A jumble of things

 A life of art can be a jumble of things, and I am often intrigued by the many threads of artiness that run through our days. Art does not simply qual studio time and making.

It seems to me an artful or art-full life is about noticing, re-visiting, thinking, planning, packing, preparing, practising, and posting at times.  The last week has held many of these moments!

To begin, I was excited to get the first book of the book exchange with Annwyn (https://annwyndean.co.uk) in the mail. We have no idea how our postal systems will cope with parcels heading off across the world at the moment, but we posted them on the same day and I know I am eagerly awaiting notice that mine has arrived; and am also eagerly awaiting receipt of her.s

Packed before posting.

We have been able to do quite a bit of walking into and around town during the break, and we passed by the log I wrote on outside David Linton's wood shop in the early hours of Christmas Day, when nobody else was about. It was nice to be able to stop and quietly observe its gentle and graceful ageing.

In sequence here is the first blog post about it in 2009; the second; the third once it was installed; the first weathering blog post in 2012; and here we are a decade later and weathering even more.

It seems to be at that point now, where legibility is reducing. The shapes of letters are still there; yet you need the other letters to put together words now. Sense is made by a sentence.

The way the swirls and whorls  in the wood play with the letters now is lovely. The letters ORY are almost missing from GLORY, yet the L remains strong. Which is kind of funny because I originally missed the L and it read as the GORY of God...the re-working may have meant those letters didn't last as well.

I liked that SHINE was still there.

And so too was LIGHT.

But some parts were well and truly faded...

I wondered if some of the letters had fallen down that crevice which has opened!

Practice continues.  One thing I have not been able to emulate from Brody's workshop is ink splatter. They I hold hte pen, load the pen, move the pen, the paper I am using, the ink I am using, the pen I am using. All of these might be the problem. I really want to be able to splatter ink! It is so expressive and enthusiastic, yet I do not seem to be able to make it happen.

Here I am with a large Automatic pen just trying to move it swiftly and create some marks; but also trying to see if splats might emerge. One or two did...

More practice needed I think.

And then to noticing. The rain had been hovering just beyond our reach - it seemed as if storms might be passing by just the other side. We stepped outside to see this - mist rolling in from the weather we weren't having, as the sun set; and the fragile, ethereal dance that they did together...