out for a walk

Here I am resting at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park after what seemed like a very steep climb but which was in fact a pathetically gentle incline... 

...unfortunately I fear my girth is not too far away from looking like this grey-green lady's, elegantly reclined though she is, which added to the puffing and panting as I laboured up the hill.

It's lovely at the YSP, and I'm so glad I went. A great combo of art, fresh air, sunshine, autumn colours, walking, coffee and cake. Not to mention the lovely scenery of the Pennine hills on the drive over.

I didn't quite manage to banish all my worries from my mind, but I certainly did a better job than if I'd stayed at home moping.

That's all for today, but I thought I'd try to report for duty a bit more often on here... I did a bit of painting on canvas last week before the old anxieties took over and spoilt the fun... hopefully I'll have something to show soon.

autumn is here...

...and so am I... at last!

I have wanted to write a post for ages but I've kept on stalling... I haven't known what to say... I've started a few lines in my notebook and then given up, and then suddenly a week's gone by and it all happens again.

The truth is, I haven't felt like I've anything terribly interesting to say. There's been more 'life' than 'creativity' going on here - and that's been the case for quite a while. I've decided to bite the bullet and write something anyway, just to mark the passing of time, because I want to be truthful with myself, and in the end this blog is for me, to read when I'm old, and what I'm feeling and experiencing at the moment is just as valid and as much a part of the story as the busy, successful times.

I haven't done any art for a while, nor any kind of expression other than the intense giving out that life seems to be demanding of me at the moment. So, I am 'inhaling'... taking in... absorbing... and trusting that the 'exhaling', the expression, the creation of something other than life and relationships, will come.

Maybe the new season will bring other newness with it. I hope so. Autumn is here now, I know this because as well as the rose hips and ivy berries and darker evenings and chilly air, there was a huge skein of geese in the sky this morning, very high up and distantly honking, making their way to Norfolk and the Wash to feed on the mudflats over the winter. We are right underneath one of their flight paths here in south Manchester and every autumn is marked by their passing from west to east. In springtime, back they go westwards, to Iceland or Greenland to breed over the summer months. I love hearing them and rush to the window when I hear the sound of them passing over to catch sight of their strung-out 'v' shapes making their way across the sky.

East to west, west to east... the miracle of time passing. My 'baby' granddaughter will soon be starting school, and neither of my children are teenagers anymore. This feels incredible, but there is something familiar and comforting about the journey of the geese that somehow makes it all ok. Good and wonderful things happen in amongst the terrible and frightening things, and there's a sort of rhythm and form to it all that I didn't notice when I was younger and saw it as a single, linear journey. It's not that at all, is it? Not a bit.

I'm doing a lot of reading. A lot of sleeping, a lot of thinking and praying and eating cake and back in August I did a lot of cleaning. Hopefully I'll be doing a bit more writing and taking photos and getting back into more of a conversation with life very soon.

reflected glory

I just thought I would show you this page from last month's Country Living magazine. It shows the studio of the lovely Emma, aka Silverpebble, who was featured in their 'Women and their Sheds' series.

What's that to do with me you might rightly wonder... well, that's my paper garland in the background! Emma kindly bought one from my Winter Shop a couple of years ago, and I think it looks lovely in its new home, don't you?

I wrote about how I made these garlands here.

june

June ... is the month for roses, warm sun, tea in the garden and light evenings when it is hard to be early in bed.

From Something to Do, a Young Puffin Original edited by Septima and beautifully illustrated by Shirley Hughes, published in 1966, the year I was born, and the constant accompaniment to my childhood.

It's hard to believe that we are already nearing the end of the month. Despite all the rain and stormy weather, I'm pleased to say we have had roses and warm sun and the other things mentioned above, although perhaps less abundantly than we might have wished for. There certainly hasn't been any shortage of Something to Do:

Tea in the garden - and perhaps more importantly, cake - has featured very prominently, since June is the month when my best friend Anne opens her garden for Didsbury Open Gardens (as well as the NGS) and we serve tea and cake in vintage teacups and best pinnies. Fourteen large cakes had to be made and iced the week before, with one or two extras for 'testing', of course. It's always a lovely day, and fun to meet friends and old neighbours.

This weekend was a special anniversary and so we battled through the torrential rain for a three-night stay in beautiful Northumberland. The beaches, castles, gardens and gentle rolling countryside are so lovely, and we had the most gorgeous and elegant afternoon tea at the Earl Grey Tea House at Howick Hall as well as lots of rambles and pottering about, a wonderful few hours at Barter Books,  and lots of time scuffing about on beaches collecting limpet shells to string into a little whirly wreath.

Earlier in the month, of course, we were all treated to a couple of days holiday for the Golden Jubilee here in the UK, and we decided to pop up to the Lake District to see the Jubilee beacons being lit. After a lovely sunny afternoon drinking tea and reading the papers overlooking Coniston Water at the Jumping Jenny Tearooms at Brantwood, we climbed up Hampsfell near Cartmel and watched the sunset over the Lakeland Fells, followed by the lighting of the beacons. It was a truly magical experience to watch one pinprick of light after another gradually appear on the mountainous skyline until we were surrounded by a ring of tiny distant fires. It was just like Lord of the Rings. Then, suddenly, out of the cloud bank, the full moon rose majestically above the expanse of Morecambe Bay, creating a moonlit path across the water. Wonderful, except then we had to get back to the car down a rocky path with only our wind-up torch for company... a little bit of a Laurel and Hardy ending to a magical day, as is so often the case in our household I'm afraid!

So that was June. Hopefully there will be a bit more art in July.

Mary Fedden

Goodbye Mary Fedden, whose work I have so much enjoyed. I hope you are happy and reunited with all your cats and objects and beloved people in a magical place with zebras and teapots and vases of brightly coloured flowers. Thank you for all your beautiful paintings.

and this week

This week we did lino cutting. I hated it! It totally divided the class into those who fell into a kind of dreamy right-side-of-the-brain absorption (most people), and those who moaned continually and felt no connection with the technique at all (me). I found the carving clumsy and effortful, and the results two-dimensional and uninspiring... but now I know a little bit more about what is 'me' and what not to bother with next time...! The drawing I used for inspiration is above, the resulting print is shown below.

 

carborundum prints

The second and third weeks of the printing course were spent learning how to make an image using two plates: one drypoint and one using carborundum grit. I loved this.

I took as my starting point the drawing below: it's one of a series of 'automatic' drawings/collages I did last spring. Not really being sure what I was doing or how it was going to turn out, I had a go at interpreting the darks and lights into drypoint, acrylic brushwork and carborundum grit, and you can see the results above. I was really pleased with it and feel there is a lot of potential for me here.