The rest of this week has been spent preparing for the project in Rotherham next week and making redraft to the ACE funding bid I am putting in for a project in November. Here, I want to pause and think about something that is concerning me.
Alongside my PhD research, a large part of my current practice is focussed on the work I am doing for the Interlace project and other side projects I keep getting invited to run. The Interlace Project is something I’ve been working on for a few years and involves weaving, e-textiles and community workshops. The project is really interesting and I’m enjoying the work, [plus it seems to be getting very popular and developing pieces that can be delivered to the public is always a fascinating exercise.
However, it does take up a lot of my time and I am worried it is distracting from my PhD research – I have not yet got a reading plan in place and I’ve barley begun to start my studio work around the archive objects. Not even mentioning the historical study I’m really keen to get going on.
I’m anxious about it.
But, I could look at it another way. This IS my practice and the work I am doing for the Interlace Project is directly tied to a heritage organisation and engaging a wide public audience is a fundamental aspect, plus it is allowing me to experiment and gain experience of creating interactive textile technologies – basically a lot of my research areas translate in this projects.
It is being something of a time-suck though and it’s eating into my research time… I need to think about it some more….