having fun in the studio, plus addendum books!

LovE

Now that the exhibition is out of the way and new deadlines seem far-far-away, there's time to explore, experiment & enjoy, in as much as one can these days fraught with turmoil, war, anguish climate-change and many uncertainties as to how 'things' will pan out. So, realising I have no real influence whatsoever on the world stage, I return as always to the relative peace and calm of my small artsy world and find self making, painting, pondering...... when I'm not walking with Snoopy collecting walnuts, picking apples & pears or having a drink with a friend, I'm in the studio. I love the rainy days, I like the cold and darker hours as I get to light a fire and make stews on the woodburner....how that scent mingles with the inks and wet dog! I love the onset of Autumn

hæven HELL(O)

t r u t h

HOPE

DANSE MACABRE

Be stiLL my Beating 💓

on your knees 

I BEG YOUR PARDON SIR

COULD YOU AT LEAST WÆR SOMETHING DECENT DÆR!

WELL LOOKIE HERE HELLO ITTY BITTY BUGGIE

mind your step please

TAPTAPTAP

shake your booty

come to mama

(death becomes her)

oops i might have swallowed a mermaid

BEWÆR ØF THE DÓG

HELLO

FOLLOW your ❤

addendum:

These days I find myself reading several books at once, not something I normally tend to do. But they all require such a level of focused attention and as I usually read in bed before falling asleep, that’s not working for me (or the contents of the book). So I am skipping between these three, at different times of the day when I get the sense I can make sense of what I’m reading.

Number 1: ‘Your brain on art’  Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross, I became intrigued after reading about it on this post 'lost in the garden' from in bee creative Deborah Gorr’s blog; it doesn't disappoint.

Number 2: ‘The poetics of space’ Gaston Blanchard, Lacelady left a quote in a comment over at Grace’s Windthread last August, I was curious to know more having never heard of Blanchard before. Alas I am unable to find which post exactly. It makes for slow reading, I had to check up on several phrases f.e. epistemology, phenomenology, what??? Still committed. **I can at times be incredibly persistent and so I went down Grace's blog-rabbit hole looking for the post where LaceLady referred to this book and I realised I had been searching in the wrong year to begin with, not 2024 but 2023 and I did manage to find it 'touching in' 08/03/2023; it was rather wonderful to be lost again in Grace's world

Number 3: Hadewijch’s ‘Oerewoet, poems on love and loving’, I just fell in love with this old-Dutch word ‘oerewoet’ which translates as 'passionate, inner burning with desire, the intense sensation generated by love'. Words have held less. 

Hadewijch lived in the 13th century and recorded her visions, wrote letters and poems. She is rated as one of the greatest poets in Dutch literature. (information on the book cover). Despite all this I had never read anything of her work. I am slightly disappointed as the author and translator, pastoral theologian drs. Agnes Hoffschulte views Hadewijch’s poems through her own religious tinted glasses:  love/passion/oerewoet is all for god et al, an act of worship.  Personally I can imagine H. might have held passionate feelings for human beings of flesh and blood too, not solely for an abstract deity.

Also, since my stoicism course at the beginning of this year I am rather sceptical of ‘passion’ as the word means to suffer, why choose or subject yourself to suffering, I mean we all know you do not have to out of your way to encounter pain in your life. Maybe H. felt this desire for our lord wás a positive thing…..hmmm still love that word oerewoet. Jury's still out on this one....

Managed to finish* reading the entire interview with Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek (75) , what an interesting guy, even more to read. Always a boost to one's ego reading someone else's viewpoints coincide with one's own, if one respects the other person of course. Somewhere in my twenties I realised I was basically an optimist [there is no cure😁] with latent depressive undertones.

Let me leave you with this quote from the big man himself 'One should be a pessimist in theory and an optimist in practice' 

*find self skipping large chunks in newspaper articles these days, do I feel time has become more precious, and I do not want to waste it, or am I just becoming lazier?