Tag: Life

Esther’s challenge: New beginnings

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A new world?

Esther Chiltons blog has writing challenges every week, I’ve started trying to do some. New beginnings was an interesting one.

This is what I wrote :

New beginning?
I hope so.
My life has changed in so many ways. I’m having to reassess what I can do, can afford, can maintain.
New beginnings means the garden is starting to flower, I hope to get outside and maybe paint if I feel up to it. I need help to keep the garden tidy.
My main wish is that my health improves and I can have some real new beginnings….

Esther does other challenges, like on Mondays we try and write a limerick with a certain word in it, or on Thursdays a set of words and a limited number of words to use. It’s fun. Why not look her blog up?

Spode

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Have I mentioned that I have an exhibition at Spode, it can be viewed this Friday between 6.30 and 8.30. It’s at Acava Studios, up the yellow stairs, at Spode Works, Elanora street, Stoke upon Trent, ST4 1QD (I think).

If you are in the area and would like to come along you are very welcome.

It’s eclectic and interesting, with one work from 1982 that is an oil painting on an old cupboard door because I couldn’t afford a canvas. There are several portraits of my hubby from over our life together.

I’ve also included landscapes and portraits, abstract paintings, views of Spode works, and views of a nebula and Jupiter and Mars. There are also watercolours and batik prints. I’m interested in a lot of things and I hope this exhibition will show my explorative fine art practice.

Slept

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Poppy painting, makes me think of sleep, soporific, ancient remedy. Beautiful but dangerous. Trying to channel art nouveau I guess.

Last night I wished I could sleep, all my strategies, thinking of healing, trying to relax, counting backwards,, none of them worked. So I got up after my sleepless night then went out and sang at choir. I could feel the tiredness spreading through me. This afternoon was hard, I was trying to arrange the paintings for the exhibition I’m holding. I feel like I’m having to rely more and more on others and I want my independence.

When I got home I had a bit of tea, but then whoosh! The sleep came without trying. It meant I missed this evenings choir practice, so I felt guilty, I just hope I can sleep tonight. X

Moss ‘n’ grass

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Green moss spreads over tree roots, a grass seed must have blown in or washed there. It’s nestled in a small pocket of soil in the hollow of two roots. Good to see green when the world is mainly grey and brown.

We were on a walk on a dry day, but moisture from the previous days rain had enhanced the luminous colour of the moss, it was almost lime green in contrast to the darker grass. A real hint of the coming Spring.

I only took the photo because I joined a moss appreciation group on Facebook. Along with other groups, it makes you look differently and more closely at the world.

Paints, brushes, canvas?

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What are three objects you couldn’t live without?

I tell a lie,

I could live

But would life be worth it?

Colours swirl and fade,

Brushstrokes create

Patterned surfaces

Canvas grabs paint

Textures grow

Light seems to flow.

No, without my creative things

A life of sadness it brings.

Give me my paints,

I will build mountains

Canvas for landscape

Or face?

Who knows.

Brushes manipulate

Joy it creates.

Tall friends

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We just held, a celebration of my hubbys life. He was always interested in acting and theatrical performances so when my friends offered to greet guests at the start of the celebrations on stilts and in circus costumes I had to say yes. They stood outside and looked funny and magnificent. They stayed and enjoyed the rest of the evening. A group of us sang ‘always look on the bright side of life’. A good friend read a eulogy and showed slides and video of my husband. We had almost 200 photos of him on the hall walls. People read poems for him including one specially written and ‘do not go gentle into that dark night’ we had a harmonica playing and a friend singing and playing the banjo. There was a lovely buffet laid on by the hall.

People also wrote memories of him on cards so I could take them away. The plan is to create a memory book of the celebration. I took some of my portraits of him up to the hall.

All in all it was a fantastic evening and I was very pleased with how it went. I think my hubby would have appreciated the occasion. X

I’m starting to

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Do you believe in fate/destiny?

Which way do the dice fall for you? Can you control your fate or is it out of your hands? I’ve always thought I have some control, some freedom of thought. I don’t know any more.

Am I fated to end my life cast away on a desert island, or skydiving on a Sunday afternoon? No chance, they are just random thoughts. But I can sometimes see a pathway I don’t like. I will fight against that.

Destiny? A destination that is foretold or preordained? Like a Princess who is destined to become a Queen. Maybe that is what my destiny will be… To be a rich and famous artist? Nah!

Mend him

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From the Internet ‘Kintsugi, (literally gold seams) is a traditional repair method that takes the broken or chipped parts of cherished vessels, glues them back together with a Japanese lacquer, and paints the seams with gold or silver powder.’

I’ve taken that idea to create this possibly last portrait of my hubby. It’s called ‘Mend Him’, and it’s my wish to put him back together again. It’s a bit rough and ready, but it expresses my feeling of loss. I think it captures his tiredness as he got older… I started this a few months before he died.

I miss him so much and if I could I would mend him, turn back time, use any power available to restore him to his best. X

March started wet and cold

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Ugh! Red sky this morning, wet and cold warning.

It’s March 1st, St David’s day, symbol the daffodil, saints day of Wales. I have a few uninspiring tete a tete narcissi daffodils at the front of the house but they look a bit sad and forlorn.

Today is the first day of Spring here. I hope it bucks it’s ideas up!

It brightened up in the afternoon, but there may be snow, showers then fog later. What fun.

In other news I’m plotting a joint exhibition with other friends later in the year. I’m hoping I might get some respite from the tablets I’ve started taking. You never know. I just want to feel better.

I don’t have one

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Do you enjoy your job?

I gave up work to look after my hubby and try and set up as an artist. Sadly circumstances mean that he is no longer here and I don’t have the possibility of keeping my artists studio.

I won’t stop painting though, creativity is my reason for living. Despite health issues I cannot give it up. So I suppose really I do have a job, but it’s very much part time. I will still accept commissions and do my best to produce quality art work. I hope I continue long into the future, drawing on these recent events to produce new art.