{"id":558,"date":"2019-11-08T10:30:44","date_gmt":"2019-11-08T10:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk:\/studiodiary\/?p=558"},"modified":"2019-12-18T14:35:24","modified_gmt":"2019-12-18T14:35:24","slug":"there-was-no-grand-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/?p=558","title":{"rendered":"There was no grand plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

My becoming an artist was a chance event, so entirely dependent on the kindness of almost-strangers, that I could easily have missed the boat entirely and spent the rest of my life without so much as picking up a sketchbook, let alone an inky roller. And when the chance did come, I was far from keen to seize the day; it took a year of gradually evaporating patience on the part of distant, to me, family friends to press the gift of an Albion printing press upon me and more or less force me back into print.<\/p>\n

Sounds stupid doesn\u2019t it? Even if you aren\u2019t a printmaker and are not presently shouting \u2018YOU SAID NO TO AN ALBION??\u2019 at the screen, it\u2019s obvious in retrospect that I was an idiot. I was indeed an eejit (as my Irish father-in-law, best mates with the press-offering friends would confirm), but the problem was a big one. It wasn\u2019t that I was afraid of the printing, though after a sixteen year period without drawing, let alone printmaking, it was a serious concern. It was that I knew from the very first suggestion that I might like a press, that this would be no private hobby. Agreeing would launch me on a new path as an artist and open a whole can of worms that were noticeably absent from my part time work, gardening and family life. I can\u2019t say how I knew that, but know it I did, and I was fairly sure that I was going to die trying to make it all happen.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Early days with my new press, but already a deadly serious face!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Thankfully I caved and took the press. Fourteen years later, I still get cold sweats thinking I could so easily have missed my chance.<\/p>\n

My story does lack the fairy dust of passionate ambition fulfilled and instead reveals considerable ingratitude and dithering on my part. But I did get one thing mostly right; the journey to becoming an artist was a tough one and, while I didn\u2019t die trying, it\u2019s been a staggeringly steep learning curve. Starting with a very simple lesson: always say yes to the offer of a press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My becoming an artist was a chance event, so entirely dependent on the kindness of almost-strangers, that I could easily have missed the boat entirely and spent the rest of my life without so much as picking up a sketchbook, let alone an inky roller. And when the chance did come, I was far from … Continue reading “There was no grand plan”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=558"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":616,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions\/616"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}