After quite an extended hiatus from blog posting over the last two months..finally here are a few words and update from the studio....

A very warm 2018 for all folk who pop in to look at my blog here.

Since my last blog post way back in late November ( I think it was?) there has been so much happening here for me personally. I'm afraid because of this, until very recently I have not had the focus to either write here or spend much time in the studio creatively as I have very much been inwardly working though the events of the last weeks.

To put things into context a little more...I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I was heading away north to spend a little time in a retreat centre before heading further south for time with family... Well, yes, I did go on to have two days at a wonderful place of respite and spiritual retreat in the largest city of the country I live in which was a great and rather inwardly re connecting time I have to say, to then spend time further south with family getting to know a little more my niece who turned three. It meant a lot to me personally to be able to be present with her and my family for her 3rd birthday.

It really has been quite a dialectical time in many ways as both joy and sorrow have been so very present, as I then returned home after my time away to the news of the very unexpected death of one of my special little pet bunnies 'Poppy'. It was a terrible shock and I am missing her terribly working through the grief  (but simultaneously know she is now happy bounding over fields of joy in the new celestial abode she now resides in). Then three weeks later on Christmas eve of all days, I went on to develop potentially life threatening 'heart related' issues experiencing a rather alarming coronary related event. This is something I am still very much in the throes of coming to terms with and may have been triggered by a heart issue that unfortunately may also be ongoing in its management.
It is often a real journey and challenging to get ones head around any new health issue that arises and then adjust and find ways of living with the new information and symptoms. That is very much the process I am still very much with as I integrate what happened.

With so many out of the ordinary and big events happening the past two months since my last post here, it has to be honest been really hard to find my creative feet, however, saying this I have over the last couple of weeks re dipped my toes through the studio door and found myself amidst a madly creative flurry re visiting a painting I started - but never completed - four years ago when I shared a studio with another artist in the previous city I lived in.... Photo to come shortly....

As I have not done that much actual painting over the last year and have instead been focusing on the small collaged jewellery, it has to be honest been really good to be donning my painting apron once again and to be working toward completing the peice I will submit into a group show at a gallery here where I live along with fellow attendees of a creative space that I attend sporadicaly throughout the year. This will be the second time over the last year since the big move I will have shown my work. I had a previous piece (a collage) in a group exhibition held in October during ' Mental Health Awareness Week. '
Not having exhibited prior to the just mentioned collage, since 2013, and even with all the recent challenges, I am feeling excited to be exhibiting something again albeit along with all the emotional challenges around exhibiting work that often come to the surface. Issues around self confidence, self doubt and anxiety around putting work out into the public arena and working with often very present internal critic etc.. all those really challenging emotions that I guess are probably relatively universal among the creative souls of the world who sell and exhibit work.