I love Christmas but....

it does take a lot of time and energy!

Black and Gold

This shows two paintings more typical of my current work. The black and gold one (I don't always have titles for my work - although it will get confusing when I do another black and gold one!) is my most recently finished work - it had been very dark, and I knew it wasn't quite finished, and when I picked it up again I'd just bought some lovely gold paint.... it's currently one of my favourites.

Angel Wing

I took some of my paintings into the library I work at, for an Arts day we were having. It was interesting to be able to see my work from a distance and in a different environment. It felt good to exhibit if only for a day! I was also running a workshop on creating art from recycled materials.


This painting is called Angel Wing ( done in acrylic on canvas) most of my work is abstract but there a couple of unfinished works that are part of a series with Angel Wing, where the starting point was the four elements, earth, air, fire and water. I had done a series back in the 90s which also explored the elements, and having had a long break from painting it seemed good to go back to some paintings I had been very pleased with, and use them as a starting point. I will write more about this when I have some more images to show - the earlier work is quite different.

Community, Connection and Individuality

Tonight I've been to a Movement Medicine workshop with Susannah Darling-Khan. It always feels so good to dance, and emotionally I'm in a much better space than before I went. Something Susannah said really struck a chord with me - she was talking about how important it was to be individual, to be able to be different and independent, but how you also need connection, how we need to create communities of individuals, not of conformity. We were exploring this in the dance - dancing our own dance then connecting with other people, but it feels so much easier doing it in that context than creating it in our lives.

I feel there has always been a tension for me between being individual and wanting to be part of a group or community, the cost of community has been too much conformity and I'd rather be alone than have to conform in order to belong. I still seek community and of course have found it, to some extent with groups of friends, but it feels a long time since I felt the wider sense of community I sometimes experienced as part of the Women's Movement of the 70s and 80s. Although I often felt an outsider there too...

Taking a long time...

It always takes me a long time to actually get round to doing something... I have intended to create a website, or once I discovered blogging, a blog, since I got access to the internet which was probably 10 years ago...hey ho... Actually the first really long word I learnt was procrastinate....

But I'm here now! Bringing you, my eager audience, my profound thoughts on my art and creative work, or whatever else I feel like writing about. I could simply be adding another howling voice to the cacophony of the internet, but never mind, I'm sure one or two friends will be interested!

My intention is to show photos of my paintings and other creative work and write about what I'm doing. I expect I'll also write about other stuff, as I don't create in a vacumn, although my work at the moment tends to be personal (if abstract) but I have in the past created political stuff. I'm going to post this - as then I will really have begun!