It's been too long!

Having started a company and opened my own business in May this year, I feel I have neglected my artistic being. My absence from both my website, my blog and art production itself are a result of 98 hours of business running each week since opening. Upon having a conversation about my artistic past with a friend today, I have come back to regain an element of that life I loved. It has been nearly a year since I last wrote a blog so excuse me if I'm a little rusty... It's been a very long year!

On completion of my degree last September I moved to Bristol and was greeted with my first experience of complete nothing-ness. With no friends, no work and a pile of never-ending job applications to complete, I lost myself in an unemployed depression for almost 8 months. Rather than using this new found loneliness, isolation and rejection from all possible employment opportunities as a tool for what could have been some very expressive work, I unfortunately sank into a state of disbelief and somehow lost a serious amount of time on nothing.

In April, I found that enough was enough, ressesion or not, I needed interaction - work - life. It was at this point my partner and I stumbled upon a disused cafe on a boat in the centre of Bristol. A beautiful location, a floating world that offered an opportunity to build a business - the birth of Under the Stars our now 6 month old cafe bar on a boat! Whilst Under the Stars has seemed to consume my life since opening in May, I have loved every minute of it. It was a project, created in two minds and bought to life by a team of lovely people... still building...

Our attempt to use Under the Stars as a site for creativity is a work in progress. Whilst we have had many a musician perform on our stage and many a film shown on our screen, I don't feel it has yet reached its true potential to be a world of creative thought and production, such an ideal location for the uncanny... November 20th will be our first attempt to really push the boudaries of what can be achieved when one owns a location such as this as we open our doors to "Strange Creatures of the Night" a surrealist evening of music, poetry and character creating.