Creative meanderings and Happy New Year!

Winter Hearth

My creativity seems to be hibernating, perhaps it's the cold and darkness; I always find my self wanting to curl into a dark warm nest at this time of year. I should love to write a long and entertaining post about the importance of giving yourself creative time off, but I'm  too busy curling up by the fire and reading  'Wintersmith' by Terry Pratchett! This is one of my favourite books by one of my favourite authors, and like all books I love, I can read it again and again and find more and more depth and meaning each time I read it.

Yes, time to sit and dream, poke the slumbering fire and read good books is vital to replenishing creativity. I have always found fire to be restorative and nurturing, and never more so than in the deep dark of winter. Here in the North of Scotland there seems to be an awful lot of dark - the sun doesn't manage to climb above the southern hills till after 8:00 in the morning and it's away back down again by 3:30

It's New Year's Eve and the sun has gone down and the wind is blowing colder now, my little white Christmas lights are reflecting in the windows as the last of the light drains out of the day. I like to spend some time on New Year's Eve musing about the past year and weighing up my progress against what I hoped it would be. The tally isn't too bad this year, I have been pushing myself to grow and learn, trying to leave behind the patterns I have grown out of (or should have grown out of but haven't!) and learning new tricks as I'm definitely not an old dog yet! As an artist one of the big challenges is organisation and orderliness, and although chaos runs rampant around me on my desk, I do at least know where most things actually are! I am gradually training myself into putting things back where they belong once I have finished with them - it makes life SO MUCH EASIER if tools and materials have a place to belong and are to be found in that place! I think that is my biggest New Year's Resolution - try and be tidy, put things away! If there is too much chaos in my life I find it clogs my creativity, my joy and my motivation. It takes less time than one would think to put shoes away as you take them off, or put the pens back in their pot once you have finished drawing.... Yes I may wear them or use them tomorrow - or I may not! Either way it's better now if they are where they belong.

My favourite walk is just two minutes' stride from my studio

Another resolution - I am going to spend some time outside EVERY DAY. Even if it's only 10 minutes, I need daylight and fresh air as much as I need to breathe. Some times I get so involved with creativity that I forget to stop and go for a little walk, rest my eyes on the green distances and MOVE! BREATHE! I need to look after my physical self - as I ask such a lot of my body it's only fair to be a good owner. And after all, you only get one, it's a precious resource. I have had a habit of ignoring it as much as possible and far more than is sensible - injuring my hands by continuing a job until it's finished even though I have wrenched something badly; crouching over my work table with my nose 6 inches from what I am doing for so long that I can barely stand up once I have finished 3 or 4 hours later; forgetting to drink any water for a day or two then wondering why I have a head ache... Yes this year I need to learn to take care of my body or it will clap out on my well before I have finished with it! There are just so many interesting things to do that I want to keep my body in as good a working order as I can for as long as I can. I am aware that I want to learn and do more things than I can possibly fit into one life time as it is! This is such a wonderful world and there are so many exciting things to learn!

Now I am going to go and stoke the fire, mull some home made elderberry wine and fish out some bees wax to do an intriguing old bit of fortune telling with! At Midnight we will open all the doors to let the Old Year out and the New Year in - and so we will welcome 2012. I wish you a beautiful New Year yourself, and may it be a blessed and wondrous year for the whole world.

This is Craig Valley - Home - and I hope to re-visit this, my favourite place in the whole world in 2012

Made by Hand and Music for Monday

My favourite things...

This is going to be a long and meandering thought journey, I can feel it coming on! Follow if you will!
All the things in this picture are hand made, except perhaps the knife, and even that is vintage. I use these things, and others like them, every day and I want to tell you what it is about them that makes them enrich my life and why I love them and feel that hand made is important.
In the photo is a collection of rather humble things that I snapped one morning, just because I liked the light and the random composition, as I was sitting down to breakfast. The table was my great Grandmother's, the knife my Grandmothers, the mug was one I bought new from a local potter and the rush mats I made my self some years ago with rushes I gathered from a lovely lochan that I lived near. The plate and pot I found on one of my regular hunts through a charity shop, a surprisingly good hunting ground for hand made.
What made me suddenly want to write about them was (prosaically) making a cup of herb tea - as I reached out and took down my lovely mug, a sudden jolt of delight went through me at the shape and texture of it in my hand, a small reminder from my senses of just how much joy it gives me to use this perfect (to me) mug. Why? Just why does the shape of this mug please my hands so? Is it because someone else made it with loving careful hands and joy in the making? I can picture to myself the meditative concentration of Brian the potter as his big hands flowed the clay from unresponsive inert lump into graceful and somehow living form. He has a very grounded and peaceful way of being and that is somehow embodied in his pottery. I never usually think about who made this mug, so that is only a tiny facet of the joy it gives me.
If I think about my great Granny's table it's a very different story - I have no idea who made it, not a clue! It's a wonky old thing, there are cracks in the top, scars all over, the top even comes right off if you try to lift the table up; but I love it. It has been scrubbed so often that the grain of the wood is weathered into ribs and the knots are polished shiny smooth. I think it's the years of continuity and history that make me love this table - there is something special in knowing that my Mum sat here as a child visiting her grandma, and my Grandmother before her grew up eating every meal at it. I too was pulled up to this table in my high chair when I was little, and perhaps, if I am lucky, my own daughter will sit at it one day...

key

I think it's time to stop rambling on now so I will leave you with a little hand made music from the wonderful Dougie MacLean.

Felting Tips

Time has slipped by and it's two weeks since I last wrote a post. Today's felting tip is going to be very brief as I have to prepare for a workshop and my internet connection at home has been too sketchy for writing. The wind plays havoc with our phone line and the last week or two have been WILD. It feels strange to only be able to connect with the on-line world at work.

When building a picture from a limited palette, blending the colours you do have into as many different combinations as possible gives more depth and interest than you would expect. 

Using two, three or even four colours at a time adds depth to the colours and therefore the whole piece.

Music for Monday - The Poozies

I have just discovered this band, thanks to my sister for playing this track at me the other night! So have a listen and see if you think they are as wonderful as I do... I think I shall be making big hints for my birthday!

Felting tips - playing with colour

So how did Christine get from a pile of white fleece to this finished piece? This picture was made using one of our felting kits with just 6 colours in it as well as the white.

First she added tiny wisps and pinches of the two shades of green

Gently patting the laid fibres helps to hold everything where you want it.

This example is being made with the "Peacock" colour way from our web shop. More tips coming next week as I have to get on with preparing art for an exhibition!

Felting Tips - using white

I thought perhaps some folks might be interested in tips from Mum and I about how to make felt. So here is the first "Felting Tip" from Diva Designs. Photos from me, hands in action from Christine - Mum!

We always use white merino as a background to our felt pictures for two reasons:

First, it makes the more expensive colours go further.

Second, it softens all the colours slightly and makes for a subtler overall effect.

hold the wool tops gently in one hand and pull off small tufts with the other hand

lay the tufts side by side in a row

add rows of tufts, overlapping by about a third, till you reach the size you want

lay a second layer of rows of tufts at right angles to the first layer

Once you have two layers of white laying at right-angles to each other you are ready to play with colour!

Work in progress....

I am working through a knotty stage of creating the Aphonomantes' Box just now. It feels as if it will NEVER be done, and as for the sketchbook that has to go with it? Yes, well....

So, as a perfectly legitimate distraction from the box, I have been working on CD sized art pieces for an annual exhibition at a fairly local gallery: Inchmore Gallery

Top "Flotsam" | bottom "Lost on the Tide

"Flotsam" is a felted and beaded piece with a lovely tangle of genuine flotsam that includes feathers and skeleton leaves.

"Lost on the Tide" is made from a gathering of found objects with felting and embroidery.


This has been a fun distraction from all the other things I "should" be doing - however it's time to get my nose to the grindstone and really work on the sketchbook for The Aphonomantes' Box. After much stomping round and round my extremely chaotic work table yesterday (accompanied by much grumbling and scowling) I began to see some progress in making sense of my back of the envelope sketches and jotted down ideas. I have this bad habit of trying ideas out in my head rather than actually making a mock-up of the possible techniques. So now I have to go back and show my different stages and discarded design elements in order to fill out my sketchbook.

Remind me next time that I want to start at the beginning and do the design brief first? It would make life SO much easier! I am already thinking about the next project - I really want the accessory to be a pair of boots. Perhaps I really have gone mad?
And the one after that? Oh, just a 6 ft span pair of wings. That's all. Or perhaps a tree house...

Or perhaps I shall just go and sit in a dark and padded room for a while?

As a light relief from all the intensity of mad creativity, I have been enjoying tending the hens every morning, letting them out for a run before we feed them and move their run to a new patch of the lawn.

They are officially my sister's hens, and this is her with them, but I seem to be enjoying the care of them at least as much as she is!
It is a very lovely and calm time, early each morning, pottering round the garden with the hens in tow, raking up their mess from the day before, fetching the food with them flocking round your ankles, watching them peck and scratch among the leaves and grass. they are surprisingly individual with Sol, the black one on the bench being the bravest and tamest; Goblin, (don't ask, I don't know why that's her name!) the grey disappearing round the bench, being very bossy of the others but very shy of us; Luna, white,( not in this photo due to being busy laying an egg) being very sweet and gentle with us and distinctly hen-pecked by the other hens; Ginger, hiding behind the bench, is not very distinctive yet, she is perhaps the most generic 'Hen' of the lot; and last but not least is the lovely speckled grey who somehow hasn't got a name yet!

Music for Monday

First, one of my favourite Loreena McKennitt tracks. This is such dreamy and wonderful music to work to, perfect for boosting my creativity! Sadly, I have lost my CD of her music, no idea how or when, but it's gone! Tragic but true.

I also give you a glimpse of the Aphonomantes' box. It's coming along slowly, and I am getting madder slowly, or perhaps not so slowly? This is a close up of the clasp mechanism that I eventually came up with. This I am pleased with!  The inside is not progressing so fast, I am feeling stuck - what, how, where do I place handles/knobs/drawer pulls??? How do I make it all look worn in and deep?
Who knows. I shall find out!

Meantime here is some more of Loreena's music for you to enjoy:

Music for Monday

Inspired by one of my favourite blog writers, over at  The Drawing Board , I would like to start sharing some of the music that lifts my heart and makes me feel creative. So here is the first band that always comes to my mind when asked what music I love: Ossian. They are a Celtic band from my childhood. My family used to go and listen to various folk bands playing live in our tiny west coast village halls. It was always wonderful and sometimes we would travel for over an hour up or down the coast to some other village where The Boys of the Loch, Ally Bain, Capercaillie or some other band were playing.


This grey Monday morning I am trying a bit of a strange operation - dip-dying a hat to change the colour of the crown as the lady who is buying it from me wants a black crown to her red brimmed hat rather than blue...

I have to do it at home as I haven't the facilities at  my studio for dying in a pot. I usually use a steamer and do space-dying. The strange set up with the woven willow ring that the hat brim is stitched to is to make sure that the brim stays out of the dye bath. I have my fingers in knots they are crossed so far! I have never tried to dye only one part of something before. It is bubbling away as I write...

Straight from the imagination - "The Aphonomantes' Box"

Gathering inspiration

I have been working on the first project for the second year of my City and Guilds Craft and design course. I am working to a deadline - it has to be finished by the end of November at the latest, and wow that pushes my buttons!

Usually if my inspiration gets low, or I run up against an unanswered 'how to' issue, I just stop and put the project to one side until I know what to do next! This time I am having to just push on through any hard places, and I have gone from the first wonderful "Oh what a beautiful idea!" all the way through "I can't do this!"(scream) and on into "I will, I shall, I can!!!"

beginning the first draft

playing with ideas

It's interesting to experience the stages of creativity so intensely, and to discover that it's possible to hunt out inspiration and push my way through resistance, confusion and the "can't do it" phase. I am now finally getting to the stage of really enjoying the process and feeling exhilarated and excited as it all begins to gel.

 For this project, I wanted to make a box belonging to a collector of silent songs and wordless stories. I am endlessly inspired by folklore and stories of all sorts, and have always felt that things have stories to tell if only I could listen well enough, perhaps with my eyes or my heart rather than the ears. It's this sense of unheard story that is what I want to attempt to convey with this piece.

The first big problem I ran up against was just how to depict this! What on earth is a silent song? How do you read a wordless story? I looked at Runes and Ogham, as although they are a form of writing, each individual character has a story embedded in it. From there I began to think about the Runic writing of things like a flight of birds, ripples on the water, twigs on a bare tree...

Wild Geese on the wing

 The next issue was what to call it, who is this strange person the I am making a collector's box for? I needed a word that doesn't exist... So I talked with a dear friend who is a qualified teacher of ancient Greek. Between us we came up with a new word that encapsulates the qualities that I feel belong to one who can collect and hear the silent and wordless songs and stories. She must be slightly, well, mad I guess. Perhaps she shares some of the qualities of a seer. She is one who listens so well that she can hear the Silent Songs of the World. She reads the story written by the graceful lines of age on the face of an Elder; the scribbled message left by a sand hopper when the tide is out; the long slow song of stone caressed by time and wind and water.

After a long hunt through my dear friends memory and dictionary she came up with this:

"So, I knew there was a cool Greek word for seer: it's mantes - mantes aphonos would be the seer without sound, but if you combine it to aphonomantes, which I think is better, you have the double meaning again: the seer of the soundless and the soundless seer."

And that was it. Love at first hearing!

After a bit more reserch I found that most translations of the Greek word Aphonos are "voiceless" whereas "speechless" is from the Greek "Alalos". However, I still feel that this is an appropriate meaning.
Mantes literally translated is "diviner"or more popularly "prophet" as is in the name given to the insect "Praying Mantis" (praying prophet). One definition of the word Mantes said it was "akin to the Greek word Mainesthai" which literally translates as "mad" (Mania). Perfect I think!

Painting the box parts a base colour.

 I certainly feel like I am going mad some of the time, I even work on this dratted, sorry, lovely box in my dreams! Perhaps next time I post I will be able to show you a real advance, and I won't feel quite so bats!

Introducing Ebony and my scattered life

Ebony sleeping.

Ebony is blind, has been since he was hit by a car as a wild and adventurous teen. However, this doesn't seem to stop him from having a fantastic life. When not curled up blissfully in a prime spot, he is out hunting and keeps my garden clear of rabbits and makes a big dent in the mice population.
Now why is a cat an important part of living a creative life? He keeps me grounded, sometimes going as far as to hook a claw in the back of my leg to bring me back to earth! He makes me laugh and reminds me of the importance of enjoying the little things in life like a spot by the fire, cuddles and play time.


Just now I really need his reminders as I have far too many things on the go at once. I am working flat out at the studio, trying to keep up with all the things that need making, to keep our little shop and gallery full - and at the same time I have my head full to the brim with my second year City and Guild's Craft and Design projects. Then there is the house and my large garden, time to spend with my lovely family and time needed for solitude to refresh the creative well. Yes, I am needing reminders to keep my head in the now and my feet on the ground.

Exploring Runes.

This is a page from my sketchbook for my next art piece. I am making a box that is inspired by collector's cases and apothecary's boxes. It belongs to a different kind of collector and doctor - one who collects silent songs and wordless stories. I will write more about "The Aphonomantes' Box" next time as it's now time to go and buy hens for my little sister's 18th birthday present!

This first post is short, I have no idea what my style will develop into or what I shall write about. Things will become clear no doubt! I just hope some of you will read and enjoy.