Appointment

Posted on March 8, 2024 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Anxiety, Appointment, Illness, Life, results, Scared, Shaking, Stress, Thinking, Time, Worry5 Comments

Eek, I now have an appointment to see what’s wrong with me and I’m scared. I don’t know what to expect or what treatment I’m going to be offered. My world has been spinning now for a couple of years, so I guess resolving it is a good idea, but my anxiety levels are skyrocketing.

Trying to say calm, repeating the word calm in my mind, trying to relax, stomach is churning though. My shaking has suddenly got worse, I feel like I’m a twisting pretzel or Staffordshire knot, I don’t know how to slacken the pressure.

Standing on the edge of a precipice wondering if I will fall or fly. I think this is just going to be a talk about results, but I really am not sure if I can cope.

Losing my marbles

Posted on March 7, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Artist, Bowls, button, Collection, dusty, Fun, Glass, Life, Magpie, Marbles, MemoryLeave a comment

I collect all sorts of things, and today I remembered I have a bowl made of buttons glued together, inside it is my marble collection. I need to clear the bowl out, it’s very dusty and some of the leaves from the plant above it have fallen in over the winter. I can’t wash it because it’s held together with PVA glue. I’m going to remove the marbles, (hopefully without losing them), wash them and dry them then put them back in the bowl.

So why am I writing about this? I guess it’s just that I collect all sorts of things, perhaps I should get rid of things? Maybe it’s a trait about being an artist, gathering shiny objects. I guess I’m a bit of a Magpie.

Yellow tree

Posted on March 7, 2024 Posted in Fine Art, Memories, UncategorizedTagged Abstract, Acrylic on canvas, Art, Autumn, Exhibition, Life, Memory, Painting, Spring, TreeLeave a comment

My autumn into spring painting at my exhibition. It’s going to a new home as it’s been sold. I love the feeling that someone has found something special about it.

But I have to say I find selling art difficult, it’s not my thing, I’d much rather just create. I think that’s why I paint what I want, I can’t paint the same idea over and over again. I get bored and have to move onto something else.

Exhibition

Posted on March 6, 2024 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Exhibition, Fine Art, Hubby, Life, Memory, oil on wood, Painting, PortraitsLeave a comment

I didn’t show photos of my hubby when he was alive, but here are a few of them that I painted over 40 years of us being together.

The exhibition is now going to be on next week aswell. I’m pleased because it will give people time to get there. The closing night is now the private view. This Friday 6.30 to 8.30pm.

My art is for sale, except for ones of my hubby, they are my memories of him, I don’t think I could part with them.

Esther’s challenge: New beginnings

Posted on March 6, 2024March 6, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Challenge, Composition, Esther Chilton blog, Fun, Life, Reading, Time, Words, Writing2 Comments

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

Posted on March 6, 2024 Posted in Fine Art, Memories, Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Acava Studios, Acrylic on canvas, Batik, Exhibition, Fine Art, Life, oil on wood, retrospective, Spode site, WatercoloursLeave a comment

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

Posted on March 4, 2024 Posted in Fine Art, Memories, UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Awake, Exhibition, Insomnia, Life, poppy painting, Sleep, TiredLeave a comment

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

Posted on March 3, 2024March 3, 2024 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Environment, Grass, Group, Life, Moss, moss appreciation, Nature, Photo, soil, Time, TreeLeave a comment

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?

Posted on March 3, 2024 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Brushes, Canvas, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1866, Life, Memory, Paints, Poem, Poetry, Thought2 Comments

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

Posted on March 3, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged always look on the bright side, Celebration, circus, Fun, Hubby, Life, Memory, stilts, tributeLeave a comment

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

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Life