Solstice and Christmas

I've just had a lovely Solstice and Christmas. I do hope many of you can say the same, including those who don't celebrate either.

The source of much of my joy was, of course, other people. My community of friends came up trumps for the Solstice. A huge fire in deep snow; dogs haring round the field (didn't spot any hares dogging though) and children playing, building, running, laughing, sometimes crying, occasionally even sitting down. 

 Building the Solstice Fire

And the music, of course. We all added our magic in different ways, but I am blessed to have a group of friends who can conjure treasure from the air even with very cold fingers.

 Some of my beautiful, talented friends. (Husband on fiddle).

And there is me,  dancing on the right, with our bundled baby. And not making music.

I love to dance, my singing voice is not painful to passersby and I have a good sense of rhythm, so I can hand drum a bit, but I can play nothing which makes a tune. I was put off by years of enforced squawking, scraping and screeching on the recorder and violin. It was awful! If I were to play anything it would be cello, but I cannot bear the thought of dragging such a bulk about with me. I like to travel as light as possible (Ha ha say my fellow parents, but I can at least not take a cello too!).

But, one of my daughter's stocking presents on Christmas morning was a harmonica.  I had bought it for less than £2, so I'm guessing it's not top of the range. But I love it! My daughter hasn't sussed blowing yet, so she just sucks it, but I've been having so much fun demonstrating to entertain her. And it fits in my pocket. Perfect.

 Christmas Eve

(and my hair being indistinguishable from the plants behind!)

 So now I have yet another New Year's resolution - to learn to play the harmonica. And maybe that will help me move onto my other ambition of being one of the people brave enough to sing round fires. It's happened, but often the inspiration to sing is overwhelmed by shyness.

So I'm left with a couple of thoughts. I believe I'm shy and antisocial in groups, which fits with my relief that being a writer can, at least for the main part, be done alone. But some of my shiniest times are in company, and not always when I feel super-confident either. Sometimes, and here's the weird thing, I'm in company I'm a little unsure of, I feel shy and inhibited, and I still have a really good time. This will take more musing.

Also,  it becomes more and more apparent to me that all the ways I am a creative being enhance each other. And that other people's creativity enhances mine too. So maybe that impulse to massage the world into aesthetic form for a moment is, not the vulnerable exposure to others I sometimes veer away from, but my strand of the web which connects us all and feeds us, strengthens each of us.

 Dreamweaving Traditional Devonshire Yule Log

And isn't that a good way to enter the new year? Even if I don't stick to all my ad hoc resolutions, I can hold to this thought: that when I fear being creative with others, it will be the act of creation itself which will dispel the fear.

Happy New Year one and all! May all your most ambitious dreams come true :o).

Winter Trees

OK. You're safe today. No nudity, I promise. (If that's disappointing, check out Self Portrait). Instead, some 'proper' art (you know; a picture of a thing which has been painted many times before) that you could show to your Grandma.

Winter Trees

Acrylic on Card

9" x 6"

 Which is great. Because this little painting was a gift from me to my beloved Nana. I didn't know what she'd think of it when I sent it, but I hoped the thought would truly, in this case, count.

And it did.

In fact, it's quite amazing it got to her at all. I was pondering how to get it to her without it getting bent and thinking I'd prefer to present it to her in a frame, so in the end I just wedged the framed painting (glass and all) into a padded envelope and posted it. It dropped through my Nana's letterbox and landed on her doormat in one piece. 

This is doubly amazing because my Nana's part of London is pretty dodgy and it must have been an intriguing package. I remember (as a child) asking her why someone had drawn a chalk person in the road and getting some evasive reply about graffiti...

So, I knew it had arrived safely and of course my Nana said thank you and that she liked it very much. But it's hard to really know if a gift is genuinely appreciated, isn't it? Especially when it's art.

Unless chance steps in.

As my Nana lay dying (much sooner than we'd expected) in my parents' house, she was sad to be so far away from her own home in which she'd lived for decades with so many memories breathing from the walls.

So my uncle, who also lives in London, went round her house taking photos. It was the best we could manage at the time.

And guess what? The photo of the heart of her home; the living room mantelpiece, showed my humble little painting standing proudly amongst treasures from her long-departed husband.

Oh! 

And later I was told her visitors would be subjected to, 'My eldest granddaughter did that. Isn't it good?'

And although I know that many people have painted more impressive renditions of winter trees than I have managed here, I have a fondness for this little painting. 

And I think, yes, it is good, because when I, so foolishly it seemed, posted off that work and it thunked into my Nana's house, I sent her years of pleasure too, and a reassurance that her granddaughter, who was forever doing odd things in odd places with, frankly, some pretty odd people, thought about her and loved her enough to spend some time making a painting just for her.

And that's a grand achievement for any artwork.

Self Portrait

You may wish to look away now. Today's painting is a nude self portrait.

I did this years ago, as another part of the same Eagle's Wing shamanic course which birthed Cosmic Mother.

The assignment was to somehow create a representation of ourselves in the weeks between meetings. I had lots of lovely arty ideas with wonderful symbolism and abstract implications, but then I remembered this was not about pretty art.

This was an opportunity to dare to show myself totally honestly to a group of trusted allies.This was not a time for subtlety.

So I asked my then partner to photograph me naked and completely unposed; the full frontal if you will. No fig leaf cover-ups with my hair; not even a smile. 

The resultant photo was predictably cringe-worthy, but I painted what I saw as closely as I could.

 The chaos of emotion preceding this caused me to go a bit crazy with the background. A vibrant madness of multi-colour swirls kept me occupied for a while and delayed the painting proper.

Although I was free with my colours (I don't really have purple and yellow skin!), I stayed tonally accurate, which meant being truthful to my recently sunburned face and to those bits which had not seen the sun. Thus:

I even allowed the world to know that I have mismatched knees: one of my father's and one of my mother's:  

Interestingly, as I painted, I grew! My initial sketches gave me canvas space to move, to stretch if I needed to. But by the time I had finished, I was wedged hard between the top and the bottom.

This, I can now see, was very much what was happening in my life. I was growing, learning, finding strength and independence, even standing physically taller, and I was going to need to make big changes before that could be comfortable for anybody.

Self Portrait
Oil on Canvas
40" x 20"
 

So, although to some people I look uncomfortable here (and I was); for me this is a painting of quiet triumph. I was given a certain space to contain me and I pushed at the boundaries until I broke free.

And when I look at it now, I don't feel the cringe any more.

Sometimes, secretly, I even suspect there may be beauty here. Just maybe.

Cosmic Mother

OK. Brace yourselves. We're going into what may seem weird territory for some... But if you've started reading a post called 'Cosmic Mother', you're probably not scared easy.

So. Another painting by yours truly. And this one has a story, which I will tell a little tentatively because it has fronds reaching to the very core of my heart. 

Cosmic Mother

Oil on Canvas

16"x16"

I was on a course run by Eagle's Wing Centre for Contemporary Shamanism. 

Amongst other acts of crazy sanity, we buried ourselves alive. Yes. We dug our own graves and, like the free-thinking, independent warriors that we are, we followed instructions to get into them at sunset, lie down... and listen to the earth being shoveled over our wood and tarp roofs. The sound of soil hitting my roof in ever-quieter thuds and sprinkles may never leave me. I have rarely been so grateful to have recently peed. 

And then the strangest thing happened: I stopped feeling scared. In fact, I felt safer than usual; comforted, like a baby.

The Earth was holding me, I realised, not in her arms as she normally does when I walk her surface, but deeply in her womb. I felt a breadth of love I have only had sniffs of with people, even my very loving human mum.

And then... I knew. I had the most curious Russian-doll feeling that I was a baby in the womb of the Cosmic Mother and in my womb... Oh. So that's why the digging was so hard.

And the best feeling, of being able to express this booming love I was receiving, washed through me. I was a holy conduit calling into me the love of the universe and flowing it into the child I carried.   I was a mother.

All night I blissed and loved and dozed in this Russian-doll blessing. I spoke with my child; my boy. Not words; not mind; just a connection so I could sing my love into his tiny, tiny body and he could let me know how urgently he had wanted to contact me. Every time I recall his urgency I am so grateful to have had this unique experience. So grateful.

And at dawn, when others eagerly fled their graves, I was reluctant. I feared losing the love I'd felt. And, anyway, I didn't feel like breakfast. 

But, of course, the love stayed strong and is with me still.

My boy - he has a name, but I will hold that close to my chest for now - is not with me. When I was ten weeks pregnant he left. And I grieved like I had known him all my life.

And so I learned that the love of the Cosmic Mother is not pretty and easy and sweet in the way we often use the word. It is vast and powerful and sometimes terrifying. It is all truth and no mercy. And still I am grateful.

Perhaps, without the burial that night, I would have escaped the bereavement I experienced. But I would never have met my son. And what mother would choose to not know her child? Not this one.

The love I experienced that night now guides me, sometimes minute by minute, in the raising of my healthy, happy daughter.

I wish you all the luck to feel such love and the courage to withstand it.

Polar Bear

So, I've finally got round to  photographing some oil paintings I did a while ago. The work I'm in now is quite different and I'll show you it as it comes together. But to start, to push my head up through the clouds, I'll use each post to show you a new painting for a while, tell you a little about it... and hope it's sunny up there.

Polar Bear
Oil on Canvas
16"x16"

This is my favourite; my love; my all-time protector, mentor; my deepest, fiercest friend. This is Polar Bear. He stands behind me when I need to act with courage. He uses his amazing nose to scent for danger when I feel cautious and need reassurance. He has been known to decapitate a foe with one blow of his mighty paw. Yuk. But wow.

He kind of scares me. I mean, he is unquestionably on my side. Always. No matter what. But it's like that dizzy feeling you get when you look up at a mountain so huge you have to lean back... he's just awesome and I am grateful every day that he is my ally. I have been bigger, braver, stronger, more powerful so many times because I have Polar Bear back-up. Who wouldn't be?

Polar Bear is one of my very first paintings, and one of my favourites. I had learned nothing; all was intuition. I know several artists who treasure their earliest works. Any ideas why this might be? Do we lose something as we hone our skill? Or are we simply nostalgic for that canvas-virgin feeling. Actually, to this day I quake at the knees and tremble with excitement every time. (I am still talking about painting here.)

Polar Bear was in an exhibition of mine a couple of years ago. Although I sold other work, I priced Polar Bear way higher than everything else because I just wasn't sure I was ready to sell him. I'm still not. He would have to go somewhere very special. For now he's in my daughter's nursery. What better bodyguard could a little girl wish for?

Do let me know your thoughts. They're always appreciated. Thanks.

Flashpoint

So... today I restart this blog. I've given it a fresh coat of paint and reframed its reason for being. Maybe my reason for being.

I'd like to show you, honestly; courageously, my journey from being a woman who likes to write and paint in her (diminishing) spare time to being a creatrix who manifests all she needs through her arts.

I am at the end of maternity leave and desperately wish to avoid returning to employment which drains me and insists I present a sham self for the busy world's convenience.

I know a thousand, more, people would say, Me too!

I know so many have tried and crawled back to their old jobs, surrendering pride before they surrender their children's needs.

I know.

But I have to try.

I am frightened and I am determined.

My friends, watch this space...