two weeks in the sun

 I'm going away for two weeks from Monday. To the sun. I don't usually put much of my work up here, but as I don't have much to say, I am posting you a few different forms of light that have appeared recently...

celebrating two years of artist's way

This month we celebrate two years of the Artist's Way Group. To mark the occasion, we thought we would publish a poem by one of our members...

Mont St Michel

November mist wrapping striations of gauze

round the rocks and buttresses.

Stepping each and every step where once pilgrims

Knelt and pressed their hands together

I look up at where I have still to travel and

Back to where I have been.

With each climb the sea distances itself.

And these so solid stones amidst this whisper of light

Block the wind from the silted shore

Here on this path to paradise where Michael looks down

I clutch damp walls

To steady the faltering feet of one whose faith is gone.


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a new year

My first thought for the new year is about place. Space. Somewhere to work in. After the totally disastrous effects of giving up my workroom for month last year, I now have completely claimed this room. No more piano, no more spare bed, no reason for anyone to come in, and certainly no reason for anyone to stay there for a week or a month!!

It makes a huge difference to the state of my mind when it comes to this work. I know that, in principle, I can work anywhere - that I can work small or large, that there are things all around me to stimulate me, and that a kitchen table can do the job. But in reality, it doesn't seem to work out like that. With the level of recurring self-doubt that I have learnt inhabits me, even if it is diminishing, it seems that it is actually very important to have a space that I can walk into that says - Look! Here you are, you art person you! Here's a bit of your mind you didn't know existed until yesterday, and over here a wee chunk of your heart, and look, here's something you actually saw in the outside world!

Instead of having to decide whether or not I have enough time to clear the table and get the stuff out, I can just walk in and see something half finished that only needs me to walk over to it and take the top off the waiting tube of paint. I have somewhere to put the board with the stretched paper that had to be done yesterday so that it was ready to paint on today. And, I have somewhere I can wander into when I have no intention of working at all, where I can sit, and breathe, and let tiny molecules of the importance of art become part of the material of my body.

Folk go to CBT to learn to how to stop thoughts and behaviours that are slowly doing them in, week after month after year. More and more, whether we read neuroscience, the daily paper, or study Buddhism, we seem to be coming face to face with the fact that we make up our lives every minute, whether we think about it or not. Having this room helps me to reinvent the world I know.

no world but this

Other worldly light

is this world

those strange angles

I can find

Where the world

lights up

with oddness

or seems

suddenly

suffused with

love or horror

with mystery

or grace

All this world

no other

And I

standing in

the middle

of it all

Of course

it makes no

sense

to say that

there is

nothing

but my

experience

Look,

see

plants and

animals

people, politics

and injustice

And yet

it is also

true

that everything

known

comes to me

through

my senses

As I

filter

story and place

making

the whole

thing

up

entirely



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