Well hello there 2012, it was evitable (spell check I hope you know what your on about cause I don’t) that 2011 would be followed by 2012…so here we are.

2010 ended and 2011 started about 4hours into a 33hour train ride from Delhi to Bangalore. Honestly it was very unimpressive in fact as new years go it won’t be memorable for anything other than pretty miserable. But it in no way was an indicator of the year that came to great me. I’m not sure 2011 can easily be described in it’s significance of the life of Kathryn Jane so far, other than that’s really what it was. I would go as far to say it was a coming of age. It marked a turn from preparation for adventure to the adventure. Till that point life was a mere glimpse of where God seems to be leading me, the urge for a life of adventure was there but there had been important lessons to be learnt in who God had created me to be, His call on my life to love Him as only I was created to do…as it is also for you. A simplistic notion of calling yet it sits well with me…I don’t want to find that I have passed life by, missing it by earnestly wasting it all searching for a ‘sign’ written in the stars or a massive pointing finger. I’ve been given a ‘heart’ to be my guide.

2011 was ‘immeasurably more than I could imagine’. God breathed life into the His word’s that till that point it had been my hope for a future I could do nothing more than trust it existed because I couldn’t see it. On the last day of 2011 I found myself stood [paddling] in the sea looking out into the waves that disappeared into the night with no idea literally or metaphorically what was coming but overwhelmed with how amazing Yet as 2012 begins I don’t feel sure of much in fact I’m pretty I’m not sure what to expect at in the slightest. Exciting but today I find myself scared crying out to my Father to hold me tight and close. There is a fear stirred in me because I know my own weakness…I’ve found the weak link in this epic adventure and it’s yours truly. The song ‘Arms of Grace’ has a the lyric ‘How many times have you found me wandering in the rubble of yesterdays hope’…’it’s not the first time I’ve been in this place’. I will need to many times, daily, run into the arms of grace that do not give up on me that this song speaks of. I don’t think I’ll stop being amazing by that grace, I don’t think we can. 2012 will be full of that fear but I am reminded of a phrase used by an extreme sports brand ‘I’d rather be dead scared then dead bored’. It somewhat captures my heart, not boredom but the desire for life to be vibrantly alive. Part of that comes from having no idea what the year while hold. I don’t want life to be all sorted out and planned out, to me that feels pretty dead. Yet I am blessed to know wonderful friends who this is the opposite of the truth in their lives and for them I rejoice in that, our God doesn’t do a ‘set dish’.

I want to be in this place in the knowledge that I am weak; my life is dead without God. In this place I know where to look to have the confidence to step in to this glorious unknown, as it is only unknown to me and not my Father. He knows my steps, my fears, my hopes and dreams, what makes me tick and the light he has placed within me. If I start feeling strong I’ll be walking towards that dead place in life missing that all that matters is not me but found in God.

So again I’ll say hello 2012…I’m excited to see what you will reveal.

I look at what seems to be my life and I don’t recognise it. A year ago I was preparing for my first trip to Asia to spend 2months in India and once back I planned to go to Zimbabwe , Rwanda and South Africa. This was meant to be my short adventure before I became a secondary school Design and Technology teacher…but somewhere between being alone travelling in a country I didn’t know and being overwhelmed that I really actually wasn’t going to see my family for 2 months (the longest I’d been away from them and a fact that hadn’t sunk it yet prior to this), and seeing these amazing different places that some how were impossibly familiar to me, I knew I wasn’t going to complete my PGCE course application. 2 months became 5 months and I knew that I had found myself in the middle of a life I didn’t recognise but knew I’d found my adventure.

I’ve always wanted adventure not mortgages or something off the shelf but I thought it would come from sport and yet the sea was always too far away, I couldn’t get easily to lakes or mountains, buildings blocked raging winds, the parks just didn’t do it like the countryside and people around didn’t seem to get how amazing these absent things were. I’m sure these things will have a place in this adventure that seems to be my life but they will not be the purpose or the driving force. My adventure is a journey full of divine accidents. I’m yet to find a more accurate term since I used it to explain my time in India. The divine accident is the coming about of things that have not been really pursued or the original intention was not the outcome, these things have the clear stamp of God. They are no surprise to Him, he created me for them. He has taken this wandering whittering girl and lead her in His ways in an adventure she didn’t even think really existed. She even naively had started to think that life would just be a bit of a let down and it was better not to really hope for things because you can’t fail at dreams you don’t have. I have rarely admitted that to myself let alone anyone else instead I’ve hidden it behind dreams of moving to live by the sea yet was too scared to make it happen.

But that aside the life I dreamed of is here. I have never known what it would look like and I never thought it would look like this…neither could I have guessed or even vaguely guessed in the dark at this direction but frankly who cares. I’m here and I have no idea where I’m going. But in update to the adventure from being in India…2 weeks after coming back I visited a friend and went along to her church. 6months later now her church is my church and she’s off living her adventure  currently in Australia and I’m over 2months in to a new job working with homeless people in a night shelter living in Watford.

And in this time, especially the last 5 weeks, I’ve gone through a time of resenting the adventure. I guess there was a bit of romanticising the adventure queue enter of a number of aggressive, ungrateful, demanding, manipulative homeless guys (the minority not the majority!) and onset the emotional exhaustion and the low low feelings of a lifeless adventure. Yet God does not abandon and with His wonderfully placed people in my cell group and friends the spark is back in the adventure. The life is back in me. The ‘life’ that makes me heart beat faster and the desire to say Lord let me be that when I read the Year of the Lords favour is back. My energy is back. My excitement for the adventure is back. The wonderfully unknown unpredictable at times scary, filled with highs and lows, adventure is where I want to be. Let the Divine adventures long continue…

I have this bad habit letting things get absorbed into how I’m feeling when really I don’t need to. The person who’s rude to you for no reason other than their day sucks or the abnoxious person yelling down their phone while you’re trying to read your book. Your days going fine but you end up absorbing other people’s negative emotions. Or if it’s London everyone’s rushing, everyone’s running out of time and it’s just not a nice environment. Maybe you don’t absorb these things like I do but my guess is you probably do. Sometimes it’s getting upset about the things we have no power to change but instead of letting what we can’t change go we worry and stress over it.

I wanted to remind myself throughout the day before it just gets a bit too much at the end of the day, to let it go…to drop it. The nice thing about drops of water that land on us is that our skin is waterproof and it just runs off. So to think of these things as drops of water that I should just let run off me as they hit me is a lot more beneficial than trying to let it all go when I get home and I’ve ended up carrying it around with me all day.

The top picture is a poster that greets me  when I come in the door to remind me to just drop it at the door and the lower is a drop drawn onto my hand. When I washed my hands or did anything where my hands got wet I’d have to draw it back on which act as another nice way of reminding myself.

After over 60 hours of work in about two weeks of life back in England things slowed down and my head got some space to be hit by the magnitude of what has happened in the last 5months. Going to India as a lone traveller without a team or organisation behind me meant that I had quite a unique experience. Not one that I’d change at all but I had/have no team or friends going through the same experiences I have who understand what can’t really be explained but only experienced. I coped because I had to cope but it’s only in the last few days that for the first time I have really felt the sadness of much of what I saw and began to understand. I didn’t really even realise what had and what hadn’t effected me until now.

The lack of value for human life and the treatment of women are heart breaking. And the amount of poverty is ever so real and very hard to see and yet there is a beauty in the people, friends I met living in poverty that I didn’t see else where. This beautiful yet broken voiceless people trapped in poverty are the worst keep secret of our modern world. Sometimes it overwhelms to the point I feel completely hopeless, unable to see how these people could know their worth and see freedom from poverty. My only hope is that God is a God of justice and calls us to have a heart after His own. A heart for the voiceless, the destitute, the poor and the needy. If we are the gospel the gospel will be spread. If it is life, living in us, it will bring life.

This Sunday I didn’t know how to hang on to that hope as I really thought about the brokeness of the situations created by poverty. All the little girls aborted for being female by parents who are so trapped in poverty and know that their poverty will only be increased by a daughter. Tabitha is a little girl I met when she was only a few days old, she was and is so perfect. But she is the third daughter of a very poor family and it is a miracle that she was ever born. Her mother had the medication ready to take to end her pregnancy yet thankfully she never took it but because of her decision to go ahead she has been laughed at by her community, faced anger from her husband’s family. She also will know that life is only to get harder and harder as her three girls grow up. Scrapping together one dowry so that the family of a poor girl has even some hope of a  good husband for her is a struggle but three daughters. It’s hard to explain the hopelessness that is faced in these situations.

Sunday nights sermon was on King David the writer of the Psalms and the warrior. It challenged us to see David the Warrior instead of David the ‘nice guy’. It was a sermon that invited us to appreciate the warrior in David and in God. God says David is after his own heart. It was also a challenge to be like David instead of living like its peacetime where its ok to focus on improving our own lives, aspiring to comfort and niceness instead of joining the battle for justice and freedom. The war is won but there is still enemy occupation but is this the focus of our lives or the church?

God reminded me that He is my Father and King which is a position of honor and I am called to ride out to battle at the side of my King and Father. He will not leave me behind because I am a girl, God calls his warriors to enter the battle with him. His warriors are those have the spirit of God within them. And like in The Chronicles of Narnia where each child gets a unique gift for the battle so do we. Mine is a soft heart, like Gold that is refined it becomes softer the more refined it is.

Yet there is also a challenge specific to women in what God reminded me because if the daughter of the King is more concerned with riding out to battle beside a husband she is waiting to meet she will miss her place of honor. It also shows how she has misunderstood the place she is called to be in and that her glory is not in being a wife but in being a daughter,  a daughter of the most high King. A king who is glorified by her presence at his side.

Another thing that spoke to me is that David and his men are described as fierce like a bear who has had its cubs stolen that even warriors with hearts like lions are scared to fight. The fierceness of a bear who has had its cubs stolen is overwhelming and its an instinct that has no space for fear, fear doesn’t even come into it. But I’ve been really scared. I know that God is calling me to join the battle, to not be ok with the poverty and brokeness that I have seen. I long to see justice for those who believe and are treated by the world like they are worthless, to see the Kingdom of God on earth. Yet I’m terrified but when I understand that to have a heart like Gods is to have the fierceness of David. It is a fierceness that we should have because our cubs have been stolen. The cubs are those that are vulnerable, speak up for those who have no voices, for the destitute, to see justice for the poor and the needy. We have stolen cubs to fight for so lets not be afraid to be fierce.

How on earth do you sum up 5 months that has exposed you to a completely different view of the world that can’t really be described in words. ‘Culture’ doesn’t mean much till you can really comprehend that whole groups of people do, say and see things in a completely different prespective. It’s hard to explain without be submerged in it, you can think you understand but it’s unlikely…after months it still surprises you. I’m told even after years it’s still revealing itself.

Sat eating my homecoming breakfast with my family it felt like I hadn’t been done and India felt like a distant blurr. Not knowing what to say I’ll explain how I spent my time…

December 6th I got on a plane for just over 2months in India. Having no idea what was coming or what to expect. And early on the 7th December I arrived. My first reaction was that I loved it and never wanted to leave the instant I saw it from the window of my taxi and at exactly the same time I almost cried thinking about how I actually wasn’t going to see my family for 2months including Christmas. But as broken as it looked it was beautiful. 

I spent my first 3 or so weeks in Lonavala with Sarah McColler staying in her house and hanging around the YWAM base where she teaches in The School of Biblical Studies. I was really welcomed by the members of the base and it gave me very gentle introduction to India which was a complete blessing to prepare me for my rest of my time in India. I joined the base local outreach and got to visit local slums and the people living there. Before I left Lonavala Sarah left to go on her visa run (on a tourist visa you can only stay 6months at one time and if or when you’ve stayed as long as you can you have to leave for 2months before you can come back.) and Merete arrived. With Merete I went on more local outreach and also got one of my most speical memeories. There is an old Aunty who Merete always used to visit on outreach and she invited her to dinner and I came along. She had so little but still she opened up her heart and home to us. She said that normally even people who come on outreach won’t it their food or drink their water and that it was very special that we had dinner with her. I decided then that even if I got sick I would eat and drink when offered with the people I visited. I didn’t want to my actions to give the impression that people weren’t precious instead to show how much people are worth.

After being in Lonavala i went to Delhi for Christmas, spending Christmas day with Russel, Nuno and Evelyn. It was a special and fun day which was a relief as it was my first Christmas away from my family. Russel, Nuno and I visited the Taj Mahal which is truely beautiful. Delhi was suprisingly cold but it was fun to explore espeically made easy by the metro there which made me very happy to wander around on my own…and my ipod turned up lload delt with the ridiculously persistant touts who just wanted to ‘practise’ English. On news eve I got on to the train to head to Bangalore, my home for the next 33hours and where I spent new years…the new year came in with a porter down the train somewhere yelling ‘happy new year’ and then I turned over and went to sleep…haha hopefully this year it will be more eventful.

In Bangalore I stayed with Janet who founded and runs http://www.viadesign.org/ Apart from the most amazing belated news years with wonderful food and my first pedicure, it was good to see how Janet was working with women through craft to help change their lives. And it was fun teaching the women how to knit and hang out with I also got to see a medical centre in the process of being built and see the first water come up as they drilled a bore well, so local people can have safe drinking water. Also in the middle of my time there i visited Chennai and stayed with Chloe. I got to visit the beach and also hilariously asked by a 10yr old boy if I’d give him a kiss ‘just one’…ha no!

From Bangalore I came back to Lonavala to the base for the Arts Gathering, which is a conference for ‘astists’ to come together and meet with their creator. It was a really good time of creation and inspiration. I also met Joel and Veta from Pause Productions who have set up a production unit to teach women to stitch and make products. Through meeting them I went to stay with Joel and his wife Ellie and his sister in-law Rebecca and their hilariously funny daughter Mira, who re-christened my Aunty Moew Moew (what she calls pussy cats) to do some product development and teach some knitting in Pune.

I also was sitting in on ywam’s school of biblical studies lessons (SBS) which helped me to actually feel I was capable of understanding the Old Testament so I ended up with a new excitment for the Old Testament that was a nice unexpeced extra. It also addressed some of the big questions about understanding Gods character which no one before then had any answers to.

I also started teaching women to knit through the local outreach of the base and out of the Another Way seems to be coming! I also visited Joel and the team a number of times before I left and plan to continue to work with them in the future…especailly as a large part of my bag coming home was full of their lovely approns and cushion covers. I also went with Sarah, returned from her visa run, to Mysore to meet Romel and go to his SBS graudation, with a bit of compulsory sight seeing. And also managed a trip to Nagaland to join a ywam team on outreach their who were running another Arts Gathering there and did a workshop on creativity.

And I guess I missed lots out yet still written an essay and not really talked much about what it was like but I’m not sure I know how to. There were many things I saw that I don’t know how I feel  about and I’m not so sure I’m ready to think too much about it either. Part of me is too scared to open that door as I’m not sure what would come out. But I guess I do know that I’ve changed I can’t exactly say how but I know that I’m more comfortable in myself and God has reminded me that I have got something to say thats worth listening to which I had been really crushed by before I left to visit India. And now there is the future a exciting terrifying unkown adventure! At least I know that I am going back in September to keep working with the women I’ve already met and to met more. And in the process of doing that set up my own project and business called Another Way. And then to go to India again in January to do a 3ish month imersion Hindi course as one of my greatist fraustrations is not being able to communicate with the women I’ve met. And hopefully I’ll get to travel to other countries as well to find other opportunities to bring hope through trade to open the door to transform peoples lives.

Sometimes it’s easier just not to say anything, or just kind of say something. Like I’m kind of working with some women and I might see if I can sell what they make back in England. Nothing in that has any commitment to it. This is not because I lack commitment to the two ladies, Jwona (left) and Surekha (right), I have been teaching some of the knitting patterns I’ve come up with. Instead it’s because failings hard and I’m scared of failing, I’m scared of not being good enough, I’m scared of letting people down and I’m scared of what people will think if these things happen. Unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you  look at it I can’t really help being honest about it. I think fortunately, if I’m honest people can stand with me where I’m at instead of where they think I’m at.

So I’ll say it out loud. I am working towards gradually working towards starting a business called Another Way…which will proudly commence in ‘backwards business’ (as I like to think of it), business that puts the maker first and not profits. It’s the dream way of doing it, the stuff it…I don’t believe it has to be done your way of doing it, I’m not going to sell myself out type of business way of doing it…the I’m really going to have to trust God and work hard and have another job to finance myself type of doing it way. Another way is not about making money for myself its about people, giving everyone involved hope in a practical way that speaks of how precious God made each and every person.

I am currently work with two women but this is not because of lack of women or need or opportunity but it has given me a chance to find my feet! We’ve been working together with knitting to make baby hats and learning cable knitting. These women live in a place called Indra Nagar which I guess can be described as a nicer slum. I feel awkward calling it a slum but the water only gets turned on for an hour each day and people are really poor here with a few slightly better off but only slightly. Its hard for the women to get work because they have to be home to collect water when its turned on and also the demands of having to cook and clean for their husbands, children and in-laws. By working with them so that they can be paid for the knitting items they make they can work around and between the other demands in their lives and get paid a good proper wage that could transform their lives.

It won’t just be knitting…says the knitting girl…a title I’ve given up trying to loose! As Another Way develops there will be other products made by working in parrtnership with other projects. There is a wealth of amazing projects doing good things looking for opportunity, who will be great to work along side.

The vision is not just to be Another Way and give people opportunity to earn a good income but also the Nyaay Project. Nyaay means justice in hindi. The Nyaay Project will be funding from a percentage taken when Another Way products are sold. The money will be invested in helping the community that the women live in. My first idea is to help fund the medical outreach plans of the local YWAM outreach team that goes to Indra Nagar. The inspiration is God’s justice. God took a group of people who the world treated as ‘worthless’ gave them a hope and a future and an inspiring identity to set their hearts free. Justice that looks to see people treated right, that reflects their worth in a country that does not value human life.

So it’s not a small thing but my prayer is constantly ‘Lord work inspite of my flakeyness, thank you that this is yours and not mine, thank you that I get to be part of this.’ This opportunity is above and beyond anything I could ever imagine, it’s they type of thing I’ve dreamed of but never imagined could actually be real. By saying it out loud it quiets the anxious feeling and gives me courage to do it whether it ‘suceeds’ or ‘fails’. I’m daring to take up this dream instead of being too scared to try.

An important part of this change has been seeking to be who God has created me to be, instead of looking outwardly to search for who I’d like to be. It has not been a quick process. I have needed to battle the self-destructive ideas I’ve believed about myself to begin to see something precious within myself. I have also had to face the habitual patterns of behaviour that are a result of the false ideas which seem to be the bit that often get over looked as they can seem unrelated…I know I have this precious self within me that I have to have the courage to dare to be. Having found the courage and surprising enjoyment in doing so why is it that I can still so easily fall into mentally pushing myself so hard that I feel crippled by self-imposed pressure. Cause I’ve pulled out the weed that I could see but I have to pull out the roots too so the weeds can’t grow again. I’m pretty sure this process of root pulling will continue through out my life but i think the hardest bit was daring to look at the weeds. It’s easier to believe your worthless and crap than to face the hard and often exhausting battle of seeing yourself as precious.

Realising that there are still ‘leftovers’ from who I have been within who I am has come about by wondering why I haven’t been enjoying parts of my adventure recently. The problem seemed to be that with all this pressure I was putting on myself I forgot to just enjoy it. God hasn’t given me what I could have only dreamed of before for it to be a burden but instead to glorify him. So to fully glorify Him I need to keep remembering to enjoy each moment and that I’m not on this adventure because i earnt it but because of grace…It’s in spite of me not because of me that God is glorified. If it’s not about me then i need to let go of this pressure for it has no right to be here…let the fun commence!!

Sometimes there is no other way of describing things that have come about on my Indian adventure other than by ‘divine accidents’. [An adventure that has become a 'life view' rather than just a frame of mind for being in India.] It’s pure grace that this is how it’s come about. There are so many things that I am in the midst of doing that have come about by no deliberate intention or even potential wondering’s of mine. Opportunities that have been placed in front of me for me to fall into by ‘accident’.

By ‘divine accident’ I have ended up becoming, till the end of March, a non-graduating, non-assignment doing, actual student of the SBS…School of Biblical Studies. If I had been told or lead or even encouraged to go anywhere with the aim of being there to study the bible, I’d have been very quick to say no and just as quick to say I can’t. Yet here I am sitting in SBS classes learning to understand and truly love the word, especially the Old Testament, in a way I didn’t think possible. My frustrations and confusion created by the intellectual bickering of theologians [especially the equally convincing polar opposite views expressed] had created a belief in me that I would always somehow have to except a vast gap between the Bible and my personnel understanding of it. Yet through a form of logical study that considers the Original reader and the historical context, the over arching theme and the more specific verse by verse or chapter by chapter themes, I feel that I can both relate and connect with this great book of life. I am finding new richness and truth and understanding in my faith and my God. Many of my questions of God’s character, especially regarding Justice and the Old Testament, for the first time are being dealt with. Which are pretty vital for someone who knows that in their heart they have a longing to see justice.

Another ‘divine accident’ has been a desire to learn Hindi…Kat ‘just about grasped English at the best of times’ Hall learning another spoken language…ha this must be some type of hilarious joke! But no, it’s a step of faith that seems far beyond my believed ideas of my ability to learn. I have found myself taking this step because again and again I have longed to open heartedly share my life with people here, to speak truth against oppression and believed worthlessness as my heart is lead but have been unable to. I have a desire to be build relationships with people in India to see restoration and life in their lives through overwhelming love of God. In learning Hindi there is the opportunity to sit face to face with someone as equals in real and honest fellowship…if it wasn’t for this hope and desire I would not even have the will to believe it possible for me to learn Hindi.

In both these ‘divine accidents’ it is a real demonstration of God’s grace at dealing with my fear and lack of confidence in learning. Much of my self belief and confidence was crushed while still at school as I studied A levels [English exams taken by school students conventionally at 18], having gone from excelling to severely struggling almost over night was beyond hard. It was a time when many underlying issues with being dyslexic [a common learning difficulty] could no longer remain so surfaced. Yet I remained for the most part completely unsupported educationally during this time. I went from being a bright confident student who loved to learn and was full of questions, to a struggling deeply frustrated student who believed they were stupid with no belief in their ability. It is this that has deeply hindered me considering any further study after surviving my degree. So what God did was to let me gently accidentally fall into it. Not just studying the bible or Hindi but also awakening my heart to India.

I came to India with the mindset that it’s an adventure. Seeing it as an adventure encourages me to live the adventure for all its worth in both the good experiences and the not so good. If it’s an adventure you don’t give up when it’s hard because this is what makes it an adventure. My favourite adventure is the trilogy of the Lord of the Rings. My dad read all 3 books, and also the Hobbit, to me as a child and who know he was preparing my mind for my very own adventure.

Just over a year ago I prayed Lord I want to have an adventure with you. I could never imagine the richness of where I would end up, the opportunities that he would offer and the way in which God would stir my heart. I know that I am blessed, immeasurably more than I could ever imagine…it’s exciting and thrilling. It has awaken more of who God has created me to be and I like that!

God has also blessed me in the friends he has brought into the adventure. Friends who are simply great to be with who bless and inspire and encourage me.  People who have seen my potential and are willing to see it released.  Yet in the nature of this adventure is people come but also people have to go. I know God has blessed me with a soft heart which he has set within me to be a thing of beauty. For many years I hated it, not knowing what to do with it except try as hard as I could to hide it so know one could hurt it. It never worked it just meant that the hurt was hidden deep where it couldn’t be seen. I have grown to a place where I don’t ever want to harden. I want God to use my willingness to be vulnerable and open to see his glory not mine. So it is with a soft heart it is so hard to say good bye without knowing if it is for a short time or for a lifetime. The unknowns of who or what will be part of the next part of the adventure is both exciting and painful.

“Remember what Bilbo used to say: It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”…when you put it like that Bilbo I’m quite glad I’m on an adventure.”

What Bilbo says reminds I don’t want to go back to a safe life. In recognising that it’s dangerous to start the adventure, it reminds that it’s ok to feel like this…”it’s ok to cry on an adventure” and I’d rather this than the alternative.

From the outside it might look like I am an artist and it’s also starting to look like I might be a missionary. But I am neither. But what I am is me, plain and simple, simple and plain. I’m just being me, who I was created to be. I don’t have a career and I don’t have a plan, I’m pretty cool with that. I’m wandering around arriving in places by divine accident. So I am not a missionary, I’m just a Christian doing life.

And I’m definitely not an artist. I don’t dislike artist but I don’t like the ‘idea’ of the artist in it’s separation from the craftsman. In the separation of art and craft, art decided to take assumed superiority by claiming the concept, the ideas and meaning, carried all the importance while the skill of the craftsman was believed to be inferior by the artist. Art got pretentious  and snobby while craft was pushed aside. Hence I am a designer, in happy medium between ability to conceive ideas and to create. I am a designer with no pretext. The meaning of purely being a designer is completely up for grabs which sits pretty well with me.