Transitions in wood

Busy-ness growing your business is fine to a point.

A pause for breath is sometimes necessary, although not always possible. Events and opportunities come along at uncontrollable times, and decision making becomes intense, quick and harsh.

The last few months have seen me become busier and more challenged than usual.

Dreaming about a potential goal, and then taking action to fulfill it, makes your perspective change radically. Everything can suddenly appear either a help or a hurdle to that goal...if we let it.

However, having listened to a lot of people over the years, I have begun to change that mindset. A massive paradigm shift to my belief system. The growing awareness that everything helps you to your goal once you begin that journey,and once you truly commit to the goal that you know, deep, deep inside is yours. Because you will stop at nothing to realise it. And your emotional responses can be trusted,to enable you to act in such a way to keep you on your path. I suppose the trick is to realise what your goal truly is.

The goal of becoming an artist is very close to me. The past few years have seen that develop. Finding a balance between my artistic life and my family and social life has always created a tension. It's difficult to get that balance right, and I often struggle. This summer, with having to balance nurturing my art business with friends and family and with working ad-hoq in temporary work situations for various employers to help finance the venture hasn't always resulted in an easy-osey flow!

One success of note though was my chance to combine things. Spending time with my nephew, Daniel before he left home for University and I left for my next six month art venture in Australia and New Zealand resulted in a joint art project. Taking old items to be thrown away or discarded helped us both be creative, and helped me guide Daniel in the creative process, and helped me spend good family time. And Mother got a garden picture in the bargain!

Dragonfly close-up

Installation in situ

Dragonfly

Daniel in action

Fun painting in the sun

Another nice interlude was gaining the company of dogs in my life by dog sitting. This year has seen me look after Juno and Toby and so couple my Wandering Artist work with house-sitting. Two lovely dogs to look after and such great fun to be around. I have really enjoyed the walks and the cuddles.

Me and Toby...a shared happy pant

Juno, ready to play

And house-sitting gave me time to develop new artwork, and this time to change the medium. To use wood as my canvas. Small pieces of ply-wood, that would otherwise have been used for firewood, I have been going through a research and development phase to get them to a canvas I can use in various ways.

Scottish Terrier on wooden block

Scottish Croft on wooden block

New Cosy Croft range

Working with wood has become more and more of my medium of choice lately. Finding wood that would otherwise go to scrap or be burned or generally left unused is a growing fascination.

And again, I have been able to combine this with temporary work as well as pursuit in art and craft. This time working for a wood pallet company. My daily tasks...sort and stack various wooden pallets. Various sizes, weights and condition. Who knew there were so many pallets! Standards, Standard Longs, CP2s, CP3s, EPALs, medium Euros, heavy Euros, Sevens, Nearlies, Blocks...the list goes on...and either good or bad condition...so all this plays to my need for order by sorting and stacking into relevant piles. A mindful day's work and one almighty workout! Hopefully my muscles may soon appear!

New uniform - safety first!

To make this work though meant giving up Maude!

Yes, the time had come to wander on without my motorhome and switch to a more work efficient van...called Red.

Farewell to Maude...a year's adventure...hope you have many more!

It was a bit of a wrench when she was driven up the road. We'd had many adventures together and it has been a fantastic year of transition...good and bad times. And for a while, she was my home and haven.

I recommend motorhoming to anyone considering it. To look at the horizon. To wonder what's over the hill and go there...without having to pack.

So during this phase of various work and artistic pursuits, what is my goal?

Part of me believes that I know it, but I also have a very intuitive side to my nature so a lot that drives me is perhaps unconscious.

I know there are a number of drivers in my life. To help people. To be creative. To improve myself and learn. These things happen no matter what I do or where I am (though learning is sometimes slow). But there does come a moment when things just click. When circumstances happen and your ability to choose becomes easier...where it no longer feels like a choice, but a necessity.

I have wanted to be many things in my life. A biologist, an artist, a graphic designer, an actor, a friend, a husband. These are all goals, but at the same time they could be described as the same higher goal. To succeed.

Now of course, being older, I also know that it includes not succeeding. But again, only if I keep the same mindset in place that restricts things to being separate. Or rather an either/or. To succeed or fail at something is pure illusion.

You are either something or you are not. Once you've decided to begin, you are simply on the journey, and so are already there. You are that thing.

So that old adage is true for me. The only true mistake is not to do it.

Or in a much more fun and new age way of quoting:

 'Do, or Do Not. There is no Try.' Yoda, A Galaxy, Far Far Away.

Elders and Elderflowers

It's been a while since I posted. In the last few months, I've had many a challenge. It has been a more focused period of my artistic life, as I have geared up to promoting my work more, and heading towards exhibition, as well as travelling around the country, making a living to help balance the artistic production.

Being an artist often means balancing what we love to do, with what helps to pay the bills. That means juggling alot. To build towards an exhibition means devoting alot of time that is not instantly rewarding, and also means I have to invest in product, and risk it not being profitable. That's part of the game.

New work development for market

Proud  Watchful Scottish Ram

And hence finding other work to help support my passion. The trade, to support the art, whilst I continue to develop, hopefully sell, and refine my current style.

The energy and resources needed to do this felt enormous, and we all have our limits. I often met mine this time! And I began to rely heavily on the people around me. For a listening ear. For advice. For sounding boards. Or perhaps just to witness the tears of frustration and small deaths that happen each day. The steps forward and the two back...that old cliche.

"Elders" is a word that began to resonate for me during this time. People in my life that although have walked different paths, have experienced life to an extent that they can advise, and in such a way that helps me grow, rather than to talk direction and tell me what to do.

My elders are not always older than me, although that is often the case. They just tend to be the person that I happen to be around, and when I listen closely to them, their advice can help. Perhaps not immediately, and perhaps not all is actually helpful in my specific case. However, there is always a sense of support, love, care, and compassion... and endless encouragement.

I rely so very heavily on these people. My mother, my aunts, my uncles, my sisters, brothers and their partners, my cousins.

Enjoying the sun with Mum in Cromer...searching for the goats!

My friends too...at this time the advice I have received from my lifelong friends Karen Roberts, Mary-Alice Lloyd, Steven Ahern and Anita Sauvage, have bouyed me up, kept me sane, and kept me going, as well as people I have worked with before, with Linsay Given-Black's timely calming couple of words at my first market experience at the Art & Craft Collective's monthly pop-up exhibitions. Big challenges have come and with them a feeling of what's important, what's right and what it means to truly love and care for someone when they go through difficulties, as well as successes.

Mary-Alice and me in the garden!

My nieces and nephews, although younger than me, are often times able to give young seeds of elderflower wisdom too.

We flower so very briefly, and these days I wonder about how I use, and journey through, my life. I can lose perspective at times as I go on with my goal and passion for art, and I reflect on remembering to enjoy the fruits of my labours, which are the people's friendship and experiences around me...and as my new antipodean friend Dave is apt to say...the rest is just bric-a-brac.

Sometimes the letting go of a goal helps to let us see where we get to whilst persuing it.

Alot of my blog may appear very positive and upbeat and very adventurous, and yes it is, some of the time.

Then there are the darker, scarier, fear-filled and lost times. The introspective times. The times when you doubt things, and lose things. Like friends, family, opportunity, keys to the motorhome, artwork, your temper, your perspective, your emotional control. Without the elders in my life, those that have lost these themselves, and so know; without them, I could not be writing this blog now.

So I got back to the UK in early spring, and during that time planned, worked, drove from place to place, and made elderflower cordial.

Mother-load

Elderflowers don't last very long. You get a burst of sweet scent, and a window of opportunity to gather them, place in boiled water with lemon and orange slices, and perhaps too much sugar for our own good, and hey presto, as we go into summer, we can keep the taste of it through the months, and if you freeze it, into the winter months too.

Journey along the canal in Muston, Leicestershire

It was one of the seasonal paid jobs I got to help finance myself during this time, and I have to say that it was one of the most joyous jobs I've done. Foraging in the Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire countryside in woods and beside canals, I was of course lucky to be doing it in full sunshine. You get paid by the kilo, and so you do have to pick an enormous number of flower heads, but during my cycling to work as an invigilator for schools, I'd noticed them growing along the canals, and so I was armed with fore-knowledge.

After elderflowers came the cherry, and making home made (and my first, and extremely frustrating attempt at) gluten-free cherry pie..I have my sister Louise to thank for my growing expertise with this "so-called" pastry ;-). Again, the cherry tree is fleeting, and you have to take advantage of the season, and I loved that aspect of reconnecting with nature.

Cherry tree view

I'm hopefully going to develop my ability at growing things. Creativity comes in all things, and in growing vegetables I have found a highly rewarding pursuit (although at this point I literally only have 4 baby cucumbers, so whether I actually have green fingers or not remains to be seen...only time will tell...

In the undergrowth!

Caught by the Mimihs

Arrived in Wales for my next voluntary visit in (and bring on the start of pronounciation challenges) Machynleth, the ancient capital of Wales.

Maude arrived in style this time. Having been driving over two days from Norfolk to Wales,  I had reached Shrewsbury and needed a top up of diesel. So, we pulled into the next garage, stopped next to the pump and I applied the handbrake as usual... and it came up much further than usual... with a loud snap!

Lucky for me, the forecourt was level and unusually for me I sat quite calmly and thought "ok, now what?" Walking into the garage produced advice for the local Halfords but by the time I got there, riding the clutch and with burning smell from the rear brakes having not totally disengaged, I pulled up close and phoned the breakdown people.

"Can you actually start the vehicle?" A calm measured voice asked me as I stood next to Maude in the dark in a business park.

"Yes" I said.

"Well technically it's not a breakdown".

My calmness began evaporating fast. After asserting my reluctance to journey without said handbreak, explaining that if someone hit me I would be unable to stop myself hitting another vehicle in front, and not being able to ride the clutch all the way to Wales, they eventually picked me up... Maude rode on the back of a truck for the rest of the trip and I had a great conversation with the rescue chap. We talked about everything and set the world aright and then got placed on a garage forecourt in Machynlleth... in time to be picked up by Jonni, and Stellar the Jack Russell... driving up the hill to their traditional Welsh house and my first look at the Gypsy caravan in which I would be spending my first few nights.

My beautiful bedroom for the next few nights

My morning view

Pippa had painted this caravan after being taught by a retired gypsy painter and such a lovely job. Pippa's skill was trulyevident. The wood burner inside was aptly named a "hobbit" and that night I felt really toasty.

Work at Pippa's and Jonni's was varied, and quite physically demanding. The location of their house and workshops was in an area of Wales that although stunning and beautiful, can be a bit unforgiving.

Sunset in Wales

Wood chopping, path digging, pipe burying, paving stone laying, vegetable garden digging, dog walking and dry stone wall excavation would see me kept busy for the next two weeks.

Going all Andy Goldsworthy with my wood chopping arrangement

Demanding, but mindful task of extracting an old dry stone wall

New paving

Preparing the land

I was joined in the second week by Noah and Lucy and Lucy was to introduce me to Mihmihs. Aboriginal Australian mythical creatures.

These strange, mythical beings were said to be around before humans, and taught them all sorts of things, including how to draw. They had very delicate bodies however, and very long necks which would break really easily, so they only ventured out on the stillest of days without a hint of wind.

Imagining the Mimihs

All was going quite well until into the second week I came a cropper with the slate of Wales. I would like to say that I was endeavouring to battle against the local mountain top, Cadair Idris, and hurt myself whilst rescuing someone...but no. I had Stellar, the Jack Russell, in Maude's cab, and whislt avoiding her and paying more attention to Stellar, than what I was doing, as I stepped out of Maude, I turned my ankle on the uneven ground. A very simple thing to do, but the effects were quite dramatic. Foot and ankle then promptly blew up to twice the size, and bruising would sweep across the whole of the foot, and it would take almost 2 weeks to settle down properly.

Walking (or hobbling) wounded

 To counter the slightly negative event, that night, whilst journaling, I would render Stellar into an entry, together with the outdoor bath (with fire underneath to heat it) that I would encounter whislt volunteering weed clearing help at Pippa and Jonni's neighbour down the road. This style of journaling was inspired by Donna, an artist I met previously at Breathing Space, Hickling, Norfolk.

Capturing Stellar

With all my tasks complete, I would have time in Wales and during the journey up North to explore two old childhood books. Books I still like to revisit.

Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising sequence, and the fourth novel in this Arthurian legend based series, The Grey King, is set in the very area surrounding Machynleth...and I would have a chance to visit the mountain, Cadair Idris, the Bearded Lake - Tal-y-Lyn, and Bird's Rock , Craig yr Aderyn (the only inland nesting area of the Cormorant). I was able to immerse myself within the atmosphere of the tales, and imagine the author's visits to this area. No wonder it could inspire such wonderful tales of a child's quest against the forces of the dark wrapped around the age old love story of Arthur, Lancelot  and Guinevere, and the modern day coming of the Pendragon.

Still waters on Tal-y-lyn at the foot of Cadair Idris

Bird Rock, Dysynni Valley

Travelling back over the border into Cheshire, would then see me visiting the other mythically based children's book, the Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner. This is set on Alderley Edge, near Macclesfield, and is the first book of a trilogy, again based on old English myths, this time around the guardian of the underworld, an old wizard, keeping safe the sleeping knights and their steeds, needed against the battle at the end of the world.

The Wizard is both Alderley Edge itself, and a pub on the Edge. Talking to a Cheshire man, who grew up in the local town of Alderley, it would m that there was a possible re-birth of the myth. The story is based on the a farmer who meets a Wizard on the Edge. The farmer is taking his horse to the local market. The Wizard, who has lost one of the steeds of the sleeping knights needs the farmer's horse. The farmer refuses the Wizard's price, thinking to get better at the market. The Wizard sees to it that the farmer will get no offers at the market, and on his return journey, the farmer again meets the Wizard. The Wizard tells the farmer to enter a cave and to take as much treasure as he likes in return for the horse, and this time the farmer accepts.

On talking about the Edge, the man I met told of the belief that there is a man (a scientist) that is living in a cave on Alderely Edge, and how this cave hasn't been found. Given the storyline of Alan Garner's third book in the trilogy, Boneland, I was forced to wonder whether myth formation was on its endless journey of recreation. I didn't mention the plot of the book to the man...keeping his serious belief in place.

I loved this mythically rich stage of my journey, wizards, kings, quests, mimihs and magic abounds!