Changing priorities

The last few months it feels like I've taken off a worn out, much loved, old coat, and now I'm wondering what to put on instead.

Art has been the meaning of life for me since I was a teenager, the thing that got me excited and inspired, the way I made sense of the world. I worked part time and neglected housework, etc, so that I had time to make art. But over the last year that has changed.

Maybe it's to do with getting older - I'm 53 - maybe it's because I strained my back a couple of times last year which put me out of action for a week each time, and moving gingerly ever since. But suddenly my physical health is a priority rather than something I take for granted. So walking at the beach and going to yoga come before making art. I have a strong feeling that I want to get outside - gardening or walking or whatever. When the monsoon arrived at the end of January and we had torrential rain for about ten days I was going stir crazy!!

I'm also curious to see what will happen if I don't fill my free time with the busywork of making cards or sewing birds for craft fairs, etc. It will open up a space and I'm interested to see what that might allow, what seed might grow there.

It's also lovely to live without the 'shoulds' - I mean the feeling that I should be blogging, should be posting to instagram, should be getting work ready for craft fairs....etc. I wonder if all those shoulds have strangled my artmaking.

I don't say any of this with any certainty, I might be back in another month with a completely different story!

I'm still doing some stuff, I signed up for Lifebook again this year. It's a fun, no pressure way to include some art making in my life. Here's some of the pieces I've done so far.

Week 2 colourful intentions with Andrea Gomoll.

Week 3 two hands one heart with Ivy Newport 

Week 5 the custodian with Juna Biagioni.

Best wishes to you, I hope your 2018 has started well.

Walking in the rain

little sketch I'm doing a lino-cut of

On Monday afternoon at 4.30 it was pouring with rain. There's something stubborn in me that wants my walk home no matter what. So I turned down offers of a lift home from work, waited for a lull in the rain and then set off in my raincoat, umbrella, bag packed in a plastic bag. 

It had been raining heavily for a couple of hours, so paths and gutters were awash. Traffic made bow waves, and drenched myself and a couple of brave cyclists as we waited for the traffic lights to change. 

Walking up the hill my arm ached from wrestling my umbrella against the wind and rain, I was hobbled by my wet skirt clinging to my legs, and my feet sliding about in sodden sandals!! It seems like madness even to me - maybe I still think I'm 26 and newly arrived in the tropics, reveling in warm rain after a lifetime of cold grey English drizzle. At any rate it seems necessary to get well and truly drenched at least once a year. 

At home I discovered rain had managed to get into my bag, the only casualty was the sketch book (I carry all the time but rarely use) which was damp right through and half the drawings have washed away - maybe it can have a new life if I gesso over the ruined pages and start again! 

new cards from last months lino prints

Welcome 2015!

The monsoon is here at last, rain has been steadily pouring through the night and morning, frogs are croaking the pool and wheelbarrow are overflowing. Apparently we've had 140mm so far, approx 6 inches of rain. We're under a blanket of thick cloud, this morning it was like waking up in a kind of twilight. The temperature is 24 (centigrade) instead of 34, what a relief!

It's a lovely day to be at home chiseling a lino. This year I want to focus more on art, it's so easy to be sidetracked by demands of work and family...all those chores are not going away, but I can put half an hour of art first rather than doing all the other stuff and seeing if I have the energy for art at the end... I'll be keeping a time diary for a little while to see where I can squeeze more art in!

I'm almost at the end of my two weeks holiday, I've been walking at the beach as always and doing some quick sketches. I've also done a couple of new lino-cuts for cards which I hope to print before next week. Too much of the holiday has been spent at the shops - food shopping, last minute xmas shopping, and then the sales... To balance this out there's been copious amounts of tea drinking and having a little lie down with a good book. I'm reading 'The Silkworm' by Robert Galbraith (J K Rowling) a murder mystery and just loving it.

So I hope you're having a lovely day to start the new year, and hope 2015 is a year of kindness and creativity for us all.