Out to lunch

Day 38

Being invited out for lunch is one of the great pleasures in life. That the lunch took place in a Uni canteen is a couple of points down, but that it was in the company of Sarah and Kate is hundreds of points up. Sarah and Kate were mature students on my Art and Design Foundation course last year - Sarah is now at the Uni up the hill, and Kate is doing her second year of the foundation course. She also lives almost next door to the Uni, which is handy.

I have missed being at college quite strongly at times, especially in the first few weeks after we broke up. I didn't know what to do with myself for a while - there was no routine, no deadlines, and no-one setting any projects in motion - and I felt adrift. So I was concerned that I would suffer horrible jealousy pangs when I visited Sarah's studio, and that this would dilute my focus for getting on with my book.

Luckily, it didn't happen - I have clearly moved on - and so I was able to enjoy seeing her work, her workspace, and Kate's work as well, without regret at passing by the chance to go to Uni myself. Although I had the option, the timing was all wrong, and finances were too unstable, and besides, I had put off finishing my book all the time I was at college, and it felt the right time to push on and finish it. (Not lazy, just busy, see?)

I do enjoy seeing people that I care about, and who have been immersed in the same situation as I have, pulling forward and making progress in their work. Kate's painting is coming on a treat, which is fabulous considering she only started painting a few months ago. And when I say painting, I don't mean nice studies of landscapes or still lifes, oh no, not on this course. Our tutor (or torturer) would turn us inside out, guiding us towards finding our own 'unique means of self expression using paint as a medium', and it was bloody hard graft. I would come home completely exhausted, and thankful that I was only doing it part-time. Didn't clean my house for a year.

Sarah is hampered by the lack of facilities at the Uni at the moment - she's not allowed in the printing room for months yet apparently - but is still showing a confidence in her work that is new. I'm really looking forward to what she will produce in the next few years, which is when the jealousy will probably kick in too, as she's really talented.

When this book (and the others that I have planned to follow it) is finished, I want to get a studio and get painting again. As the best work I did before I left college was huge - six feet by five feet six, known as 'The Beast' - I can't do it in the corner of my bedroom, as I had previously planned. That's the thing about college - you go there thinking you know what you will learn, and what you will do when you come out, and it turns out to be entirely different. Bit like life really.