Change Fear

Do not fear change - change fear

I'm currently on holiday and I have for the first time in weeks it feels, time to look around and everywhere I look thinks seem to be springing to life. This pattern of renewal can be a real comfort in life when you face challenges and situations that are beyond your control. The times when you watch helplessly as a loved one is sick and you feel powerless to help them, or try to help someone who is going though emotional turmoil and there isn't anything that can be said that can really mend the heart. These are the times it is important to remember the strength of human endeavour.

The timeless beauty of nature can really nurture the soul in times of crisis and calm the senses so that a new perspective can be reached. I love the idea of 'changing' fear, it is a cruel master and those who are under its spell often find it hard to think clearly enough to escape its clutches. It is good to remember that it can be done and that just like the delicate spring flowers that line the hedgerows have pushed their way through the hardened earth to face the sun in all their majestic glory - so too can we overcome the trials and tribulations of our daily struggles and be victorious over fear.

Another quote which I love and may have used previously, so forgive the repetition is the following 'You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.' I hope you never find yourself or feel that you have reached such a dead end as this, but should you ever do so just remember that the solution to most things lies within us.   

I'll be back at work in April - see you then :)

Mark Hearld's Work Book

I have nearly completed my picture, but thought I'd let you see it when I deliver it.

I came across this book at the Library this week and though I knew of Mark Hearld's work, this book is a real treat. I love his brightly coloured prints and I thought I'd share some of my favourites with you.

I especially like Doveflight (see below) which was a fabric design he did in collaboration with Simon and Angie Lewin (who's book is wonderful too). I find such books both a joy for the eyes and an inspiration for the creative juices.

A Happy Life

 “You cannot be really first-rate at your work if your work is all you are.”

In the pursuit of happiness over my Monday Morning breakfast I stumbled across this review on Brain Pickings and that's where you'll find the full article by Maria Popova. I would love to read this book it sounds really inspiring, let me know if you've done so and what you think.

Don’t ever confuse the two, your life and your work. That’s what I have to say. The second is only a part of the first. Don’t ever forget what a friend once wrote to Senator Paul Tsongas when the senator had decided not to run for reelection because he’d been diagnosed with cancer: “No man ever said on his deathbed I wish I had spent more time at the office.”

Don’t ever forget the words on a postcard that my father sent me last year: “If you win the rat race, you’re still a rat.”

Quindlen considers the question of the self and what makes us who we are, what makes us worthy of being. And while the great Annie Dillard may have cautioned to not “ever use the word ‘soul,’ if possible,” it seems impossible to address the question of what makes a meaningful life without addressing the human soul, which Quindlen does beautifully:

There are thousands of people out there with the same degree you have; when you get a job, there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your life on the bus, or in the car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul.

People don’t talk about the soul very much anymore. It’s so much easier to write a résumé than to craft a spirit. But a résumé is cold comfort on a winter night, or when you’re sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you’ve gotten back the chest X ray and it doesn’t look so good, or when the doctor writes “prognosis, poor.”

Even those trying to find their purpose, even those engaged in fulfilling work, and even those of us lucky enough to have no separation between “life” and “work,” can get consumed by our modern cult of productivity. Quindlen’s words come as a vital reminder of what matters, what counts, what the true aliveness of life is:

You cannot be really first-rate at your work if your work is all you are.

So I suppose the best piece of advice I could give anyone is pretty simple: get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house. Do you think you’d care so very much about those things if you developed an aneurysm one afternoon, or found a lump in your breast while in the shower?

Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze over the dunes, a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over a pond and a stand of pines. Get a life in which you pay attention to the baby as she scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a Cheerio with her thumb and first finger.

Turn off your cell phone. Turn off your regular phone, for that matter. Keep still. Be present.

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work.

Stay Happy :)

 

Nearly done

After months of tinkering...
I've nearly finished the collage picture for Gracey's Tearooms - the final push.

Artistic endeavour

Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art.

Andy Warhol

Struggling as I am to find the final push needed to complete my artwork I was drawn to these words by a fellow artist. 

Such hesitation leaves space and time for self doubt to creep in. When your inner demoned starts to self critic your work before it's even finished. The best remedy for self doubt is action and that's what I intend to set out to achieve this week, I hope you achieve your goals too. 

The Pre-Rapaelite Sisterhood

It's been a busy week at work, making a palm tree (it's a long story) and planning the next art talk at TCL. The talk to be held on 10th April is about the life and role of women in the Pre-Raphaelite movement.

I enjoyed using these wonderful painting to create the artwork for the poster.

The colours just pop out at you!

Leave a little sparkle wherever you go!

Having just feasted on my annual Academy Awards diet of divas in to die for dresses and tear jerking acceptance speeches - I am all sparkled out. I shall keep todays post brief as being in the UK I have not had much sleep trying as I do each year to be a part of the 'greatest show on earth' (and I'm not as young as I used to be).

This is arguably an insurmountable claim as a theatre full of loveys can hardly eclipse some of the natural or even manmade spectacles that grace this planet. But there is a kind of magic about the proceeding and a resonance that touches even the hardest soul. After the hype has died away and the after show stragglers (the looser of the night if you will) have found their metaphoric pillows to cry into, there is still a trace of stardust cast into the air and which if we let it can come to rest on our eyes as we go about our everyday lives. 

So what is that sparkle that these strangers hold that transcends the lens and is caught in the flash bulbs of desire? I think it is a heady combination of single mindedness and human frailty. The strength and determination to succeed when others so often fail, is a quality the winners and the losers on the night share. To overcome our perceived weakness and use the gifts we have been given regardless of the obstacles that try to deter that achievement. It is a quality that can be found in the character of all life's great achievers and makes me wonder what us mere mortals could learn from their behaviour. I think it is to keep dreaming, no matter what the state of your reality because the mind can overcome matter and move mountains (or win golden statues if that's your game).

I found this artwork and quote on Pinterest shared by Karen Salmansohn (notsalmon.com) and I hope she forgives me using it here. Her website is well worth a visit if you want to find new ways of being and a new path to the goals you have set out for yourself. As she calls it 'self help for people who wouldn't be caught dead doing self help'.