I was inspired today to finally break open a new sketchbook and take up pen and ink by my lovely husband Tony... I'm always frustrated by how little time and energy remain to me for anything creative after the needs of work and children have have run their course for the day... but it is very easy to say 'I'm too tired, I'm not feeling focussed, I'm stressed, maybe tomorrow...' and then let the frustration mount.
I have felt more and more out of touch with my creative self as I let these things dis-empower me until I feel seized up and disconnected. I seem to live frustration. But this is the way my life is set out right now and there is no use waiting for time that will not come...
Tony showed me today that living a creative life need not be pushed aside by what we are obliged to do and bound by from day to day, that it is up to me to stop bemoaning my lack of time and energy and to make the most of the moments and hours I do have in the fullest way...
I sent him home from work today - he's not been well and our air compressor bust a valve at the workshop so we could not underpin any frames anyway until its fixed. By the time I got home I found that even dosed up on antibiotics and feeling rotten, he had written another really brilliant new song on his 12 string, and I thought... if he can compose music and lyrics whilst feeling like that, then what really is stopping me from getting on with some drawing and writing? Answer of course, only myself.
Unfortunately by the time we returned home again from collecting the children he had forgotten
precisely how the rhythm went, but hopefully it will come back, it was a good one!
This is a pen and ink sketch of my favourite Oak tree in the woods behind our house, and I really enjoyed drawing it, to have only ink and twisting patterns of bark flowing through my thoughts and watch it grow from the blank white page...
I went walking in our woods a few days ago in the dappled sunlight with a cool breeze that smoothed the lines from my brow as I walked and soothed my cares away.
The meadowsweet smelled as sweet as its name...
And a special treasure waited for me to find it in the field on my return. I'd been watching a big pale buzzard quartering the field this week now the hay has been finally cut, and she left me this fine feather. Beautiful isn't it - a gift from a Sky-dweller...
Remember
That just to have the eyes of an artist,
that can be enough.
The ear of a poet,
that can be enough.
The soul of a human
just pointed in the direction of the divine,
that can be more than enough.
I tell you this to remind myself,
Every gesture is an act of creation
Even empty spaces and silences
can be the wings and voices of Angels.
