Today is suddenly September; the year has clicked smoothly into another gear, my lovely family have all returned to their distant homes, the Bank Holiday crowds have left until next season, somewhere in North Yorkshire the swallows will be gathering on the wires above my old home and I'm here, alone again, drinking green tea in the last house on the mountain.My daughter took these pictures on an idyllic evening walk around Crummock Water on Sunday evening. I'd never been to that side of the Lake and it felt so magical to be looking at a familiar view from a different angle and most of all to be sharing it with people I love. We made tea with the Kelly Kettle and ate a hastily prepared picnic of homemade cheese focaccia and peach cake while Terrible Grasmoor lit up pink in the sunset. There is something about the living in the Lake District that makes you want to be out exploring in a way I never really felt before. The North York Moors were "Home" and the landscape was beautiful but I was always quite happy mostly admiring it from the garden. Now what is it about wanting to get to the top, for no other reason than to look back down? Each Fell now labeled with the memory of the day it was climbed, the summit picnics and the names listed like a poem... Silver How, Helm Crag, Fleetwith Pike, Maiden Moor....
So, I have TWO exhibitions coming up and the table is covered with half finished things, labels, prints to be stitched, cellophane to battle with, price lists to write and as well as this I'm being whisked away on a train to Italy in a few days! The surprise trip was perfectly timed to celebrate (or distract me) since it will soon be a year since my evil neighbour stopped me in the supermarket to tell me I was losing my home. Its odd to think that this time last year I was planting autumn onions and garlic, picking the last strawberries and watching the swallows gather for the final time, with no idea what was about to happen... I suppose this is what life is and why you have to make the most of every moment, good and bad.
Anyway, this is one of the images I'm using to make some new cushions with the help of lovely Emma from Temporary Measure while the one below is a framed piece that will be at The Great Print Exhibition at the Rheged Centre near Penrith until November. Meanwhile Cumbria Printmakers C-Art Exhibition opens at Dalemain House, near Ullswater on September 12th. My work will be there but sadly I'll be away so please go if you can and let me know how it looks. There are loads of amazing printmakers taking part, all with links to Cumbria and I just hope my work stands up along side theirs and I don't feel too much like an imposter !
Well, it's almost time to go to bed. Tomorrow I'm doing my morning at the Calvert Trust Riding Centre, getting my weekly pony fix and feeling inspired by the wonderful work they do there. Its going to be a busy few days but hopefully there'll be time to look at the sky a bit and daydream.
Reading:- not enough! Listening To :- Underworld and REM and the fan on my computer going in to overload when I try to do anything on Photoshop
This past week or two I have been pondering the meaning of life and the secrets of success and happiness while traveling on slow trains, celebrating major life events in inspirational cities and continuing to explore the wonderful land of mountains, lakes and lush bracken jungle that I'm constantly surprised to be suddenly living in. Maybe I should have opted for Philosophy at university like my lovely brother (so I could say what I mean more clearly)... anyway it seemed to me, at low points, that success and happiness are almost always measured in monetary terms. I've been horrified this week by news stories about the Prime Minister's pay rise while doctors are being told they don't work hard enough, people work like hell to subsist on minimum wage, important benefits are cut and don't even start me on the proposed reforms to the hunting bill. It was the hypocrisy and lack of respect for anything other than Mammon that upset me most. It's easy to feel like a failure (professional, financial or personal) in a game someone else invented... and then to find out they're sitting on half the cards and the rule book. And so, yesterday I forced myself to look at what I had actually achieved in the day, a day in which I felt low and unmotivated, and it was this...
1. I finished some stitching on a print I hope to show at Dalemain House in September as part of C-Art 
2. A pan of gooseberries for a fool (!) and a plate of warm peanut butter biscuits. 
3. I made a climbing chalk bag from a piece of cyanotype printed fabric and other things found in a hastily packed box of fabrics.So, take away the crushing sense of failure that means I am too poor to buy a flat with a nice kitchen for my daughter, a house with a studio for my parents or a car that works for my son... surely all we need is food, warmth and shelter and a bit of love...oh and creativity. Everyone should be able to afford this by virtue of their daily work and I never will understand the crazy economics of a world that sets such inequalities at its heart.
Goodness, this wasn't meant to be a soap box tirade, sorry. Its just that I was in Bristol last week for my daughter's graduation. It was a lovely and emotional time and we had a lot of fun, saw some great exhibitions, ate delicious food and talked and talked about what to do after university, the search for meaningful work and a place to live. Walking around Clifton we chose our ideal homes in the leafy, flower scented avenues before returning to Stokes Croft and stepping over the collapsed homeless man in the street, wracked with guilt but powerless to help.
It is a proud and melancholy feeling to realise that both my children are now grown up and have the hats to prove it. My nest is very empty and now begins my slide into eccentric old age; I may collect gnomes or teddy bears and take them on trips to the supermarket in Keswick...So, leaving Bristol was hard.; it felt full of all kinds of life, diverse and creative, inspiring and shocking, but as the empty train trundled North and the sun fell in to the sea I felt excitement in the pit of my stomach to see the mountains silhouetted in the distance.And some bears are waiting, as well as a cupboard full of stuff to make a loaf of bread. The Fells are green and wet and really don't mind how slowly you climb them so long as when you get to the top you look back the way you came and feel overjoyed to be alive despite the struggle of the climb.
Reading:- "Titus Alone" Mervyn Peake Listening To:- Wind in the Sycamore trees
Another weekend is over and the house is silent apart from the sound of me munching my way through a second batch of homemade Jammie Dodgers (even though I tried to trap them in this dome). Worryingly this picture got more attention on my Instagram and Facebook pages than any artwork I've posted recently, maybe I should start drawing biscuits? Or just go and work in a bakery and knock all this art nonsense on the head! Anyway, I even switched the radio off today and just opened up the sliding doors to enjoy the birdsong... sunshine at last.
And so with the sunshine comes my annual attempt at consistent cyanotype print making. I'd already messed up on the one sunny day last week so I recoated the paper and tried to be more scientific ( setting my phone's stopwatch and then forgetting it was on silent). The results were fun; adding another layer to the pale. washed out print underneath. Then I coated some more paper and of course the sun went in; seems I will have to get a proper exposure unit set up if I want to keep doing this, it's just too hit and miss relying on Northern sunlight.
Still, in the moments when I'm not banging my head on the table in despair, I'm thinking about ideas for BCTF and wrestling with the sewing machine because I want to make silk things and the corners are impossible! This week I also discovered the Cumbrian Printmakers group who have a Kickstarter campaign to open a studio space not too far from here. They also do group exhibitions and events so I'm hoping they meet their target so maybe I can do some etching or screen printing in the future. At the moment they're looking for the person furthest away from Cumbria to back them ( just a pound ) ... could it be you?
The landscape is changing colour almost daily and the little black Herdwick lambs now have white spectacles as they start to get their grown up coats, they look so funny and a little bit naughty. This weekend was spent well away from water and canoes... we climbed Robinson again and picnicked on homemade cheese and rocket bread, hot spicy apple drinks and those addictive Jammie Dodgers. The previous evening we'd had a bit of a horrific sheep incident when Rupert and his friend discovered a big fat Swaledale hanging at an improbable angle from its spindly leg, which was trapped in a tree root on the bank side. He got the saw and managed to cut it free ( the root not the sheep's leg!) but it was clearly snapped like a twig; poor thing (although it hobbled off when I lifted it to it's feet). A neighbour called the farmer but he didn't come that night...or the next. Now in the old days, when I was naive and trusted people I would have called again ... but my experience with aggressive farmers in Snilesworth, who hate you just for being there, have scarred me for life and I'm just hoping they've taken it today.
In happier nature news Mrs Frazzle has two little chicks now ... one hatched so late that I almost threw the egg away thinking it was a dud but it turned out to be a really sweet black and white chick (and they both have smooth feathers thank goodness so fingers crossed they're not cockerels!)Other happy news is the fabulous graduation of my wonderfully amazing daughter who managed to get it all together for her final illustration project.It was nail biting at times as she perfected the techniques and ideas but I think the work is beautiful and thoughtful and the message behind it is really important. The exhibition is on at UWE, Bower Ashton, Bristol until June 11th and then at Free Range in London on the 25th. Well done Sara.