Small Stones.... fragments and thoughts, wingbeats in sun...

Shining Crows

                   Glinting

Like facets of anthracite

                      in the wind-bladed light,

Mobbing a Prince of the Air

                      with relentless irreverence.

Words by Carrie - February 2013

 

I have been thinking for a while now as a bit of a prompt or a discipline of sorts, to properly stick to a regular 'Small Stone' post, maybe at least once a week, both to keep the writing part of my mind open and fluid, and to try to make more frequent visits to my poor neglected blog!

A 'small stone' as I'm sure many of you are familiar with, is like a moment of distilled perception, a fragment, the words or thoughts that fall into your mind when you truly look or feel and respond to the world in its unfolding, in a moment in time.

This is very much the way I have always written anyway, before I ever heard the term 'small stone' and it suits me well. I used to never be without a notebook and pencil or scrap of paper wherever I went. A thought or a fleeting observation would scrawl its way into my notebooks in fragments. Sometimes that small fragment would spark on into another one and then open a meandering trail that might lead into a story. Sometimes I would gather various fragments up like pieces of a puzzle and discover the thread to bind them together into something other with a life of its own.

My most recent two stories for children that I have written were each sparked from a single small stone, a phrase or two that sparked an entire wild journey of words and images - one maybe a little flintier than the other! 

I love the unexpected leaps and turnings these moments of absorbed perception can take, and often love the fragments alone just for the shape and sound of their words.

This one arrived as I was watching a magnificent young Buzzard in the field beside our house, utterly confounded and grounded for all his broad brindled strength, by a pair of very bold derisive crows.

They would not let him be, every time he tried to take wing they would dive down and harry him relentlessly. He was outdone! He was forced to remain grounded for a good half hour or so in our field which gave me a rare good view of him... Eventually with expansive evasive manouvering he managed to flee to the woods hotly pursued by his jeering tormentors!

So, the first stone posted - I will endeavour to add another each week, and if I'm feeling really pro-active I might even start up a 'sketch-a-day' exercise and fill up those sketchbooks too!

A creative circle, a creative life.... of music, ink and oaks...

 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...

Hopefully I have broken the creative deadlock and I will make efforts to do something creative everyday, whether words or images, or even just ways of thinking.... to remind me, here is a poem I have on the first page of one of my sketchbooks that I like (I think I may have posted this before somewhere maybe?):

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.

- By Michele Linfante

A Dragon, a Singer and a Fish... or remembering how to paint!

A friend of ours offered to have the children for a bit today so I made an attempt to get on with finishing my three spreads for my dummy book which has been taking far, far too long... wish I could fix that darn time stasis machine!
I don't currently have my own work space in the new house, so I took possesion of our tiny dining room for the day and just, only just, squeezed my drawing boards onto the teeny weeny table!

A great impetous for getting on with chiselling off the old crumbly mortar from the walls of what will become my eventual studio!
I found myself terrified of putting brush to these paintings again after such a long time away from them. I don't usually leave a painting until its finished and never come back to finished pieces to meddle, but events just got in the way of progress on these.
I moved them on and the dragon spread on the easel is now finished, but am having somewhat of a crisis of confidence in the quality of any of them.
I think really this has more to do with the fact that these paintings will have to try to sell my story to a potential publisher, and this being my first shot at it I'm finding it hugely intimidating. Still its a learning curve and you don't know if you don't try it. I'll just brace for those rejection letters and dig around for some self-belief!
Here's a bit of work-in-progress on one of the spreads anyway...


I'm looking forward to getting this whole project wrapped up and putting it all together in its 'promo package' as it were, but actually I'm itching to get started on my next story which right now I have so much more confidence in, I'm really excited about the whole feeling of it.
I'll just give myself a little time to get settled and wait for the words to unravel from the images that have been tucked away in my mind all this time.
The natural rhythm of my creative wanderings seem to be leaning back towards language and writing at the moment, so I feel its almost time to begin!