Here I am, finally sitting down to write my first blog post of 2017 almost a month late and on the day when everyone will probably be too busy planning their Trump Armageddon survival strategy to bother reading about what I've been up too. Thinking back to how excited and optimistic I felt when Obama was elected I got nostalgic and read lots of old posts which in turn reminded me what a really, really long time I've been doing this blogging thing and how it has been a constant throughout all the ups and downs of the past NINE years. I've made friends (and a few bizarre enemies), sold work, shared things I love, tested ideas and got on my soap box plenty of times. So, I'm belatedly raising a glass (well a mug of coffee) to 2017 and all the creative adventures it might hold ... but also hoping that somewhere there's some hippy love magic, thats been lying dormant in the world since 1967, strong enough to overpower the hate and division that feels so evident at the moment (well there has to be something good about turning 50 this year! 50!)
My excuses for not writing sooner are mostly to do with the Great MacBook Disaster which happened just before New Year's Eve as I snuggled up with my daughter to watch Jonathan Creek. She'd been working all through Christmas (getting hilariously bad, uncalled for Trip Advisor reviews for not being smiley enough whilst serving rude people their food on Christmas Day) so this was our little treat...only the screen went all psychedelic before going blue and that was the end of "The Kneewarmer" as I fondly called it. All my important things were -and still are - trapped inside it so I felt incredibly stressed until I decided to bite the bull on the horns and take the bullet which meant parting with £1,000 just days after leaving my job and driving back from Workington clutching a small cardboard box, feeling slightly sick. Anyway, as it turns out it was sort of a good thing, a new start, like opening a fresh sketchbook or tidying the cutlery drawer. I feel more organised and much less precious about some of those important things. Nothing else works...the sewing machine foot pedal melted to my sock this afternoon, my Wacom pen tablet is incompatible with the new Mac, the cutlery drawer keeps getting jammed and my phone is becoming obsolete but for now everything is lovely in the computer world...even that weird New Apple smell that is a little bit like curry.
I'm looking forward to being able to make some more interesting repeat designs for fabric prints now that I can in theory run a more up to date version of Photoshop. In theory because it costs real money and so far the free trial has made me realise I have a lot of learning to catch up on. I felt a bit angry with myself for not keeping up with all the changes and continuing to learn ( especially Illustrator which I've always wanted to use more but found quite annoying).I didn't really make any resolutions but I have decided to be a lot more committed to trying to make Etsy and online selling work for me; it has to. I got some good tips from a friend of Sara's who came to stay, and the initial results have been quite promising. Even after all these years I'm still not sure how to really crack that system and constantly slide into doubts about my work...if so many people like it why hasn't it sold? I think the reality might be that I'm uncomfortable about money and placing a cash value on something that is essentially - me. I know I'm not the only one to feel this way about their creative work. (Except by the way there is a 20%discount code in my Etsy shop until the 31st ... SNOWDROPS)
While Sara and Sophie were here we went to see La La Land, each with our own traumas and trigger points, three Art School graduates, one a little more crinkley and weather beaten, two newly single, all holding it together quite well in the circumstances! The bit that got to me was the sentiment behind these lyrics :- "Here's to the ones that dream, foolish as they may seem. Here's to the hearts that ache, here's to the mess we make". Whatever you think of the film, the thing I took from it was that maybe the world needs the people who have a dream to follow and don't fit into the boxes expected of them.
Oh dear, if you've read this far then you're wonderful because it's been a bit self indulgent, sorry. I think the start of the year (and the approach of a milestone) does lead to introspection and re-assesment but out walking today I wanted to write about other things. The mist cleared in the afternoon and when the sewing machine melted I took myself up the valley, plodding like an aged donkey, to look at the black water where we swam in in the summer, avoiding the bleaching bones of a long dead sheep. I dipped my hands in the water and tried to imagine jumping in today. Coming back down I was full of energy, bouncing along like a furry fell pony, enjoying the splash of boots through wet peat and loose stone paths running with water. Blencathra summit was floating like an island in the sky, separated from its truncated lower slopes by pastel clouds (or clods as my keyboard would prefer). Can you see it?And then a smell you could bottle and I'd buy the whole batch ...something like wet earth and dead bracken mixed with woodsmoke and moorland sedges, causing a sudden jolt of remembering, a physical reaction to the places in the past; bittersweet.
Time to feed the fire and brew more coffee. I'm adding a new bit to the end of these posts; as well as books and music, the website of a maker/ artist/ inspirational person who I admire for various reasons. That's why we're here isn't it...the internet should be about sharing the love. Happy New Year xReading:- Winter re-reading of all the Moomin books Listening to:- City of Stars from La La Land Shop/Web/Link:- A good friend from college who is always helpful, funny, strong and brave especially at the moment. She's also cracked the Etsyy thing so is pretty inspirational. Nutmeg and Arlo
I'm curled up by the fire with my new favourite mug full of coffee and a stack of mince pies; its been dark since 2 o'clock and wildly windy but here I am, cozy in my nest, just the comfortable sound of the stove chimney moaning slightly and the rain bubbling in the gutters. I've been thinking a lot this week about our carefully curated, aesthetically pleasing virtual lives and how we project ourselves to the outside world...a world where people are struggling just to exist, never mind taking pictures of their latest baking triumph or immaculate room decor. Sometimes the world just seems to be so full of craziness and greed and violence that writing a blog or drawing a bear or trying to sell the last pack of Christmas cards feels totally self-indulgent. Guilt and impotence in the face of world events can be quite paralysing, I want to DO something to help but I haven't the skills...or the money to salve my conscience. So many of the artists, makers and creative people I've "met" online have similar concerns (and I know that a group of people here in Keswick are organising themselves to try and offer practical help to Syrian refugees) that maybe we all just have to do what we can, try not to let compassion fatigue numb us and hope that small actions of peace and generosity can influence the bigger ones.
Well, even in the darkest times there has to be a little light and sitting here on the eve of Winter Solstice I'm taking the time to think about the coming year and how to be more positive, wondering what I can actually contribute to this swirly blue planet and also what I would like to achieve for myself in the year I turn 50 (oh good grief how soon that happened!). It is an introspective time, the deepest dark of midwinter- maybe I'll wake up tomorrow with a clear idea of what I want to be when I grow up, perhaps I'll get up early and toast the sunrise at Castlerigg with a flask of hot something...
Apart from all the worrying about the world this week I've been out in the outdoors where I climbed up above the mist and fog to emerge on the top of the highest mountain on the planet (it is a strange thing that it always feels like the highest mountain even when it's just a tall hill) I felt momentarily dizzy as the whole aspect changed suddenly and different parts of the landscape were revealed like a theatrical set. The mist rose and fell like a living thing and the surface of the cloud lake went from smooth opaque pool to stormy cauldron and back as the sun set. A cloud inversion like another reality where the mountains are islands and distance is impossible to judge. We would all have to live in tall houses above the storm line.
Back down in the thick fog and fading light we decided to have another go at swimming (last week we'd managed a quick dip in Loughrigg Tarn leaping about on the shore like nutters in gimp suits, doing the Floral Dance to warm up our screaming fingers and toes). This felt exciting and reckless but since we had no intention of swimming more than a few metres in the shallows of Rydal Water it also felt safe... hidden by the fog. I can't explain how magical it felt to plunge in to milky water that blended into the sky so perfectly there was no horizon; I imagine it would be terrifying if we'd gone too far from shore but the cold drove us back after about 10 seconds to dance a warm up jig before doing it all again. It was pitch dark by the time we trotted back through the wood, the mist so heavy that the water droplets hung in the beams of our head torches and our foggy breath bounced the light back in our eyes. Obviously I didn't take any pictures but I saw this on Instagram, taken on the same day, and it seemed too beautiful not to share. Its a picture by Paul Scully of Jenny Rice (who is clearly a lot braver and more photogenic than me- in a bikini rather than wetsuit); they were recently featured on the BBC's Open Country programme about the Lake District and Wordsworth.
So dear readers, tomorrow the nights will slowly slowly start to get shorter and already I can see snowdrop shoots where the birds have scuffled the fallen leaves away under the feeder. Still I'm hoping for snow and some brighter days before the rush of Spring. Right, it's time for me to remove my Polar Bear bobble hat and rinse off the henna mud that is plastered on my hair, my one misguided concession to hair styling, also I need to stop getting distracted and do some drawing (If you follow me on Facebook you'll know I've been posting a bear drawing for every day in December and I'm running out).
Happy Winter Solstice wherever you are, thank you for reading xReading: "Waterlog" ~Roger Deakin and The Barefoot Diaries
I'm writing this by the stove wearing mittens and several jumpers, facing the big sliding glass doors that replace what would once have been the barn doors to the top floor of a traditional Cumbrian bank barn. The ground rises steeply so that, while the other side of the house looks out on to the tops of trees and it's like being in a tree house, this view puts me at mole's-eye-level, watching the birds hopping about in the fallen leaves above my head. A wren like a fat mouse, two woodpeckers, whose scarlet feathers look pretty flashy for a Northern bird, nuthatches, tree creepers and all the usual bird feeder suspects just busy "being". Meanwhile, inside, the cat has been precariously and unusually (she's not cuddly) balanced on my leg, perfecting the art of looking casually relaxed in the most uncomfortable situations whilst I sit and wrestle with the meaning of life, a thousand forms of self inflicted angst and the awful guilt of needing to move my leg.Winter came a couple of days after I wrote the previous post and I think I'm missing the calming effects of swimming because I decided to hand my notice in at work yesterday after reasoning that life is too short for battles over dusters and it wasn't fair on either of us. Yet again I have cast myself adrift on a sea of ideology and land looks a long way off!
Perhaps Rupert has made the link between swimming and my emotions because last night he was reading up on cold water acclimatization and pricing up neoprene gloves and hats... maybe I'd better snap out of my blue mood quickly! Cold water swimming seems to be one of those things that are in vogue at the moment, a bit like the sudden popularity of the term Hygge. The connections with mental health are fairly well documented; I don't think it's surprising that various ideas of "self care" and ways of tuning in to, and finding solace in, the natural world are popular at the moment- a time when the world seems particularly precarious and ideological divisions are widening.
Here in this corner of the Cumbrian mountains the snow came like a gift to a million Instagrammers. Experienced mountain types dashed out to enjoy the alpine conditions from the tops while at lake level the rest of us had trouble getting anything done because there was too much lovliness everywhere you looked...dazzling snow with firey autumn leaves, azure skies, frosted rose hips and pink alpenglow evenings.
If you have been reading this blog for more than one winter you will know that snow and winter are a special time for me - despite the constant moaning about cold fingers and trying to feed a ravenous stove. I'm hoping that inspiration will strike as it often does in the long winter nights; time to reflect and reassess is part of the creative process but it often feels self indulgent and it's easy to feel guilty when you're not as busy as those birds outside the window.Last week I had a huge last minute treat which was a place on a "Quirky Workshop" in Greystoke with Emma Redfern. We spent all day being shown how to make messenger bags, being fed and indulging in the luxury of taking time to make something. I used a half finished embroidery project I hastily took with me as well as some pieces of Spoonflower fabric; luckily Emma and my table neighbour Tara were able to let me use some of their lovely fabrics too as I hadn't had time to get any myself. A guilty pleasure or a vital reminder of the importance of companionship, craft and simple pleasures? I certainly felt inspired and happy that evening and more than ever aware of the dangers of too much solitude and creative isolation.
Now it's getting dark outside and the trees are just silhouettes against an elephant grey sky. Time to close the curtains, stoke up the fire and get busy in the real world instead of this virtual one. Thank you for reading x
Reading: "Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow" Peter Høeg and "What They Didn't Teach You in in Art School" Rosalind Davis & Annabel TilleyListening To: I've been listening to "Carrie's War" by Nina Bawden on the radio, in the bath, because nothing quite beats warm bubbly water and a story from your childhood to make life seem proper cozy :)