Off the grid & into the studio
A mini tour & my phone break audit
It’s Artists’ Open Studios season, so in lieu of an IRL tour, I thought it would be nice to do a little one online, so you can see how I display my work at home. Then further down I’ll update you on whether I still hate my phone or not!
I like to see art when it’s not isolated or spotlighted, but part of a home - how it lives alongside books, photographs, and objects collected over the years. Each piece occupies its own space, but also connects to the stories around it.
Ceramics have always played a big part in my prints and paintings and I love to draw from the pieces I own. The little black vase in the painting above appears on the sideboard in pic 5.
Most of my ceramics are mid-century finds, but some more recent buys are by Ali Robson (white bowl above and little striped bowl pic 5), Phil Lyddon (yellow bowl pic 5), Jode Pankhurst (tiny striped bottle pic 1) and Justine Allison (striped spoon pic 1).
Thanks for popping in to my mini tour!
So back in Jan I decided to try and come off my phone a bit - it was really getting me down being tied to it so much. Here’s how it’s been going, I’ll start with the positives.
My phone is rarely within reach.
My 30 min timer for Insta was completely unnecessary. Since I took it off my phone, I don’t use it apart from a desktop pop in every couple of days to check for messages. I might look at the top 3 images, that’s it. No scrolling. And I mostly love it.*
I joined mailing lists of galleries and companies to submit to so I didn’t miss anything from Insta.
Inspired by the very helpful Off the Grid podcast, I didn’t want to ghost my followers so I made a story highlight of who I am, what I do and where to find me when I’m not there.
I’m not using Facebook at all.
I have not played Wordle, Quordle, Octordle or The Missing Letter since my post.
What hasn’t quite worked -
Reading before bed. I have been audiobooking instead - from my phone of course, so not ideal.
Not listening to a podcast as soon as I get up. They just stream in overnight and I feel a bit panicky about getting behind. Maybe I should tackle this next. At least I’m not automatically playing a podcast if I wake up in the middle of the night now, I definitely have a more restful sleep.
I haven’t got the Saturday paper delivered. But nor have I read the Saturday paper on my phone. So swings and roundabouts.
I joined Bluesky. Why? I was concerned about having no social space at all to share. But Bluesky will take time to build and I don’t have the bandwidth.
*I really miss those viral moments from the artist community like the #starterpacknoAI tag, which I read about after the fact here.
What I have realised in this time is that sharing work is actually important, as is the sense of community. So I probably won’t quit Insta entirely, just share new work occasionally. I’ve achieved what I wanted to - no scrolling, no constant pick-up-put-down and actually a much deeper conversation with myself and some lovely friends about what happens next in life and work, which has opened some doors I hadn’t pushed on before.
I highly recommend Off The Grid’s free Leaving Social Media Toolkit. Some great tips which helped me a lot.
Thanks for reading, it helps to get these things down and shared! I appreciate it :-)