Embrace your mice

There is a Chinese saying which goes like this: ‘One mouse may fill its belly, but a million mice may drown a lake.’

I wish I could tell you that I discovered this after extensive reading of the works of Confucius, possible after learning Mandarin Chinese so I could read his works as he wrote them, but that would be a complete lie. The reason this became something of a family saying, was that during my childhood, our family were slightly obsessed with a TV show called ‘The Water Margin.’

If you have never heard it, it was a show imported by the BBC from China and reduced by a cast of British actors, including a very young Miriam Margoleys before she was famous. It was based on a kind of Robin Hood legend, and epic of Chinese literature, of a falsely disgraced noble man, Lin Chun, who escaped captivity and gathered around him a gang of misfits and heroes in order to fight tyranny. It was a little ironic that this tale of the little guy taking on the massively corrupt state, was made by the Chinese state of the 1970’s, though one assumes they saw it as a metaphor of the rise of Maoism against capitalism, thought the messages was rather reversed by Western audiences. 

It is actually quite an entertaining watch, even if the effects are wonderfully low tech and wobbly and the faux Chinese accents adopted by the English cast would probably be rightfully seen as inappropriate by modern audiences,not to mention some rather outdated female characterisation, but still, it’s of its time. Every episode started with a voice over, which began each episode with a quote from Confucius, including the mouse related one above. 

Of course, it can be taken both as a metaphor for communism fighting a feudal overlord, and people massing to fight a communist dictator, which is the beauty of all good sayings. Sages, oracles and wise people have always prospered by making pronouncements which appear on the surface to have only one meaning, but are actually completely ambiguous - Sages, Oracles and wise people knowing that their best defense, it to please everyone and get away quick.

But I’m not really here to talk about the ambiguity of predicting and pronouncements; I’m here to talk about mice and their impact.

Not real mice, obviously, but what the mice represent, and how I regard my art mice. 

To explain, let me give you a very brief autobiographical outline. I was a good drawer as a kid, in that people saw in my drawings a talent from an early age -hands up who was part of a gifted kid program in some way, and are now a slightly stressed, insecure adult? Anyway - I went to art college and got tempted away from drawing and to more practical, three dimensional things by working with metal. Don’t get me wrong, when I say this I don’t regret my love of hitting metal with hammers, indeed, I love it still, but it did sort of steer me away from drawing other as a functional thing. I drew design ideas and later, when I morphed into a pattern cutter and dress designer, fashion illustrations for clients to interpret their wedding dress dreams, but it was not a thing on it’s own. It felt….like it was drifting away from me, that I had no real direction of focus about what I was doing. I would try some sketches on my very occasional holidays, of the inside of churches or streets, but they always felt to me like I was dragging the influence for my architect father behind me, him always looking over my shoulder and, as he mostly did, smiling a patronising smile at whatever effort I made. He liked to put my drawings up on easel as a child and go through them to tell where they were wrong and were no good, which was his version of being supportive - so perhaps this might also explain why I found it hard to put drawing at the centre of my creativity.

Life and mostly children took me away from anything any or creative, via a stint of random jobs; being a cleaner for Help the Aged, a facilitator for the NCT - to working as a supply teacher and a careers officer - but it was then that I saw it might be possible for me to do an MA in illustration. 

I was utterly terrified when I got accepted, as I had no idea if I was really good enough, and my drawing had been left un-attended for so long it felt like a beautiful garden now left to be overgrown with weeds. In panic, I turned to the reading list that the University sent out, and happened to find a copy of ‘The Craftsman’ by Richard Sennett.

His book champions the role of the craftsman (I am prepared to overlook the slight gender bias in the title) and how so much of creative has moved away from valuing the craft of art, the excellence in doing and repetition and honing of skill, in favour of the intellect and sensation. He spoke a lot about the value of building the unconscious relationship between brain, eye and hand, the unconscious link between the three which allows an artist to become skilled enough not to think about the skill they are using, to be able to use it almost unconsciously to fluidly express what’s in their head on paper or in clay, or wood. He said that the key to this, is not talent or genius, but daily practice - putting in the hours just to do something - anything - but something every day.

It was this which lead me to doodle art, to take away the pressure of having to be ‘good’ and replace it with the joy of just doing, without concern, without judgement and for no reason other than to do it. I started making time in the day to draw swirls, spiral, patterns and shapes over pieces of paper, not for very long in the day, not on any thing more grand than scraps of paper, but I kept doing it. I thought of them as mice, each one a tiny little scurry towards a bigger goal, and it didn’t matter where they scurried too. I then began to experiment with creating papers to work on, by splatting and splurging watercolour onto wet paper, just enjoying the way the colours mixed together and spread, then I worked top of them in pen afterwards, finding patterns and shapes within the paint blooms to decorate and fill with pattern. 

And I saw the results,  saw how when I had to draw a thing for my MA, there was less fear and more confidence, a fluidity which meant I started work, rather than hesitated.

And this works for pretty much everything. I have always struggled with exercise and keeping fit, because of the horror of school PE lessons which put me off all forms of sport for life. But what works for me, is small, daily bursts of walking, strength exercises and a ten minuet morning yoga routine, which I hardly notice I’m doing but keeps me a lot fitter than when I tried hours at a gym, strained a muscle and gave up in pain. 

So I’m a great believer in the mice, that if anything feel like a terrifying lake in you life you have to cross, don’t try and go it in one hit. Nibble away day by day, build it into your daily routine so that you hardly notice it happening. It’s a slow change, but it builds over time because you’re doing it. Grand gestures tend to only result in you falling goff the boat.

You can see the results of my army of mice at the Untitled Arts Exhibition, Old Chelsea Town Hall at the end of this week, July 12/13/14. If you can’t come, it would be lovely if you could tell some people you know who might like to come, or just dropout on your social media because, as they say, every little helps!