I am selling as many items as I can on Ebay. For the moment that is the main thing I am doing. Because my biggest issue is stuff and what to do with it!

That sounds so straightforward, so obvious, simple, clear and tidy. In reality it is the messiest thing to do. I am so hyper attached to my belongings that a process of grieving takes place on a continuous and rolling basis as I select each item, photograph it, edit it for better appeal in Lightroom (it helps make sure that the exposure is good and the light balance not too off balance etc.. I am a photographer, so I just can not throw my loved possessions out onto ebay looking bedraggled and poorly documented..) .. All that takes so much time. Then often something might not sell. I have had the item sitting on my kitchen table, which by the way is invisible under the mounds of things that are being processed). It feels like living here is becoming impossible as the process of continuous goodbyes is really hard and all-of-the-spaces-consuming.

You might be a minimalist and think I am a horder… I am not a border, ok, maybe a little bit, but all these things were in regular use until I met the love of my life and then the priority in my life was finding ways for us to be together. So all my art materials had to step into the background of life and over time, to be honest, life has changed. Maybe I will never use them again. But until the UK voted to leave the EU I never really and to face the bigger question of what identity is mine anymore?

When I met my lovely partner I had a clear identity: “I am an artist, my goal is to one day exhibit in Venice at the Venice Biennale and to make my income from my high quality art work!” I was a dreamer and an artist with a love for telling stories. I also took photographs, I worked with cine film, with digital film, with projections and dancers, with text and theatre, with drawings and stuff.. with lots of stuff! And all that stuff was essential to me, my identity as an artist and to my creative process. Hoarding was not an issue, it was a necessity to have these things that I collected specifically for projects.

But now it is nearly 6 years since my last big Art exhibition. I am in a sort of mourning for my Artist self and yet that Artist life that I had doesn’t fit into the life that we are a creating. But I also am not sure that I have found a new identity for myself or that any other than the one that I had will ever fit again. What on earth to do!?

Oh, right.. this was meant to be a post about what do I do to get ready to move to America?! Argh.

I try and sell things on Ebay and I panic a lot and I miss my old self. This process isn’t easy and unlike maybe other people who write about how exciting it all is I would have to be honest: it is hard and scary and very, very isolating. How many people do you know whom you could speak to about experiencing a loss of sense of identity, loss of home base, loss of securities, loss of community, loss of an entire career (ok, mine didn’t field me an income and it is questionable if working 40-60 hours a week while not getting paid or rarely getting a bulk sum is a sustainable career – it really isn’t, is it?!) … etc etc… All to move to a country that is not really easy to understand without a support network.

So what else do I do to get ready?!

I join Facebook Groups, job sites & gig economy websites to try and get a better idea of what is going on in California and what options I might have for work, for freelancing, for employment. I am trying to understand how to access healthcare there. The moment I step onto American soil I usually get so scared of getting sick; last year that worry actually made me sick! I got such a big skin rash! Luckily a friend of mine is a GP in the UK and he was able to give me some advice!

P.s. Here is a link to my Ebay Shop

I also have an Etsy shop, where I sell high quality (usually original) Illustrations and Drawings, it would help me out even if you just clicked on the link and looked around. I think the Etsy algorithm will take note if my Etsy page gets more views and it might help me get featured better in search results.. So even the mini-actions might help my Art Studio clearing mission! (If you were to click the little hearts for likes on my Etsy listings then you would probably earn even more karma points! Oh, and of course: buy some Art if you would like some! But no pressure to do so. Just some clicks are great to help me get noticed! Big Bear sized Thank you!)

In my Etsy shop are a handful of downloadable digital pictures (here a link to one of them), priced basically at about the price of 1/2 a coffee if you wanted to make a gesture without going all out then you can support my Etsy shop by downloading the file and leaving a super nice feedback! I just haven’t got enough feedbacks yet to attract buyers to my shop offerings. Feedback is gold nuggets to any kind of freelancer using online platforms!