Looking forward, looking back.

It strikes me that wherever we are on our life's path, sometimes just putting one foot in front of the other can be the hardest thing. You (I) can build an empire (ok, a small one) but if there's a break in the flow, it's hard to move forward.

Looking back at 2015 it has been a strange year. At the end of 2014 my health took a nose dive and so I started the year feeling very run down. Winter is a reflective time, but the time I spent with myself was full of negativity and I knew I needed to make some changes. I felt lost and blocked; creatively and spiritually. There's that balancing act in life of the relationship with yourself, and the outer relationship with family, friends and the bigger picture of the world.

I started working with a mentor, someone who could be a sounding board for a head full of conflicting ideas; someone who put me at the centre of the picture who would help me shape my life according to my dreams. And so started a journey towards more self awareness.

In connecting to myself again, I learnt to prioritise myself and to care for myself. I started to write and to use positive affirmations to fuel my heart. I took my life and looked at each and every part and I came to a renewed understanding of being me. I went back to my centre. And in that space I was able to see clearly. From that place I was able to write about who I am creatively, my inspirations, and about how I connect to life. I found a resilience and a determination to use the gift of my creativity. With the encouragement of my mentor, I wrote from my heart about my connection to nature as my life force. I need my garden, my chickens, the sunshine, the landscape. So many of us suffer from nature deficit disorder and seasonal adjustment disorder because we are so disconnected from the energy of the land. So my journey became a project to express my needs, to express where my art comes from.

Listen to an extract here.

The CD that arrived as a result of these writings surprised me! It wasn't what I was expecting! I feel vulnerable sharing it with the world, saying 'Hello, this is me; this is what life feels like for me.' And yet, I hope there is inspiration in my words for re-connecting with nature, both to our own inner nature, and to the miraculous beauty of the world. In committing my response to the seasons into writing, and then as recorded spoken word, I found a new respect for myself, my creativity and the power of nature to heal. If we could all spend time with nature, spend time creating from our hearts, honouring our humanity I really believe the world would be a better place. Taking the time to honour my own needs has certainly made me better.

I invite you to share my journey this year in the form of the spoken word CD that was born from my reflections. On the CD I talk about each season. I notice the small details of my world, I talk of colour and the footsteps towards becoming inspired to create my art. I invite you to visualise the seasons, to dream and to imagine. And then there are some simple tasks for engaging with the outdoors - walking, collecting, noticing. In calling the CD 'I am Nature' I wanted to remind myself, and others of our own uniqueness, and the need to honour that creative voice.

So, looking forward to 2016, I am focusing my workshops on nature as source and running a series of seasonal workshops called 'Inspiration from Nature'. My workshops invite you, at any stage of your creative journey to come and put a foot forward, to have a beginners mind, to empower yourself that you can, to reconnect with your creative spirit and nurture yourself. They can be bought singly or as a series of four that will share the building blocks of my mixed media art. I will also be running an art holiday in the Derbyshire/Staffordshire borders on the 9/10/11 of July. Called 'Back to Nature', there are three days of walking, sketching and mixed media collage workshops. There'll be a supportive, creative, beautiful environment, including an outdoor hot tub experience in the shadow of the dynamic hills that surround the farm. It's going to be fun, creative and utterly restorative!

I'm ending this year on a high. I'm rested and reinvigorated and ready for all that 2016 has to offer.  I hope you can join me at one of my events or exhibitions.

Wishing you a warm and creative festive season.

Helen
x

A Year of Inspiration from Nature

I've been busy getting my workshops planned for 2016 and they are all available to book in my shop and Eventbrite page.

I've planned seasonally inspired workshops throughout the year that will share the techniques and ideas behind my mixed media landscapes. Designed to fit together to give you creative confidence and help you develop your visual language, the days can stand alone or be booked as a set of four.

Book all four workshops together and receive a gift of my 'I am Nature - Working with Nature as Inspiration' CD and a mini print from my range (RRP £25)

Spring Sketchbooks - Saturday February 6th 2016

Mark Making - Saturday June 25th 2016

Evoking the Seasons - Saturday October 1st 2016

Stitch techniques with Paper - Saturday November 12th 2016

Helen Hallows Workshops 2015

Here is my workshop plan for 2015! I'll be running a Collaged Landscapes workshop every season, so four across the year. They'll be held in Long Eaton at the Long Eaton Art Room. The Long Eaton Art Room is a charity funded art centre/studio complex and after a few years of fundraising, the teaching room is fully fitted with sinks, toilets and disabled access. Long Eaton is just south of Nottingham, off junction 25 of the M1 so is accessible by car or train to Long Eaton station. There's plenty of off street parking at the Art Room.

Student work 2014

student work 2014

student work 2014

So, the dates I will be running my one day course are, February 28th, June 27th, October 3rd and November 7th (all Saturdays).

During the day I aim to introduce you to the techniques I use to create my landscape collages. There is an introductory talk about my work, creative development and inspirations. Then there is a  morning workshop creating papers to use for mixed media work, and an afternoon session creating and collaging a landscape piece. It's an intense day of ideas to invigorate and compliment your own creative practice, be that painting or textile based. Some experience of drawing is useful, but more than that is a willingness to try new processes.  Because of the time constraints of the day (10am - 4pm), there will not be time to try the stitch processes that I use in my work but I can give advice on that. You'll go home with papers to use and a small collaged landscape based on sketches and photos that you bring to the day.

Places are limited to eight. The day costs £65 and includes cake! There are cafes and shops near the venue to buy lunch. If you have any questions or would like to book, please contact me through my website www.helenhallows.com

If you would like to buy a place as a gift for someone else, gift vouchers are available.

One of the highlights of this year has been running Yoga & Creativity workshops with Lindsey Watson of Chandrayoga in Loughborough. Inspired by the seasons, we have offered one day retreats that are a mix of yoga, meditation, great food, and a creative collage workshop centring on imagery from the season and personal affirmation. Because of their success, we will be offering these special days in 2015. More details are on the Chandrayoga website. If you can't wait until next year we have a beautiful day planned to coincide with the Winter Solstice. "Stillness of Winter" day retreat will be held in Loughborough on Saturday December 20th 2014. We hope that it will be a day that gives sustenance and inspiration for the dark days of midwinter. Places are £60.

I really hope you'll join me in 2015 and share my creative journey!

A flush of rose, and the whole thing starts again

I've been having creative Wednesdays over the last few weeks exploring the landscapes on my doorstep. My work has often been about landscapes I've encountered on holiday, in East Anglia or Yorkshire. Living on the Derbyshire/Nottinghamshire border, I take the gently rolling hills around me very much for granted. They are not so breath taking as the drama of the Yorkshire Moors, not so striped as the layers of landscape you get as the land recedes across the flats of Norfolk. It's a landscape I have lived with for ten years and yet I haven't felt ownership of it.

When I was a teenager I fell in love with the writing of DH Lawrence. I devoured 'The Rainbow' and 'Women in Love' with their colourful and vivid descriptions of relationships. I have recently returned to his novels. 'Sons and Lovers' was written 100 years ago in 1913. I'm currently reading it and love Lawrence's writing about my (and his) local landscape. Returning to 'The Rainbow', the opening passage describes the farm land below Ilkeston "...where the Erewash twisted sluggishly through alder trees, separating Derbyshire from Nottinghamshire". Lawrence writes with the colour and symbolism I try to capture in my work. His themes of life, death and renewal share a common language with my themes of life's beauty and transience:

'The Ship of Death' - 9

And yet out of eternity, a thread
separates itself on the blackness,
a horizontal thread
that fumes a little with pallor upon the dark.

Is it illusion? or does the pallor fume
A little higher?
Ah wait, wait, for there's the dawn.
the cruel dawn of coming back to life out of oblivion.

Wait, wait, the little ship
drifting, beneath the ashy grey
of a flood-dawn

Wait, wait! even so, a flush of yellow
and strangely, O chilled wan soul, a flush of rose.

A flush of rose, and the whole thing starts again.

D H Lawrence

'Quietly the World Awakes'

Through his eyes I am enjoying my local world. Enjoying too his descriptions of his sense of claustrophobia in his life and its daily mundanities and rituals, and the sense of escape that getting in to the landscape offered him. Setting off on a Wednesday with a sketchbook and some drawing things I have a sense of purpose. I love the element of surprise and discovery. Mostly though it is being in the landscape, the sounds of the world, the light and the openness. I am so glad that winter is over and like the leaves on the trees I am being restored to life by the sunshine.

'Early One Morning' - in progress