Sat in the studio in my sun warmed studio life listening to Johnny Flynn, life couldn't feel much better. This week has been sun drenched and energy drenched as the Solstice has worked its magic. I really feel a part of nature, fuelled by the heat and light and elated with it; a complete contrast to how I feel in winter. I've used that energy in the worst way possible! I have completed all my accounting! Two studio moves last year had left my finances in complete disarray but now I am back on top and very ready for some creative time.
When not at the kitchen table doing paper work, it has been a week very much about gardens as everything around me makes the most of life. The allotment is exploding, the polytunnel astounds me with its fervour, producing radishes, yellow beetroot and purple basil. My plot outside the studio is giving us lettuce and cabbage, purple podded peas and rich-red chard. Eating has become a pleasurable concoction of fresh tastes and colours. At the weekend we were invited to the Weleda gardens and took great pleasure from their healing, peaceful powers. I want to bottle these days!
The weekend ebbed and flowed between sunshine and showers, tea and cake, delightful, heart warming conversations with artists, friends and visitors. Oh, I wish there were more days like these!
On the 15th and 16th June I will be taking part in a Secret Craft Fair in Loughborough. It will be the joyful union of gardening, art and craft at the open garden of Janet Currie. She will be proudly opening her garden for the first time as part of the NGS Open Gardens and will be the only garden in Loughborough to have received that accolade. Janet and partner Pete Mosley have got used to visitors being impressed by their home and garden when they host their regular Refectory Table events. So now it's your turn to enjoy it too.
I will be selling a range of garden inspired originals, prints, new decorative tiles and cards. You can read more about the event, here, and in an interview I did with Janet Currie, here.
A Slow Spring
Love and Life
Since moving in to my studio at the bottom of the garden, some of my work has been inspired by my home surroundings and my love of growing things. Looking out on to the garden watching the chickens and the birds go about their daily rituals and routines, I am inspired to keep on with mine. It really has been a slow spring but now my garden is glorying in its greenness.
I've been enjoying some 'Me' time and a bit of introspection. Life can seem a bit tangled and I've been trying to pull out the threads and re focus on goals, both personal and business. I've had my head in a couple of books that have really raised my positive energy.
'Never not a lovely moon' is an insightful visual essay by Caroline McHugh. Subtitled 'The art of being yourself' it's a celebration of all people and the uniqueness of each and everyone. Looking deeper I delved in to 'Instructions for Happiness and Success'. Running a business, a home and a family, it's become a default mechanism to always be worrying about what needs doing next and waiting for things to go wrong! I've been reprogramming this negativity and feeling so much more positive.
I've felt a bit lost with my creative goals. To address this, I've booked myself on a course with Pete Mosley and Janet Currie who run The Refectory Table. Hoping that they can help me plan out the next stage of my business and creative development. I've also been remembering the power of sleep. My self care package has seen me getting to bed early, going swimming, eating more healthily and taking a break from drinking alcohol. I feel like a new woman!
