There aren’t many photographs of me working on my van and most of them are shots of my boots covered in saw dust but over the holidays Kim took one of me as I disassembled and reassembled the bench seat to make it a few centimetres smaller. I had realised the fridge would make the kitchen side too deep but happened to be the exact depth of the bench. However, for it to fit in the gap between shower and seat, the bench needed to be smaller. As with everything I’ve made so far within the weird and wonderful shape of the van, it isn’t until something is built, or mostly built, that I can tell whether my designs will work.
This was annoying and disheartening at first, but I’ve got used to it, and am happy knowing that once everything is done it will be as well made and well designed as it possibly can be. Patience is key. Patience and stubbornness, which is a trait I have been nurturing for many years. I have long believed that to have any success as an artist the thing one needs most is bull headed stubbornness. No amount of luck, or connections, or even skill make up for the ability to dig your heels in and keep trying no matter how harsh the odds. Thankfully my expertise with this kind of stubborn approach is standing me in good stead as I build my home.
On the 2nd of January the sun shone down on Cornwall, and I stayed outside building until my hands stopped working from cold. I had been hoping that there would be January sales for all the expensive things I need to purchase: the oven, the water tank, the heater etc. etc. etc. Sadly, not one of the places that sell the specialist equipment needed in a van conversion seems to have sales. Without them the road to the end of this journey, and the start of my travelling adventures, will be a longer and slightly harder one.
It was with that in mind that I decided to seize the sunny moment. I needed the hands-on joy of building the shake off the disappointment that the things I need aren’t on sale, while so many things I want but don’t plan to buy, are.
I have three major application deadlines by mid-January, two more by the end of the month. All of them things I would love to take part in or have funding for. Filling out applications is a long, boring, and time-consuming process. Essential to being an artist but far from how I would choose to spend even an hour, let alone the better part of a month. Even with the looming deadlines I knew it was important to start the year in my van. A day in my van leaves me smiling. The acts of cutting and sanding wood, of scrawling out designs, of thinking to myself, “this is my wardrobe” when it is still only a single piece of timber, all make me stronger.
Strong enough to keep being stubborn in the face of the van build and all its challenges, stubborn in the face of applications and all their boredom, stubborn in the face of dwindling finances. And so, I begin the year stubborn, smiling, and ready. I begin it building, and I begin it applying for my future.