All that glitters is not gold

Hi again, 

One day I just woke up and dragged myself to Eel Pie Island in Thames River. Beautiful out there.

I don’t even know where to start this time. Not that I have known all the other times before.

Let’s see… I started working in the Japanese shop – café in West London. Still have to finish the paperwork but I just keep my fingers crossed that I do not fail miserably (did I mention you that I got confused with my timetable and didn’t notice that I had to go to work so went to my Degree Show instead?! But luckily the boss was only worried and more understanding than I thought! I guess nothing can be really worse than missing your first day at work, how do you think?)

I am also occasionally dragged to Vietnamese martial arts class which, to be honest, I started to like. But due to the lack of Time Management skills I keep missing most of them.

It’s interesting, I noticed, how multicultural London really is! I speak in Japanese at work, listen Russian instructions in these Martial Arts activities, already got to meet and befriend people from Latvia, Iran, India, Jamaica, Northern Ireland, Romania, China, Japan, Italy and places I don’t even remember!

I will admit one thing to you, guys, but I never thought that I had my nose up, but now I understand that I really did. Being from the Capital, posh school and all that jazz… But since coming to England, and, especially, London, I got to experience way more of the reality than in all these years while I was still at home. While I was still at school or Uni the question I hated most was ’what are you going to do when you graduate?’, now the question I can’t stand is: ‘when are you coming back home/for holiday?’ And then I ask THEM to come there instead and everyone is like ‘oh, but it’s expensive!’ As if it was cheaper for me you may think!

And then I just wonder what should I start my answer with?

To say that I am not coming back yet?

That I can still hardly afford buying the fare ticket to get to work which I just started?

That I enjoy finally experiencing the life it really is – including waking up early to catch the bus to work and to be judged by my abilities not by the name of my school?

That I chose to finally stop procrastinating the real life and, therefore, didn’t enrol to Masters before I really feel the need for it?

That our home is where we make ourselves feel like home at?

And all the other possible answers that I am often too afraid to answer directly.

Who knows, maybe I should have gone to the interview in Canary Wharf or should have agreed on the fake marriage and dozens of other completely random opportunities?!

I was asked to do some artworks for one musician’s song just now. I just fell in love with her song – it is called ‘The Girl Who Lost Her Smile’. Sometimes I feel like this girl – not because I don’t know how to smile, somehow I learnt to appreciate the small things I never did appreciate before and stopped smiling at the things most of people do actually smile. And, to be honest, something else also changed inside me. Some of my moral values changed drastically and I can hardly believe how naïve I was before getting to all this ‘arty’ business. But, who knows, maybe it is a good thing I was so naïve back then – I would have ended up doing Economics as 50% of my family members, but, unlike them, I believe I would have miserably failed.

I don’t even know myself what exactly I want to tell you guys this time – sometimes I just wish one thing – that I stopped feeling guilty because of one thing. Not because of my nationality, my gender or anything like that – but, for some reasons, very often I find myself in really awkward situation when I can feel people judging what I am doing, and what I mean is, that, how come, I am trying to survive as an artist one day if now I am working in the shop and didn’t end up in some prestigious gallery just straight after the Uni? And then I start feeling guilty. Feeling guilty that I didn’t choose a ‘proper’ degree so that even working in the shop would be a ‘degree-related’ job, or, what is worse, why wasn’t I ‘lucky’ enough to have a banker dad/husband?

I don’t know why I am writing all these crazy thoughts down for you but I just want to be honest as the honesty is one of a few things I still believe and admire in this big world.


I like these songs and not only because:
1) My friend showed me this band and I found the fact of the girls throwing up the glitter pretty metaphorical; 
2) when my mp3 died I discovered that nice 'LES Artistes' song in the old-school mp3 player my friend gave me and the album cover has some glitter as well!

I remember back in Uni one lecturer gave us a lecture on the importance of the artists’ mental health. Because, you see, being an artist is a stressful, lonely and emotionally challenging job. Which I completely agree with. In the end of the lecture we were asked who of us wants to be an artist and I raised my hand without giving it a second thought. As well as a few more fellow students. You see, when I just came from Lithuania to England three years ago and tutors called us Artists, I was shocked – how can I be an artist if I haven’t graduated yet?! But then, gradually, I was brainwashed, as well as the guy in G. Orwell’s ‘1984’, I guess. And, I didn’t even notice when I started calling myself an Artist myself. Not because I would believe I have already achieved the heights of the artistic career or something like that. But this is what I do. That’s it. So, back to the lecture… and then, the other question she asked was ‘who of us feels confident of becoming an artist?’ and I was the only one to have raised my hand. To everyone’s surprise. Yes, I know, it may sound selfish and enthusiastic, but I am confident enough in my abilities. Or, I should say, I was brainwashed, therefore, I have become like this.

What surprised me back then was the other thing which I am going to end this little entry with. Why, of all the 40 people in the room, whom I was the only one with no stable financial background, no family in the same country, no wealthy fiancée, no maintenance loan… why was I the one who raised my hand?

Here are some songs by Linda Campbell, the singer we are working with at the moment:

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