Hiding in the mundane

Having visitors to stay. Attempting to have some time off. Interesting.

Out of my normal routines, I knew I wanted to keep some writing momentum going, so I filled notebook pages as usual, though squeezed it in between other stuff and the not-much-happening brain dead times of holidays.

While the pen was busy on the page, it seemed like all I wrote about was late trains, holiday traffic, how hot it was and how the beach was always packed with people.

April is NaPoWriMo and because I'd planned a holiday break, I didn't sign up. However, I've been retrieving poems from my notebook all month, fishing them out. I've kept them together, one from each day. Kept an eye on them. And I assumed there would be a gap from my busy time unless I could patch a poem from scraps of those late trains, traffic, heat and packed beaches.

Interesting to look back with no expectation. And a lovely surprise. Hiding in the mundane, in the nondescript, in the nothing happening, everything was going along just fine, as if it was doing it without me. Fledgling poems and raw material I can come back to. More to add to my pile. One from each day. I could peg them out in a line like Royal Wedding bunting, have them breezing along the washing line, let them flutter like the tail streamers on a kite.

And some will come into shape and I'll let others fly free.

In progress

Beach, garden, paddling, walking. England's early Summer shine is a beautiful surprise. Can't believe I'm walking around in sandals in April and hoping I put enough sunscreen on.

The potatoes are in, the broccoli has had enough of the heat, the apple blossom is just pushing through, the sky is gorgeous every day and the light makes it impossible to stay indoors.

But, I had booked onto a couple of workshops this week. The photo shows a huge piece, possibly my biggest ever at about 4 ft x 3 ft that shook away all sorts of cobwebs. It's been too long since I spent time with art materials in my hands - things beginning with v or w always seem to take first pick on my time and energy.

The location was Fabrica where the current installation is The Forty Part Motet by Janet Cardiff. It's a shame you can't be there as it's hard to describe the feeling of working amongst this sound and to see the model move through such a space as lines danced across the page and the daylight swung across the gallery.

How to reconnect with drawing!!

Optimism

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Gate post above Alfriston.

Almost at the top. The gates are long gone, but the posts remain, weathered by the elements, totemic against vast skies.

Every direction you look, it's like the land gives way to the vastness of the sky, observes the canvas in progress just like you. Clouds are brushed, crimped, ridged, swished, ruffled, scrunched, blasted, swept ragged across the blue.

When you lie down and gaze up, there's no other thing in your peripheral vision. You feel the hum of the earth like a happy roar.

Optimism is a west wind sculpting the sky.

Whisperings

You had to somehow mute your own heartbeat, wait almost longer than you could bear. But if you found a way to disappear into the background hum of earth shift and sky roar, you might just hear the contour of her whisperings as clearly as if your hand ran over every rise and fall.

2.25

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the angle of sunlight

a metallic spate in the waves

orange hints in the pitted chalk cliffs

2.25