Work Time

Working in the Studio means life is easier and more fluid.  It means no travelling and no childcare costs, it means being close to school and on hand if anyone is poorly.  It means being able to go and see Gold Badge Awards and going on local walks with 30 children.

It also means being very disciplined.  Saying No to a cup of coffee at the school gates, not agreeing to pop into town for a browse of the charity shops but taking yourself seriously and valueing the time between the demands of being a mother.  I'm still learning this discipline.

My main struggle is when the children are home, the ideas flow and the dreaming about the next painting or the next bit of creative writing, or the next mosaic dance around my brain with letters, colours and pictures and I'm usually well organised enough to scribble these ideas down....

However, when the week begins and school uniforms are washed and dried, homework is done, and stories read, I often just collapse in a heap.  I spend a lot of time thinking and not doing.

This leads to me feeling rather miserable and frustrated which leads to a non productive day such as yesterday, which in turn leads to the circle of depression which is enhanced by being unmotivated.  I then find myself in a spiral which can just get worse throughout the day, I speak less and become very introspective.

On the other hand, being in control of my work time means I can just grab the dog lead and head out over the fields, lifting my mood in time for the school run and before you know it, I'm laughing on the school yard with other parents and cheerful children are coming out to meet me, demanding to be fed.  We can then skip off happily home to play a game and I can let my imagination dream and plan my next time the house is silent of shouts, laughter and distraction.

I am having a very, very full on week.  Last Thursday, my daughter and I went to pick up her french exchange student, who is already a very elegant young lady even at 13.  So the weekend was spent showing her the Derbyshire Countryside and we caught the train to Matlock and walked back over the tors to Matlock Bath.  I took lots of photos of the most stunning views, that I have only driven past, which will provide the inspiration for some new landscape mixed media pieces.  Also found a bonus lovely old door...

I managed to get to a life drawing class last friday and immersed myself back in the flow of drawing.  I haven't done any life drawing for about 8 years, so my first attempt was very small as I had forgotten how to scale up when measuring.  Luckily, my friend who had taken me, hadn't forgotten and was able to show me how to do it properly.  Although the results weren't brilliant, they weren't too bad considering my lack of practice!  Not sure the models leg was really that shape... or that foreshortened, but I really enjoyed loosing myself in the practice of learning to draw again.  I used to be quite good at life drawing so hopefully I can relearn that skill again.

New Sketchbook!

Just received my sketchbook for the sketchbook project, I'm looking forward to getting on with it, I chose the subject 'fold and stitch', so will be doing some new experiments in it. I may take it with me to the Tin Ladies Non Birthday Meeting today... it would be good to do some scribbling and eating non birthday cake at the same time.

I've been drawing and using dyes a lot lately. I really enjoy doing this and can loose myself in that flow when drawing, that I can't achieve in other ways, the above image is one that I did last week. I've joined a website that is an artists community and had to pay to subscribe, this is forcing me to produce work as I am inherently quite tight with money, so I want to get my full use out of the site. It's also brought out my competitive side, which I usually keep dormant, I find myself wanting to be at the number 1 spot!

The second image is my interpretation of a photograph I took of some rocks. I enjoyed playing with Oil & Acrylics last weekend and this was the result. I'm enjoying working with mixed media for now.

Mattieu Ricard

I found Ricards talk very inspiring and relevant to my own current research, he uses the analogy of being at the bottom of the ocean, with the hard rocks as the depression and the being on top of the waves as the high mood, I have been thinking about collaborating with a friend and artist who is a film maker, to do something in a swimming pool that can relate to the halyconic feeling that swimming gives me, that weightless feeling of freedom as you settle our breathing into a rhythm and get into the flow of happiness. So hearing Ricard talk this morning as I cleaned and scrubbed the kitchen, was a welcome relevancy. Does this give the idea of filming in a pool a more critical edge because I can reference a philosopher and buddhist monk? Having never been very big on the criticalness of my own work, it makes the whole happiness project feel more exciting, and ultimately contributes to my own long term happiness.

The Flow

When I listened to the TED talk last week by Martin Seligman, he talked about levels of happiness. He talked about three levels that can lead to a happy life. The Pleasant Life - where you get as many pleasures as you can get from external sources, the hedonistic lifestyle. The Good Life - where he talks about stepping into the flow, you become absorbed in what you do and time stops and you become unaware of your feelings. The ultimate is of course the Meaningful Life, where you know your strengths and you use in the service of something higher than you are.

I have definitely have been in the Good Life today, time stopped and I became thoroughly absorbed in my art making, music was playing and I stopped worrying about what I was or wasn't feeling.

So I have come out of my studio at half six on a Sunday evening having been lost in the flow all day, and it feels like a very good life.