autumn still life

I went out into the garden today and sighed, because so much needed to be done, and there was interesting stuff to do indoors.

But I'm glad I did put my wellies on and go outside, and as I worked I realised these things about gardening:

It is good to be immersed in the smells of earth, of the scents of foliage as you cut back and brush past, the aroma of compost, and of growing things.

Quite a lot is possible in two hours: more than you expect.

You somehow become alert to another rhythm, a different perspective.

You are exposed to the unexpected.

On a bad day, it can be enough to make you want to carry on.

You become aware that everything in the garden will continue without your intervention, which is somehow soothing.

By some unknown means, it gets your thoughts moving, your anxieties settle, there is a peacefulness.

The fear that nothing will ever be completed seems to become oddly disarmed as you work, despite the fact that every job you begin seems to reveal another.

It is the perfect excuse for a cup of tea and a toasted teacake.

i'm really really hoping...

...that the 'mighty oaks from little acorns' thing turns out to be true.

This week I've been doing some more painting, none of which would pass an O-level I'm afraid, but you have to start somewhere. I've been learning how the paint behaves and which brushes to use, and for the first time in my life I'm starting to understand the importance of pigments and colour mixing and all the things that you just aren't taught on a Textiles degree. It's frustrating because my mind is seeing big things that my hands can't yet produce, but I'm really enjoying it, and am starting to have a little more confidence in the medium.

I've also been doing a lot of thinking about the expectations we place on ourselves and asking myself some searching questions:

What if I didn't feel like I have to leave something of value in this life? What if everything was wiped at the end of each day?

What if nothing was attributed to individual effort anyway and we were all part of a whole, and it was a collaborative production?

What if I didn't feel I had to do 'something useful'? Who is determining what is useful anyway?

What if there's no pressure of time? What if it doesn't matter that I'm getting older because each day stands alone as a single entity, and this one is as precious, valuable and full of potential as one I lived through thirty years ago?

Scary? Wacky? Obvious? Liberating?

playing with scale

This afternoon I've been trying to decide what scale of painting I best enjoy working on. I made four studies of these berries and found that there is some kind of equation going on... the size of the object over the amount of detail it represents, multiplied by the way the paint is applied and divided by my favourite brushes somehow equals the size of the finished painting and whether it 'works' for me or not.

Being someone who has been trained to draw rather than paint, I'm learning all the time. Whereas drawing (for me) is often about line and flat tone, I'm finding that painting is more about areas of colour and light and how the subject matter relates to its background.

When I view it as a learning process, it seems easier to do. Maybe that has the effect of overriding my perfectionism... whatever, I'm glad it works.

If you paint or draw... what scale do you enjoy working on?

city of light

I’m not quite sure why Paris is called this, although of course it is filled with wonderful lights of all kinds, including the twinkling wonder of the Eiffel Tower illuminations which sparkle beautifully once an hour during the evening. We watched them from a little park near the Sacre Coeur and it was magical.

As well as being the city of light, we also found that Paris is the city of very expensive cafes, constant bustling crowds, and energy-draining humidity which rather limited our enjoyment of its delights on this occasion. Previously we have visited in the spring and I think this is the best time to go.

We did our noble best of course, and here are a few photographs that hopefully capture a very little of the undeniable poetic glamour, soft-focus elegance and romantic intensity that seep from every pore of this unique city.

These are the stairs from our third-floor apartment down to the little courtyard that led to the street. We stayed in the Temple district, near the Arts et Metiers metro station... a very mixed, non-touristy area that I might not choose again.

Parisians have lovely weddings... Parisians have lovely everything... but it all comes at a big price. It's one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in, apparently.

We trekked all over the city and bravely visited the edgy Canal St Martin area to have a cup of coffee at this very trendy landmark building. It was gorgeous inside. Apparently Johnny Depp has a place near here, but there was no sign of the beautiful one... just a rather persistent tramp who found us apparently irresistable.


The Parisians are excellent at municipal bedding in their delightful parks and gardens... not for them rigid rows of Busy Lizzies or begonias... just look at this gorgeous, frivolous, fresh and airy arrangement of cleome, dahlias, cosmos and grasses.

We spent a morning ambling in the vast labyrinth of the Cimetiere Pere Lachaise... this is where many famous musicians, artists, composers, singers, writers and others are buried, including Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison.

Now we are home and I am loving the muted autumn light, coloured leaves, open fires , homemade cake and proper tea. It feels so good to be back in the familiarity of our home with the richness of real life available to me rather than the anxious need to fill the hours with the new and the different. There's nothing like a holiday for helping you to appreciate the beauties of home.

à bientôt

Just a quick post to say that tomorrow I am off to Paris for a well-earned break and I am very excited! I have a new lipstick and a list of places to visit... although this will be my fifth trip to Paris there is still so much to see both new and old... I am looking forward to lots of inspiration, dreaming, sitting in cafes and drinking coffee, and I hope to have some lovely photos to show you when I get back. I am hoping not to have to use my parapluie too much...

balancing

I’ve been painting.

But not that kind of painting... the other sort... where you climb up a ladder and get a stiff neck and a bad back and splodges of white paint in interesting places. It’s been exhausting and time-consuming but really worthwhile. The house looks fresher and brighter and ready for autumn.

I get into a kind of daydream when I’m working hard like this. I think I’ve finally realised that ‘it’ is never going to be ‘finished’ or ‘done’... the house, the garden, my lifestyle, whatever. I’d really love this not to be true, for there to come a time when I could sit back and relax and know that everything was beautiful... but when you do that, the weeds grow, the dust settles, the unexpected pops up. And when you concentrate on one thing, another thing gets forgotten. It’s endless.

The challenge of course is to accept this truth and not fight it, to learn how to weave in the other things and not to get frightened of things getting out of control, to know that it will all work out ok.

an honest perspective

I'm going to be honest with you: I didn't do all those things on my list every day. Some days I did most of them, some days I did some of them and one day I did nothing except the housework. I found that what I thought would be a helpful prompt ended up being a nasty laughing reminder that I can't even manage the basics of life...

... and that's not good, because it's not true. I'm just not a list-and-routine sort of a person, that's all, however much I'd like to be - I work in rushes of energy, and then I daydream and rest - that's how I've always been, and that's how I suppose I always will be. Better start working with it, and more importantly, accepting and enjoying it... we can only be ourselves.

I did do a little painting though. Just to see if I could.