Here’s a sneak peak of the hanging space and gilded artworks. Preparations for the exhibition on Friday night have reached the point where it’s overwhelming and I hate all the art and want to set fire to it and pretend I never thought of doing one.

I don’t like this point terribly much. If I could figure out how to skip or at least minimise it, that would be awesome.

In the meantime I’m keeping on, juggling a couple of projects and missing my happy mood. I’ve navigated a number of challenges with hanging and framing and I’m generally just over all the last minute crises and feeling like I’m such a cliché artiste with all the insecurity and mood swings and indecision.

Maybe if I was a better artist I would feel less anxious and vulnerable and destructive. Maybe it wouldn’t make any difference at all.

Last night I dreamed that Poppy died, I woke distraught at 6am and couldn’t get any more sleep. She was dragged from my arms into a drain too small for me to follow. I watched her sleep for the next few hours and tried to put my thoughts back together.

A friend, not a close one but someone I had created some wonderful projects with, has died, and her service is on Friday a few hours before my exhibition.

I’ve seen my TEDx talk finally. It’s good. I trembled for several hours after watching it, feeling all the fuses blow in my brain. When I stopped shaking and could drive, I went home to bed.

I’m realising that being a freelancer doesn’t mean I can schedule every hour to be highly productive. Sometimes you have to make time to shake. This seems blindingly obvious but also difficult to grasp.

I had a spectacular weekend, happy and excited and bubbling with inspiration. I snatched hours to paint ideas and explored new techniques on YouTube on my phone. There were board games and friends and feeling like I’d found my place in the world.

I know how this works, I’ll pass through the darkest hour and the project will come together. I wish it was easier for me. I wish I’d learned to hold back a little, give myself something left for the return trip. All this vulnerability in public gives me the worst hangovers. But the other side of it, the connection, that’s amazing.