuroplasticity I think they call it. I invite them to follow the white rabbit into how my mind works, and retrace my steps. "Weird" is a common reply. In the studio at work I rarely draw creative, I work to an idea fully formed in my mind. I'm good through years of saturation in the industry, but unfulfilled.

The only way out of my predicament of 'meat and potatoes' graphic design for a living and unrealised economic and mindful potential is going back to where this creative journey all started. Fine art. Creatively it's a banquet of moreish delight laid out before me rather than cheese on toast every day. If only the boss could realise ironically at the moment fine art is the only thing that keeps me in this job. 

Graphic design for print in the main has a very thick glass ceiling. The higher up you go, the less creative it gets, the administrative tasks kick in, and briefing in a team of artworkers or lesser creatives. An artist realises that this is a compromise you'd never take, particularly if you get so much creative free reign in a smaller agency, so you live on not very much despite being a time-served graduate. It's easy to see why some confuse so much talent for so little reward as lacking ambition. Hi Clare.

The fine art started back in 2014, but only became serious in 2017 when I was with that someone that believed in me - albeit briefly - then more serious latterly in 2019. When we broke up I was determined to prove I too could be a success, like the LinkedIn Premium wankers she probably was so enamoured with, failing to see dull guys in suits with money isn't exactly living either. You make your own hell. 

I think artistic people are the most interesting, you see the world very differently and love the beauty in details, always digging deeper with the life experience, obsessed with the visual, loving music and culinary journeys. 'Panning for gold' I call it.

I've taken my fine art online, it's not been the business model I'd quite intended with a couple of friends helping with the marketing. I don't feel it's my baby anymore - it's compromise. It's cost me thousands in software and pretty clapped out hardware as a digital artist. I watched my little spider, like me, trapped in a web waiting for a favourable breeze or some luck, and it didn't happen. 

I'd done what he did. He'd took his small web down and built a bigger one hoping he'd catch more, not realising his main circumstances were exactly the same, and he'd thrown more dwindling energy into something that wouldn't bear fruit. Fame costs. Well, ME, anyway.

What he's taught me is that your stars rarely line up. You need to take bold steps as some people will want to keep you exactly where you are, wings clipped and warning you of the perils of flying too close to the sun. It makes them feel better. If they got lucky in life I've learned this becomes even more of a priority if they sniff 'potential'.

I'm rebuilding my website again, moving pixels again, and putting some money behind promotion - lets see if I can catch some customers. "Build it and they will come" as they said in the film Field of Dreams just doesn't happen, you need to increase your exposure and expenditure and tack into the wind if that web of yours is going to catch anything.

I looked yesterday morning into my kitchen window to see a familiar friend patiently waiting on his second 'bigger' web, but he'd packed up taken his web with him and left. So even a little stripy legged spider realises that too long in the same place isn't good for you. I thought about flicking him/her those droplets of water from my glass, at least we'd had a drink together. 

"To the future."

Photo by Thomas Bishop on Unsplash