The Lows

Sometimes I have an uncomfortable relationship with scrapbooking. In some contexts it has such a bad reputation, cutesy and twee, represented by the heavy use of certain items and a style that I will leave to your imagination. I certainly don't mean to disrespect anybody's work, I am speaking about a stereotypical image of scrapbooking. If I feel someone won't understand and I am not in a position to show them what I mean, I'll keep quiet about it, which feels like a betrayal of myself. I've had pages published, both in readers galleries and by commission. What I am aspiring to is my artwork and my scrapbooking becoming more integrated. I definitely believe that scrapbooking can be art. Any doubts? (check out Emily Falconbridge).
Windowcat

It has been an uneasy week. I haven't been sleeping well over the past week or so. I have neither been ill or healthy, just the usual teacher collapse at the start of the holidays, no doubt. I took our cat of beauty to the vet to have a couple of lumps looked at and he ended up being admitted today to have them cut out.  He is home now and well, but it has been a worrying few days.

Read More

Cleaning house

Dsc_2907 I have found over the last couple of years that life and the universe present me with themes on a regular basis. I forget the first one, but it was huge and important and relevant at the time. I seem to have two big concepts floating around at the moment: CONNECT! and clearing space.

So there I am in the art/sewing/junk/little bedroom trying to clear space. I want to make stuff, make art, make connections, and this room is supposed to be the core of that. So I am cleaning house, in the spiritual sense as much as the physical. I am shedding all the hoarding I have done, hoarding in place of doing: books bought without time to make anything; materials and instructions for techniques I tried & rejected; magpie findings; projects gone off the boil. All of that is there, plus books and papers from 7 years of college, boxes of memorabilia, coffee table and travel books. It is a constant sifting and resifting process, but with each cycle, a little more of the creative space underneath is uncovered. And the cat is rejoicing in each new space and claiming for his own. Ha!

Read More

Wabi-sabi

There is a very good definition of wabi-sabi here. In short though, it is the appreciation of beauty in the transitory and imperfect. I have always been drawn to such subjects in my photography. After Z gave me a lovely book she had decorated for my birthday, the craft paper pages inspired me in a wabi-sabi direction for some visual journalling. I had submitted them somewhere so couldn't share before. The bad news is they weren't chosen, the good news is that now I can show and tell. Anyway for me it is a really big thing just to submit them, a year ago I wouldn't have dared.

Summer_rain_lk A_little_bit_of_blue_lk
The_wind_blew_lk_2 These_things_lk
Read More