So we'll never forget.

While we're all reeling from the charade of supposed romance that is Valentine's Day (aka Hallmark Day), here's a guy who totally understands what romance REALLY is. That moment, captured forever.


I also love this photo, though am slightly put off by the guy on the left. At least the chap next to him had the decency to avert his eyes!

Words, artfully arranged to air the mind.

Hey, peeps. Long time no see! Sorry for going AWOL - that whole 'working too hard, playing too little' thing reared its ugly head again around August and led to a near-crippling bout of FML syndrome. I think I'm out of it now, though, and I've resolved to blog more often (if only to keep myself sane!).

Here's my first offering of 2011 - a bunch of 'get off your arse and enjoy yourself' motivational doodahs. Not highly original, I'll grant you, but it's things like these that have been helping me to see the beauty in life again.
























Come summertime I'll definitely be doing this. My counting partner of choice would be my lovely friend Lizzie - she's got a great eye for the precious, silent treasures in life.



Oh yeah, I'd almost forgotten - I'm in control here! ME! It's always baffled me that other people seem to believe they're so stuck in their lives, like the home they've created, friends they've made and job they've won are some kind of terminal disease. No matter who you are, what you do, there's nothing to stop you standing up right now, walking out of the door and never coming back - leaving all your books and underwear and responsibilities and running away to create an entirely new you.

It IS possible, but it's probably an unwise and cowardly way to deal with the stresses of life. But if such a radical change is possible, how hard can it be to make all the tiny little changes necessary to transform the life you have now into something richer and more nourishing? Sometimes all we need are tiny tweaks rather than a vast overhaul.

Hmmm... this one really got me thinking. It reminds me of a quote I found yesterday by Thomas B Macaulay: "The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out." If that's the case then I dread to think what my real character is! I'd definitely steal stuff, but small, inconsequential stuff that wouldn't harm anyone. I'm fairly sure that nicking flowers from a local park (thus never having to pay for flora again and always having a fresh-scented home) is rather different to robbing a bank.

I actually rather like the me that I am when nobody else is looking, but I often wonder if she's a person many people would recognise as being 'me'. She alternates between impulsiveness and dullness, makes bad decisions and gets caught up in the spiderweb of her own head. And I'm not sure she truly trusts anyone fully, especially not herself. I'm cool with that, but I'd imagine most other people wouldn't be.

And finally, because it was Valentine's Day yesterday...

Live hard. Love hard. Don't compromise, or waste your love on those who don't burn for you in the same way.

That is all.

Em x

A toast.

Today I raise a glass to past friends.

To those separated from me by oceans, death, mere laziness or a multitude of silly squabbles long since forgotten.

To those who really knew me, and to those who only thought they did.

To those who have changed, those who have remained heartachingly constant, and those who are still on a journey where change seems inevitable.

I miss you all, regardless of the reasons for our separation, and I hope that one day life will bring us back full circle so that we might start our friendship again, or joyfully discover that we don’t have to.

And also to all those friends still in my life, whether long-serving or recent recruits – I appreciate you more than you can imagine, and certainly more than I’ll ever have the balls to tell you.

Here’s to all of you – you amazing, gorgeous, strange, colourful people. May life bring you happiness, wisdom, humour and weird, exciting surprises in equal measures.

Em x

PS – the glass in question is full of iced laté. I’m so fucking middle class it hurts.

Heartfelt

Beautiful words for this gloomy-yet-beautiful day. This is how I feel about everyone - lovers and friends alike. I long for the same kind of passion in others and it nearly breaks my heart when I find it.

I told her, Don’t touch me that way. Don’t come at me with that sour-cream smile. Come at me as if I were worth your life—the life we make together. Take me like a turtle whose shell must be cracked, whose heart is ice, who needs your heat. Love me like a warrior, sweat up to your earlobes and all your hope between your teeth. Love me so I know I am at least as important as anything you have ever wanted.

I am the woman who has to love herself or die. If you are not as strong as I am, what will we make together? I am all muscle and wounded desire, and I need to know how strong we both can be.

Two or three things I know for sure, and one of them is how long it takes to learn to love yourself, how long it took me, how much love I need now. – Dorothy Allison

Hidey-holes, shiny stuff and crumbliness

So, my stroll in the park was rather productive - lots of photos, a few lungfulls of fresh air and a big bag of bark, seed pods and twiggy things for my collection. Hurrah! I also found some intriguing little nooks inhabited by unseen creepy crawlies which gave me all sorts of ideas for artwork. Now all I have to do is figure out how to actually make these visions swimming around in my head!

I love the way this bark seems to flow, like molten lava or candle wax. I could probably achieve a similar effect using wax, come to think of it, or layer upon layer of thick wet paint (but the necessary drying time would probably drive me insane).

Mmmm... craggy! I'd love to create something similar, packed with different textures and with those splashes of foreign-looking silver accentuated so it looks like the tree is bleeding precious metal instead of sap.








More lovely layers, more silvery glints (dried snail slime, I believe) and what looks like dark sap oozing down in an eerie waterfall. I love the metallic glints - how best to achieve this? Something as simple of metallic paint? Silver leaf?








Ah, a hidey nook! And what's that in there? I've no bloody clue, but don't you want to find out? This is what I love - any piece of art that makes you want to get in there and root around.

Aaagh! A monster! Run away! Oh, phew, it's just a root. Silly me. Still, though, doesn't he look scary? Like some monster from the deep that's crawled out to devour mankind with his fearsome tentacles.









Some pesky kids had clearly lit a fire on a wooden bench. I really wish they could appreciate what they'd created - look at those textures! I wonder if I could get that heated metal sheen using acrylics... Who knew vandalism could be so pretty!

Welcome to creepy spider corner. I think it belongs to a spider, anyhow. I hope so... He's left a trail of debris in front of his door. Is it to welcome people in or to ward them off? Somehow the red smear on the ground nearby makes me think he doesn't much like visitors...





Nobody's home. He left the door open, though, and look - he's made a little carpet for himself out of... what is that, wood grains? I wish I could have shrunk myself to get a better look inside.









Ok, rust effects. How the hell do I do that, then? This feels like the opposite of what I'm trying to create - attractiveness hiding a rotting core beneath. I might try to incorporate it, though. Sometimes rust can be a lot prettier than paint.






I love this stone column. Imagine how many thousands of children must have swung themselves around it before it became so worn and bent. It reminds me of bamboo. And what are those holes from? Hopefully not bullet holes - this really isn't that kind of town. Unless kids these days really don't like museums.

Not really my style photo-wise but I couldn't resist the vivid red against the wood grain. I'm a bit of a wuss when it comes to colour, you see. Maybe this little art adventure I'm embarking on is the start of a new, more colourful me? I'll be dying my hair purple before you know it!






And finally, just a silly photo from a moment that made me smile. I was attempting to get a photo of some beautifully flowing pond weed in a stream when a large, extremely happy-looking labrador splashed up to me, hopped out onto the pavement and seemed to grin with doggy joy as he bounded past me to play on the grass. He'd clearly enjoyed his swim! These are his drippy footprints - fun in the stream, then off to the next adventure. We should all live like dogs do.

Em x

Seeds of inspiration

In an effort to provoke my atrophied brain into creating something that isn't an email I've been carrying my fella's camera around a lot, snapping away at anything remotely inspirational. Here are a few of my favourites from the past couple of days, most of which I'll be attempting to use as the basis for a piece of mixed medium wall art.

These first few were taken the other day at my parents' house, the place I grew up in. It's a gorgeous old place in the arse end of nowhere and, as is often the way with people who are used to living comfortably within their means, they've got a wonderful healthy disrespect for things like cleanliness and order (when it comes to their house, at least!). There's no taming of the wild beast into a vision of manicured perfection here - the garden runs riot at this time of year and I love scrutinising hidden corners for crumbling brickwork, spider webs and lichen. Somehow the lack of order makes the place even more relaxing to visit, as if it's fine to just kick back and let mother nature do her thing.

I've always been fascinated by the idea of buried treasure and growing up in the countryside made finding it a likely possibility. If a young lady knew where to look (and wasn't afraid to get her hands and dress dirty) she could dig up all sorts of wonderful things that ordinary people might just walk past: rusty horseshoes hiding under feet of claggy soil, stones containing sparkling crystal veins just waiting to be washed off and appreciated. While others were playing top trumps or watching cartoons I was treasure hunting. As I've grown older the fascination has never left me and I've found myself becoming increasingly drawn to the tiny details others might miss, to strange textures and things hiding under other things. Yes, I might get some strange looks when I'm in a tourist spot and appear to be taking photos of a drain or a blank wall, but I want to make other people aware of the little, beautiful details they might miss. I want to show off my treasure!

I love the mix of textures here - the cold, regimented order of the wire against the fragile leaves and bright, spongey moss. I also like that while the wire mesh might appear to be dominant it's actually been pushed out by the leaves, presumably when they were wet and weighty. I'm sure there's some deep artistic message here about strength in frailty or imprisonment or somesuch, but I prefer simply to think of it as a beautiful, contradictory mess. I've no doubt I'll be using this idea of 'imprisoned textures' in some of my upcoming work.

I use to look at tree bark a lot as a child. I desperately still wanted to believe in fairies, Borrowers and suchlike and the undulating, craggy patterns trees created seemed like the perfect miniature landscapes for such creatures to explore. Deep knotholes or gaps under flaked bark would be the ideal place for a pixie to store gold or hide from the rain, no? While I'm not a massive fan of 'fairy art' I'll definitely be exploring the idea of little treasures saved in strange natural places, glinting out at the viewer. I like to look for the unexpected (and I like it even more when I find it!).

I suspect I may also get a copy of this photo printed for my wall - the colours make my eyes happy.

Back at my house the colours and textures are a tad more urban but no less fascinating. Abandoned cobwebs make the edge of this picture seem to fizz (when I come to recreating this effect I wonder if I should make some fake webs or steal the real deal? Would the spiders mind?) and even though my logical brain tells me the bubbles in the concrete are due to sh*tty council budgets and poor workmanship my artistic side tells me that they're beautiful. The whole image makes me think of some strange lunar landscape and I want to explore it.

Again, as is becoming a bit of a theme with the images I like, there's something of a contradiction going on. The concrete is sturdy, hard, long-lasting and unyielding and yet the frail, whispy cobwebs and strands of dried grass are slowly taking over. A decent gust of wind would blow them all away, but if left undisturbed for long enough they'd cover the concrete so completely that you'd never know it was there. This pleases me.

Ooh, god, I love old paint. Look at this beauty, found on my DIY shed door! Much, much nicer than a boring properly undercoated paint job.

In terms of practical application I've not quite figured out yet how to mimic this effect with acrylics. I believe a heat lamp may be required? Hmmm... Must do more research. Either way I can't wait to figure it out, then cruelly paint over some pretty wallpaper and allow the effect to work its magic. Again, it's all about reveal things that were once hidden - just a glint of a rich jewel colour or a swirl of pattern under all that white would be gorgeous. I might even attempt it with multiple, different-coloured coats of paint to create the sort of thing you see when stripping decades of old paints and wallpaper from the wall of an old house. That sort of hidden history has always made me very sad that I have yet to buy an old victorian house. But one day... ohhhh yes...

Out in the garden I found this old root from a supposedly dead pot plant, sitting on a rusty BBQ grill (I'm not the most houseproud of people). Again, I like the contradiction, but more than that I want to recreate that strange, writhing look of the root. Fabric wrapped in thread, perhaps? Wire? Plaster of paris?

I'd also like to try using a lot of found objects in my art - bits of driftwood, strange roots, seed pods... whatever I can lay my hands on. The question is, would it ruin these objects to cover them in paint? Perhaps it would enhance them? I'm seeing dull, dirt-encrusted roots wrapped in delicate strands of glass beads or lace. Ooh, this could be fun.

Again, roots on leaves and pebbles (my gardening attempts always start with such good intentions...). I must remember to collect some dried leaves when Autumn hits - they could be beautiful slathered in metallic paint or candle wax.

Where do you even get pebbles from these days? I'm sure most places would get a bit narky if I started nicking their decoration. Perhaps parks and beaches would be best - what better excuse for a day at the seaside? :) I'll also pop out into the farmer's field adjoining my parents' house, that place was always a treasure trove of pretty wonders when I was rock collecting as a child.

Yeah, I collected rocks. What of it?

Other things to add to my mixed medium bag of goodies? Hmmm... sand? Grit? Cocoons? Would using a dead butterfly be too morbid? Are dried flowers too old lady-ish? Sod the rules, I'm just going to play around and see what happens. When I produce a canvas entirely covered with dead spiders feel free to tell me I've lost it.

So, that's it so far. I started messing around with a few little canvases yesterday, trying out some techniques with glue, tissue and gesso (which I fear is too thin for anything properly sculptural). Photos of the work in progress soon but for now I'm off out to the park to see what bits of stuff I can pilfer, and to take some more photos. I found some beautiful black, charcoal grey and metallic white floral wallpaper yesterday too, which I'm hoping to hang in my office tomorrow. How's that for productive?! I'll no doubt end up putting it off until next week but hey, at least I've bought the stuff. That's a step forward, right?

Have a lovely day and I'll report back soon!

Em x

Why not?

I've been feeling pent up for a while now - that horrible cotton wool brain feeling that's not quite depression but definitely not happy clappy sunshine either, as if my brain's been shot with a tranquiliser dart. I've come to the conclusion that this is the result of two things:

1) My exceptionally silly job. Yes, it can be a huge amount of fun but more often than not it's just about waiting, working insanely hard for very little reward, talking about things I've almost no interest in and, above all, being very careful never to say what I really think. To anybody. Worse still, when I finally do do some hands-on work (no, not that kind of thing, filthy person!) the success or failure of the end result is pretty much entirely reliant on other people. Sod that. I'm a control freak - I need to feel in charge of something, goddamn it!

2) I've got too good at multi-tasking. Just because I'm feeling a bit depressed that doesn't mean those grey cells aren't firing. Oh gosh, no! It seems like I've pushed my natural multi-tasking ability to a dangerous new limit and I can now no longer even watch TV without simultaneously writing an email or playing a stupid puzzle game on my phone. It's exhausting, yet I somehow can't turn my brain off and enjoy just relaxing. I think I've forgotten what the word means!

All this means I'm stressed out and feeling creatively impotent. I'm not even actually getting anything constructive done, I feel trapped in my own half-decorated tip of a house, and it's been years since I've done anything remotely fun without feeling some kind of anxiety that I should be doing something else! I've got stuck in a frustrating, soul-less routine and I'm wasting some of the best years of my life. I can't remember the last time I even read a book.

This will not do at all.

I'm a creative person, I always have been, and I've come to the conclusion that I need to create things in order to feel truly alive. So that's what I'm going to bloody well do! If my brain wont let me relax then I'm going to start taking joy in the strange little things it isn't used to processing - that'll teach the bastard!

I'm going to write, paint, take photographs, ramble about the minutae of my everyday life that the 'other me' isn't allowed to talk about and generally see where the wind takes me. I'm going to escape for a little while every day.

It'll be fun.

Come with me.

Em x