A year of change?

As we approach 2013, with the main Christmas festivities calming down preparing ourselves for the New Year celebrations in just a few days, I have been resting indoors due to a nasty cough and cold with the TV on a lot more than usual. Throughout my summer, I was without one and I must say, the last 7 months have probably been a lot more productive without it. Instead I have chosen the radio as my soul company, it allows me to move around and focus on painting and creating rather than sitting in one room fixated with meaningless drivel that society calls ‘TV viewing’.
But in the last few weeks, I am finding that my tolerance for even the radio is becoming increasingly low and I find myself in a quiet lull where the ticking of the clock, the cats purring and the dogs snoring can be heard. Sounds that aren’t disruptive to my thoughts and don’t jangle my nerves.

So it has been a shock to the system to have my TV on more than usual just so that I don’t miss out on all the Christmas hype. Somehow I have found myself getting pulled in believing that the next programme or the next film will be more fulfilling to me than the last.

I watch the news hoping that at some point there will be a positive bulletin, something for us all to celebrate ((and I don’t mean who won X-factor or strictly come dancing) instead I hear about how residents of Great Britain have suffered over Christmas with flooding in their homes, motorists killed on motorways on their way to their family’s for Christmas and how Christmas shopping has been ‘acceptable’ not ‘exceptional;’ this year, not forgetting the rest of the world’s disasters, accidents and killings.

And then of course we have all the adverts in-between, telling me we have Christmas sales on sofas, tv’s laptops and furniture and if I’m still not satisfied, I can join an online Bingo site or start a new diet, but if all that sounds too expensive, then we have a surprisingly good selection of loan companies that allow us to borrow more money we can’t pay back, get us all deeper in debt which in turn make us more depressed and so we buy more stuff just to make us ‘happy’ again and so the cycle goes on.

I wonder when Society will wake up and shout enough is enough?! We don’t need this rubbish.

The world IS NOT as scary or evil as the media would like to portray. We DO NOT NEED a new sofa or car to make our lives complete. Nor any amount of the highest technological electrical goods will make our lives run more smoothly. We do not need to go on expensive faffy diets when all it takes is a bit of sensible eating and a walk in the countryside along with a sense of self-love to stay healthy. And we do not need to start an online bingo addiction to escape our financial debt, when all we need to do is live our lives without fear, to choose the light rather than the dark and to STOP listening to consumerism and the media and live the life that God/the Universe had intended for us all.

I pray that 2013 will be a year for our lotus’s to open and that joy and unconditional love can enter all of our hearts once again.

Astra-travelling & Whinnie the Moo in Peru

 

 

In 2 days I will be on foreign soils! To say I am excited and apprehensive in equal measures is an understatement!

For months, years even, I have been thinking, it was about time I get out my comfort zone. I started with small steps, an excursion to an artist’s retreat in Scotland was perhaps my very first experience of being a lone traveller, a visit to Cornwall camping earlier this year was another And then later on in the Summer, a camping trip to Alderney for a week, where I met someone equally as eager to experience more of what the world has to offer. His passion for travel rubbed off on me and when I came home I kept that zest for life alive in me through painting and dreaming, until one day 2 months ago, I decided to take the plunge by taking my dreams one step further by making them happen.

I haven’t mastered the art of Astra-travelling and so booking flights was essential to turning these dreams into a reality. It also means I have to leave my familiar surroundings that I am so comfortable in, I have to say goodbye to my beloved pets and go forth into a country unknown to me other than through books and the internet. I will be entering a culture alien to mine and I am doing it on my own, with the exception of Whinnie! I have been abroad, I have even been outside of Europe, but never alone, this concept is rather scary to me, I have no one to rely on but myself, that means I should have more faith than I currently give myself credit for!

To all you seasoned travellers  out there, this may not sound like a big deal. But to me, these turn of events in my life are fairly daunting ones as well as very very exiting! I have signed myself up to volunteering in an Orphanage in Peru for a week, where I hope to meet new people and perhaps make new friends. From there, I hope to do some walking and exploring. I have no expectations, I’m not one for grand plans, I prefer to go along with the flow. That way it also avoids bitter disappointments.

And when I return 3 weeks later, I hope to have achieved not just a tick off a 'bucket list’. Not at all. This trip goes far deeper than that. I hope to have learnt new things, I hope to have gained a deeper respect and understanding for a country and its people I have no connections with whilst sitting here at home. I hope to learn new things about myself to stretch my boundries, I also hope to not only see a new culture and new scenery, but to experience it as well. And more than anything I hope to give them something back in return, a part of me, a piece of my heart.

And last but not least, maybe I hope to have just perhaps inspired anyone else reading this, who maybe, like me never thought they were brave enough to take that leap of faith and take a trip somewhere unknown to them.

Sometimes, we just have to do things that scare us to make us feel alive. Fear is like falling in love. As well as happiness, Sometimes it can leave us feeling dissapointed or overwhelmed or sad, but it also makes us feel alive so we keep on doing it anyway. so just like love, by embracing our fears we gain new experiences and learn new lessons and our lives become all the more richer and colourful for it. I know that whatever happens while Im in peru, I will come back richer than when I left.

 

A love letter to Matt.

Dear Matt.

I still have the gift you gave me nearly thirty years ago. It's still in use and sits on my dressing table containing spare buttons and brooches. It always reminds me of you.

I don’t expect you even bought it at the tender age of 7, a present I suspect that was purchased by your mother for me one Christmas!

Nonetheless, I treasure it as much now, as I did back then.

You were my first love and my first heartbreak. At an early age, You taught me so much about how cruel the emotions concerning the heart can be.

I remember there were the three of us. You, me and Toby. I remember always laughing and being so happy when I was with you both at school.

 At breaktime we played together and in the classroom, we copied each other’s work! I think sometimes we may have been a distraction to the other children in class for bursting out with snorts of giggles. But I didn’t care, I was happy to be with my friends and nothing else really mattered.

I missed my first terms of school due to illness;. Consequently I missed out on learning important ‘social skills’ with my peers, I always found it hard to establish a friendship with other children. However, when I was eventually well enough to join school properly, you and Toby took me under your wings and we looked out for each other.

For a while it was all good, but then shortly before I was told I was to move up to Juniors ((I was kept a term behind from my peers) (you and toby were a year below me so didn’t move up til the following year. A new girl joined our class, I don’t remember her name, but she came to join our little threesome. You and Toby happily accepted her. However, I was so jealous. I tried to like her, I think deep down I did, but I felt threatened by her, it seemed like she was taking you away from me. You were of course oblivious to my feelings. How could you know?! We were 7-8 years old, I didn’t even understand myself all those emotions running around inside me.

But it got worse. –Oneday I went to school just like every other day, I sat down at our table next to you, but then the teacher told me I was to go over to the junior class in Mrs Topleys.

MY whole world came crashing down on me. I wanted to cry, but I was aware of not wanting to make a scene and so I quietly picked up my pencil case, packed my satchel and walked alone across the playground to the ‘huts’ where mrs Topley taught.
I remember how I stood at the front of my new classroom and was introduced by the teacher to all the other kids. It was a bigger class than what i was accustomed to and it scared me. I was guided to a seat, everyone already knew each other and seemed to understand the lesson that we were being taught. I however, didn't and I sat in silence fighting back the tears once more, pretending I understood the mass of numbers that were being written on the blackboard.

But in the darkness, there was light that morning. I was kindly told that under 'special circumstances' I would be allowed to join you at breaktime in the infant playground to see you. I was happy once again , my heart was bursting with excitement and I looked forward to our break to arrive. Eventually after what seemed eternity, we were dismissed and I ran along the path behind the main building to find you both.
However, the reception I got from you had lain heavily in my heart for years afterwards.

I was expecting a grand reunion, instead I got ignored. You and Toby were playing with your new ‘girlfriend’, I hung around trying to muscle my way into your affections once again until one of you told me to go away. ‘We don’t want you anymore’ you said. I will never forget those cruel harsh words. They were like a kick in the stomach and my heart broke in smithereens right there, right then.

 I stood in total shock. I didn’t know where to turn and as I watched you all run off, I had no choice but to turn back. That breaktime I never played, I never spoke to a soul. I just walked behind the buildings and wept tears of hurt and anguish until the bell rang to do back indoors again. At the tender age of 7, this was to be my first experience of rejection in love. To this day I still claim it was my worst ever day at school.

To add insult to injury, many weeks later, I remember trying to make friends with your older sister, but she punched me in the stomach!

 

Fast forward thirty years, I’m all over it now! However it took me many years, even at secondary school where our paths crossed once again, I was unable to look you in the eye, even though I still carried a flame for you! I desperately wanted to reach out my hand of friendship again, but for fear of rejection I never did.

 I think if I look back, I always held a 'distant' emotionally cool dispositon with schoolfriends. I was forever in fear of going into school oneday and eveyone would be against me.

I was however able to put aside childhood issues with your sister years later when we were working together as chambermaids and we became good buddies for a while.

These days, I am confident, I am secure in my own identity and I am able to give my love unromatically and otherwise freely to anyone and everyone without living in fear of rejection.

 I am glad to be friends with you once again. I still carry a little flame for you, I think I always will! You are kind and sensitive and funny. Your sense of irony is truly magnificent! You never fail to make me laugh.

And now, when I think back on that fateful day when you and Toby broke my heart, I see it as a lesson of love and life. It taught me that we cant always have the things that we think we want in life and although the road to recovery from a wounded heart and bruised pride can be a tough one, its better to have loved and lost than to have never loved before. I have fond memories of our time we spent together albeit brief in our childhood episode and I thank you for them.

With love, Melissa x

is it me?

 

Is it because I threaten your preconceived ideas of me that you shy away?

Does my passion, my openness, my zest for life become too overwhelming?

Do I make you feel uncomfortable when I speak of love, but of an unromantic, unconditional love?

Does it disconcert you when I can see the highest potential in you, even if you can’t?

Do I confuse you when I don’t quite fit into any of the boxes you’ve created for yourself?

Do I make you nervous when I go out my way to seek truth and justice amongst all the lies and corruption in the world?

Does it make you feel uneasy when I expose my vulnerability and imperfections?

And do I make you feel inadequate when I look to you for strength and courage if I’m feeling weak?

Does it trouble you that I have the capacity for forgiveness, however hurtful you may have been?

Do I freak you out with my beliefs; do I push the boundaries of yours?

Do I threaten your very own world that you have created, just by being me?

Do you think because I don’t agree with all that you say, I dislike you?....

……..Because you couldn’t be further from the truth…..

Quirky Cow Creations Studio

 

 

Quite what to make of me you do not know,

Unless you shed assumptions, step inside:

Inspiration, celebration show;

Real and fake, and art and life collide.

Keep looking at the colours burning bright,

You stop at green and see the red’s well dun.

Chew it over – nothing’s black and white.

Open up your senses, let them run

With every colour ‘neath the beaming sun.

 

By Steve Till

Artists Block

I’m having a slight problem. I’ve hit a brickwall, a dead end, an artist’s form of ‘writers block’ and the more I focus on my lack of painting, the more I feel guilty and all these negative feelings are not conducive to any sort of creativity and so it goes on. I’m caught in a vicious circle.

I think all artists have some form of block at various times. My friend Jani has an Imp. Hers tells her that she’s no good at her art.

I too am having self-doubt. I feel like a fraud. Ive stopped painting because of this very belief. I should be doing something more productive like…, well.......Ive not worked that one out yet!

To get me out of this self-destructive pattern, ive hitched a cunning plan.

Going back to jani’s troublesome Imp, I’ve imagined my little quandary to be a pixie! Im not sure why it’s a pixie, I think maybe because pixies can be playful and mischievous, they mean no real harm.

So anyway, giving my ‘block’ an imaginary identity, Im allowing to draw my attention to him. (if you pardon the pun). I'm not fighting to ignore him and so that makes me feel a little peaceful inside already. I mean who really wants to fight internal battles with oneself anyway?!

As I am typing, I can see him in my minds' eye, he’s wearing a soft velvety green jacket, suede brown trousers and funky red shoes. He’s sat opposite me, smirking coz he knows I have been listening to his cruel teasing over the last week. But the thing is, where he comes from, is a beautiful land where many other beautiful characters live and love and in my imagnination, I can enter his world whenever I like.

My little pixie isn’t quite so confident now! In his kingdom, he’s nothing but ‘just’ a pixie. Just a little aggravating individual who uses cruel teasing and taunts to pass the time and I know, that given time, he will get bored and move onto someone else who might give him the time of day. Or maybe he will go play on the swing!

As well as my pixie, I see fairies and elves and even Jani’s Imp! They are surrounded by butterflies and Owls, Badgers and Foxes, they all hold a certain charm about them, even my infuriating pixie!

Where they live, the colours are vibrant and cheerful to the soul, their world is playful, loving and magical and I play with them amongst the trees and it makes me happy. So happy infact, I want to reach for my paintbrush…..

..So you see, my cunning plan worked! I’m painting again!

I wish

 

I wish I could tell you how I have a fire in my belly that has burnt within me since coming home from \Alderney.

I wish I could tell you, how 4 weeks ago I was lying in the darkness of my tent alone and torch-less, in despair on how I would occupy my time for the next week forced to accept and to even learn to love my own company.

I wish I could tell you how, on the second night, as I walked 2 miles back to my tent drunk and full of anguish and on reaching the beach, I sat in the moonlight and wept away years of hurt and pain, anguish and fear and whilst doing so, I felt the sea cleanse my soul and wash away all my anger and all my rage.

I wish I could tell you on waking the next morning, how everything had changed…....

I wish I could tell you, how a few days later, I met someone, who has profoundly changed my world and how they have stirred up my passion to live life creatively, spiritually and confidently and how they have taught me that to love, is to let go and that my connection to them goes far deeper than anything physical.

I wish I could tell you that I am ready to embrace life and all that it has to offer and that my past will never affect me negatively again and how I have forgiven all those who have hurt me or done me wrong.

I wish I could tell you how much love I have in my heart for all my family, my friends and my pets and how enormously grateful for all the love and support I get back in return.

I wish that I could tell you all of those things, but I think you already know......

Mistakes

Not so long ago, someone in conversation mentioned that I had made ‘mistakes’ throughout my life.

When I got home I felt perplexed about that ‘off the cuff’ remark and started to think back on my past. And when I did, I came to this conclusion.

Mistakes are like what you do at school when the teacher hands back your homework with red biro corrections all over it. But you take away that work and you learn from it. Just as you do from any experience you may have in life.

I have perhaps made bad judgement calls, but I would never put them down to a ‘mistake’ for they have all been part of a learning curve.

I remember doing a painting ('Sole Searching')) shown above. Nothing I did felt right and in my mind it went horribly wrong. I made the ‘mistake’, or (so I thought at the time,) of painting too many thick layers all at once and using painting techniques I was unfamiliar with.

I was going to throw it onto the bonfire, when a visiting friend saw something in it that I didn’t. She told me to give it a chance.

So I did and after much patience and painting in a way I’d never worked before, that ‘mistake’ turned out to be a painting I was very pleased with and not only that, I also learnt so much more from doing so!

So you see, a mistake can only be bad if you let it. But look deeper and you will find a mistake can be one of the biggest lessons in life and it’ll be those ones where you can grow and develop in a way no other experience can and when one looks at it that way. How can things ever be a mistake?!

To be an artist means.....

To be an artist, for me, means bearing my soul. Taking risks with matters of the heart.
It is true to say, when you look into my art, you will find my heART.
Sometimes it is a scary concept; I leave myself open and vulnerable to people’s judgements. There is nowhere to hide once I release my creativity. I cannot lie; I have no choice but be true to myself.

Sometimes that truth can be ugly, but when I create, it enables me to turn that ugliness into something very beautiful, into something positive, it can be a release, a way of letting go.
Art to me is therapy. So now and again, I have to remind myself of this. I get ‘stuck’. It is all too easy at times to get caught up in how things ‘should’ be done. We conform to convention because it is ‘safe’. But staying safe, means we stifle our own self-expression.
And so I have made a vow to myself and I urge others to follow suit, follow our passions, be it in writing or music, performing arts, painting or poetry. Find what is ‘true to you’ Don’t listen to people who put us down, believe in yourself, trust your instincts, respect others as well as yourself and above all else. Be creative follow your heART!

Whinne the Moo

I want to introduce you all to Whinnie the Moo. Whinne was knitted by a lady named Winnie in Kenya. She knits for a company called ‘Knittercritters' who support Ladies like Winnine by ethically selling their knitted crafts all over the world.
Whinnie was given to me by a good friend a year ago. He said he spotted her on the knittercritter stall one day at a craft fair and had to get her as she reminded him of me. Oddly enough, he isn’t the first person to have told me this now.
To look at her, she just exudes character and playfulness and she has the biggest smile on her ALL the time!
For a year, she just sat on my shelf looking down on me, I think willing me to pay her more attention. She once got stolen by one of the dogs here on the farm.
I had to rescue her from the jaws of my landlords retriever, she didn’t like that, so I put her even higher up on the shelf.
And then just as I was packing my bags for my Alderney trip 3 weeks ago, I was sure I heard her cry, so I picked her up and without giving her a second thought, I squashed her into the already overloaded rucksuck.
It wasn’t until I got to Alderney and put my tent up that she got to see daylight again. She kept me company that night whilst I lay alone wondering what I was doing in another Country on my own in a tent without a torch. (For another post). I was rather glad for her reassuring woollen sheep smell she carries about her.
That week she made us many friends. She broke all the barriers, young and old alike, a bond was formed with passer-by’s, even if it was with only a smile. We found that Whinnie was a good conversational starter. Curious people would ask about her and children just loved to hold her, no questions asked.
Admittedly some thought I was a bit nuts’ for carrying a stuffed cow around in my bag, especially when I had to ask people to take a photo of myself and Whinnie together! We got some strange looks, but it didn’t matter to us.
So from then on, a beautiful friendship has formed between us. She reminds me to not take myself and life too seriously. And that in every adult, there is a child at heart.
Besides, who on this earth can resist the love of a quirky looking cow who wears a brown hat?!

Space

I count myself to be very lucky these days.
I was painting away this evening in my little studio, when it came to my attention that not everybody has the kind of space i now have.
I say now, since this has not always been the case. For years I had to make do with someone else’s space which was more than likely a table in their kitchen. And then when I got my own home nearly 10 years ago where I still reside today. I was doing it on my kitchen table!
To me this was perfectly acceptable and for 9 years it was.
Whenever I had guests to stay for dinner, I used to have to throw my paints and brushes, palette knives, jars of water, canvases, inks, cloths and various ‘mark-making’ implements somewhere that wasn’t going to accidentally find their way into the food I had so lovingly prepared, or where the cats and dogs could walk all over and spread what paint I hadn’t managed to spill, all over the rest of the house.
But last year, my landlord decided to convert the remaining 18th century barn he had which backs onto my courtyard into an office. Up until then, I had been using it as my very own huge store shed. It had a dirt floor, rats I was sure hid beneath the flint walls and in the summer, Swallows used to nest amongst the beams. But deep down, I felt it could be made into something more useful like my very own studio!
So when my landlord announced last year that he was going to get the place converted and would I move my ‘junk’ my heart sunk. My dreams of a grand open space with skylights and windows from floor to ceiling with heating and running water smashed to smithereens.
So I was over the moon when he then turned round to say once the floor was concreted and the stud walls put in place, I could still have access to a part of it.

So a year down the line I have made that space my own again. I have to be careful though. I cannot use it ‘officially’ due to building regulations.
I have to still share it with none existent bats (part of the agreement for allowing my landlord to convert the building was to place bat boxes in my part of the barn)
But what I have been able to do is put roof insulation in. Eventually when money allows, I will put in a better lighting system instead of the two measly light bulbs I currently have. I may even get a little gas heater for the winter.
Its not exactly the state of the arts kind of studio I had in mind, but I don’t care. What this space allows me to do is to walk away from my work when I need without having to clear up each time.
As much as I love what I do, sometimes even I need a break from painting and by having a break means to not have it on view to remind me of how crappy a painting might be going at that point in time.
 So when I go in my kitchen these days, I can cook, I can have a clear kitchen table I can have guests for dinner, I can really have ‘space’.
So when artists say they don’t have the space, I think what they really mean is; they have the space, just not the room to shut the door when it all gets a bit too intense.