Open Invitation

I've found myself, writing again, and dipping into the well of inspirations. 

I've rekindled the affair with my camera,

and returned to explore my creative self.

Some things have changed. 

I'm not the girl I thought I was.

Some things should be different, they needed to be different. 

What I was doing and writing about had lost all sense of being authentically me. 

I didn't know who I was anymore. 

I can wholeheartedly recommend the value of taking a long long break... 

It was the only way I could shake the thing off and start afresh. 

Older and wiser. 

Though not necessarily better!

(no promises made)

Emerging into Wholeness.

Because if a thing is worth doing, it's worth doing badly.

*wink*

I think 'Fine Art' is pretty much bonkers, but Photography is OK.

What follows is a collection of images from the Arts University College Bournemouth Degree Show 2010, which I visited this week with some of my fellow arty students.

None of the work is my own - none at all, and I am not claiming credit for it here. However, I have not collected all the artists' names and cannot give them all credit either, so my apologies. Suffice to say, they have all graduated from AUCB this summer with a degree in either Fine Art, Textiles, Visual Communications, Illustration, Commercial Photography and... forgive me for whatever else I have forgotten.

The artist's name is Ben King, I believe, from the Fine Art degree. And he won the course prize with this piece, which I absolutely love.

To mine, and Jean's, disappointment, he was one of only about 3 artist's on the Fine Art programme whose finished piece consisted of either painting or drawing. Mostly everything else was installation... and, well, mostly it just bored me (or worse - seemed totally pointless).

  

I loved the fabric designs and printing in the Textiles show. These are giving me ideas for my own art. Great stuff.

(Not having kept up with the workings of Blogger lately, I don't know how to rotate this picture anti-clockwise so that it can be viewed sensibly. Again, apologies)

This little print has an air of Matisse about it that I love.

 Ah, now we move into the Illustration Show. So much more enjoyable than Fine Art.
It seems to be the home of contemporary drawing too - perhaps a safe haven where draughtsmanship escaped too when it was banished from Fine Art?

For me, Photography was where all the excitement lay. But I didn't get a lot of pictures of the show as most images where behind glass, so would come out with terrible glare and reflections, or in books that we had to handle with gloves. 

I just had to take a shot of this collection, titled 'Wild Things'. Isn't it fab? 

  

This one, my last from the day, was something to do with light being split through prisms... too technical for me to understand. But the colours are completely magnificent.

I think I've recently come through a Gate on my own 'hero's journey' but it's been very necessary to stop and not try to do very much for months now. And as soon as I feel like I'm getting psyched up or forcing it again, I know I need to stop.

So what is starting to come out, in my art, and in my life, is more peaceful and relaxed, more natural. I'm starting to know how I want my life to be and what I want to do, and real knowing always comes from deep within the bones.

Adrift, without a map

The cold has been intense the last few days.  Yesterday I felt grumpy and uneasy all day and I can only put it down to that.  Even in my layers and new hat and gloves, it still gets in and chills me through.

I barely registered the new year fuss.  I'm quite delighted by the fact though, because it seems to show that all the years of pressure to have this amazingly memorable and sociable night have passed me by without leaving a trace of regret behind.  And all I feel now is peacefulness.

Rubin and I spent the afternoon of 31st on a journey to stay with our new friend, in his crumbling old servants'-quarters-lodge in Devon.  The overwhelm of unfamiliarity hit me that evening, as we sat in his living room, bundled up under blankets.  Rubin seemed far more confident and determined to have a good time.  He thundered up and down the old staircase as if he knew the place well, and cheerily called our new friend's name, like the little pup he is, looking for a tidbit of attention, and helping the men to move beds around to meet my requirements for the night [I'm unable to sleep away from Rubin in a strange or new place - can't put him down to bed in a room at the end of a dark corridor and get on with my evening in peace, or even hope to sleep myself, so we came up with an arrangement of mattresses on the floor that allowed us all to sleep together].

The forecast for the week ahead is more frost and even snow by Wednesday or Thursday.  I'm getting acclimatized to hunkering down and not doing much, which normally irritates me dramatically, though I'm finding it harder to sleep at night with such low levels of activity during the day.  Rubin seems content to ride his new scooter up the corridors here and dance round the living room to the theme tunes of his favourite TV shows.  I am even retired from cooking, as the man of the house is in charge of the kitchen and I am virtually banned from all work.

He tells me I need to relax, I tell him I need to hang on to some remnants of adrenaline at least to keep me inspired and motivated, but I'm barely convincing myself, let alone him.  And the ideas to write or create have all but dried up anyway.  So I'm becalmed.  In the doldrums.  A ship without wind, or even a functioning sail.

This doesn't register as danger or distress, so don't feel the need to rush in to my aid with blankets or hot cups of tea.  I'm fine.  Ridiculously fine.  Just drifting in strange territory now.  Where does it lead?  I don't know.  But I want to sit here a bit longer and wait to find out.

Happy New Years, my lovelies. 

The Dip

Seems a faintly imperceptible choice that draws me to write here, instead of at my other newer blog.  I've got over my sentimental fears about leaving this behind and I've come through into a different space.  and yet .... here I am.

I've been in my midwinter dip. Holed up with the darkest days and little energy to do much of anything much.  At first you crave the retreat.  You gradually pull away from ties and chores that kept you going for the longer days and brighter months.  But then you hit the depths of the stillness, and She asks you if you're willing to let go of it all.  I'm never quite sure how much to hold onto.  Being stripped bare is scary.

Christmas is an odd time for me, as I go into retreat, but it seems to want to force me into being sociable.  I find the paradoxes difficult to navigate.  People I haven't seen or heard from in months, or years, send me cards, and I'm struck with pangs that I have, once again, not even bothered to write or send my cards.  A handful may get delivered tomorrow but it feels like a pitiful effort and lacking in the spirit with which the job should be embraced. 

How many years can I keep saying, "I'm tired, I've been stressed, I'm sorry," and expect to be cut a bit more slack?  So I've got the slack, but it also feels like I've lost a bunch of the bustle and friendliness that could have come with it.  I have the potential to become one of those solitary people that shuts themselves in for years and everyone forgets about, and I'm frightened of that.

But at this time of year, and at this point in my life, I still have bunches of days where it's a big success for me to get dressed and get out of the house.  Do you understand what I'm saying?  Depression doesn't ever really go away.  And when you've lived with it playing in the background for however many years, you start to see it as just part of your personality. 

I've attempted to 'manage' my depression by driving myself onwards frantically.  I assigned part of myself to be the whipcracker, or the charioteer, to the remaining depressed part of my being.  If you push yourself and keep on and on, and never let the momentum drop, you won't fall into the dips and cracks.  At least, that's what I thought. And it's worked quite well for a few years now.  Except I get burned out.  Emotionally exhausted.  Usually now, at Christmas. 

This year, someone came along who could see what I was doing to myself.  And he showed me how to let it all slow down, and that it wouldn't be a terrible disaster if I stopped. 

The hardest part has been riding the waves of fear that have been coming up.  Fears that I don't fully understand yet, but I think it's mostly fear of giving up control, fear of letting go.  These fears have made me want to lash out, to push him away, to retreat into my safer places.  There's been so much change in my life already in 2009, and sometimes I wonder if I can really take anymore of it. 

Pushed onto new territory, I've returned to the old comfort eating.  Extra pounds around the hips and waist.  He just says, "Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better."  I know they do.

Now I'm seeing things that I've missed, and things I once yearned for.  This year, it feels like I missed the mark with being a mother.  Desperate to force some change into our struggling existence, I've put most of my energy into work/career/financial goals, and found it harder and harder to connect with the soft and nurturing part of me.  Or could it just be Maslow's old truth played out in it's fullest meaning - if you don't have security and fulfilment of your basic needs, how can you even reach for higher, spiritual and creative goals?

I may not be able to solve the financial crisis for Christmas, but I can try to be a better Mum.  I'm doing that.  But now I'm not doing much else.  Not much writing, not much painting.  No Christmas cards.  I'm sorry for that.

I don't know what 2010 is going to hold, or how I'll decide to focus my energies and what to create.  I see things altogether differently ahead.  I want a new space to write.  I think I'm so changed again, already, that even Void might not be right for where I'm going.  But I want more visual lushness, more colour and creativity.  I'd like to get away from these linear templates and restricted art briefs and just find a way to express the virtuousity of life that I feel.  A symphony of the senses.  No, a serenade, or a quiet nocturne for now. 

New Journal

Morning folks!

It's Day Two of Earth Week in my Soul Cleanse, and I'm feeling good.  Nearly 8 whole hours of sleep last night ~ what a difference it makes!

Just a quickie to tell you that I've launched a new page for my scribblings and reflections about the Cleanse.  It's called Journal, and you can find it in the navigation menu at Out of the Void ..... or here.
It's not fully configured yet, with all the right pics and stuff, but thought you might like to read about how I'm getting on.

Lots of love, and brightest blessings.