Time out of time

picture credit: Rebirth by Greg Spalenka

it's that time of year again - the 'time out of time' - a threshold time, between Winter Solstice and New Year. a time to reflect on what has past and a time to hope for what is to come...

i subscribe to joanna powell colbert's newsletter and she's generously giving a free e-booklet she's written about this magical, liminal time...

over the next few days, i plan to work through it and prepare myself for 2011.

so i wish you all a peaceful piece of time to ponder the gifts and trials of this past year, and a sacred space alone to articulate your hopes and dreams for the new year.

i leave you with a poem by lawrence sail in his songs of the darkness (a lovely xmas gift from a dear friend):

The Glimmering

The horizon draws the line

at having been tamped down

all through a slutchy autumn,

moves in as a caul

of rain which blears the hills,

hissing like the prefix that history

adds to words and laughter:

finally, shrinks to the glimmering

from under a stable door,

a straw-breath of light which can only

imply the warmth of spring

or the memory of it - the long

pursed buds of the lily

peeling open on the angel's wand.

Still snowing....

just to let you see how our garden's looking in this latest 'cold snap'...

it's been snowing on and off for four days - quite a lengthy snap...

there's a pillow, roughly six inches deep, of undisturbed snow on our garden furniture!

thankfully we're all safe and warm and our cupboards are full - for now! but the kids' schools are closed until next week, so i doubt they'll stay full for long :)

More books...

thankfully i've escaped the funk...
due in no small part to these wonderful books :)
a pattern is emerging, which is strangely new to me...
i get stuck, feeling i can't get out; i read an art book (at the moment art theory rather than practice), and i'm inspired to draw something - anything!
if this is an ungoing phenomenon - which is so hope it is - i can only be good :)
on not being able to paint is what got me out of this latest corner - bless you, marion milner, wherever your spirit may be! and i just started the kandinsky book (i love the cover!) this morning and i had to draw...
i'm realizing i need to think long and deeply about a number of things:


why do i draw?
what does it mean to me?
do i want to draw naturalistically or expressionistically? does it matter?
am i drawing just for me or to communicate something?
does the medium matter? i.e. charcoal, pastel, biro

i think these questions, and hopefully answers, belong more in my OCA learning log, so as i work through them, i may leave this blog for a while... but you're more than welcome to drop by Mark out the Sensual Life :)

Help!

this was recommended to me and i pass on the recommendation - but with a caveat: cave verbi (beware the words)!!

this is a deceptively simple book - most pages are half-blank and it takes next to no time to read - but oh my!! it does exactly what it says on the cover: 'A vital gem... a kick in the ass', and you have to decide if you actually want a kick in the derriere...

i confess i've had a hard couple of weeks and i simply cannot get motivated to complete the next set of exercises on my art course. they're not hard, by any means, but there are too other things to be doing...

basically, i'm falling prey to Resistance!!

the book tells me exactly what i have to do to win this battle - i simply need to show up every day and do my work - a writer writes, a painter paints, a computer programmer programs - but my problem is I don't know what my work is!!!

is this art course my work?

is being a wife and a mother my work?

is recovering from a stroke my work?

is learning about my favourite artists my work?

is work only what you get paid for?

is work what feeds your soul? your life purpose? your raison d'etre?

too many questions, and still no answers...

HELP!!!

A grand day out

i had a wonderful day on saturday!

i braved the train - for the first time since the stroke - and headed to sheffield, where a friend from harrogate met me. we then had a leisurely early lunch before the matinee performance at the crucible...

of course it was a full house, for a truly excellent performance!

john simm is one of my favourite actors, and once i'd got used to his voice - it sounded higher than usual - whether it was showing the strain of the past 50+ performances, or it was his interpretation of a teenage prince, i'm not sure - i was completely enthralled!

every actor - except a couple - was at the top of his/her game - it was a true company performance. hugh ross played polonius for laughs, rather than the bumbling fool; dylan brown and adam foster were great as rosencrantz and guildenstern - as were all the supporting cast of guards/players; i loved colin tierney's horatio and michelle dockery and barbara flynn were excellent as ophelia and gertrude.

All of which allowed john simm the space to deliver a beautifully nuanced hamlet. his madness wasn't overly manic - as david tennant's portrayal had a tendency to be. at times, he was the understandably grieving son, and at others, the trunculent teenager - 'if you want me to be mad, i'll show you mad'. sometimes he was the most lucid, rational person on the stage working through the complex relationship with his mother - the disgust at the speed of her marriage to claudius mixed with oedipal undertones...

the only weak performances were by john nettles - sooooo out of his depth as claudius (though, he was a fine ghost, greatly aided by wonderful lighting and audio effects!); and tim delap as laertes, who's voice was clearly suffering the effects of multiple performances!

the script was brilliantly edited - it was a 3 hour performance with an interval - and flowed seamlessly; and the nicely produced programme is a wonderful reminder of a truly great day out :)

If you're interested...

... i've just started my OCA learning log blog - try saying that when you're a tad tipsy! part of the course requirement is to keep a learning log of thoughts, feelings, responses as well as sketchbooks with actual drawings. and since handwriting is hard work for me, keeping a blog is ideal :)

i'm hoping i can keep both blogs going as i take my drawing course, but if there's a long hiatus here, it's probably because i'm trying to be a student again...

how i LOVE that phrase!!!

http://mark-out-the-sensual-life.blogspot.com/

Red Letter Day

i've done it!
it's official!!
i am now an OCA student!!!!
i enrolled earlier this week and my welcome pack arrived today - i've even got a student card - OMG!!!!!!

on sue's recommendation (thank you, my friend :) ), i plumped for OCA as they are accredited, and if i'm up for it - which is a big IF - i can build up units to a BA hons in Fine Art - eeeekk!!

this first course - drawing skills - is designed to take a year at roughly 8 hours a week - that's 400 hours!!! part of me is completely overwhelmed at the prospect, but i've already encountered wonderful help and support and the assurance that i can work at my own pace and take upto 2 years if need be *phew!!*

one of the prerequisites of the course is keeping a learning log - on paper or screen - so i may well start another blog - assuming i can scan my work well enough - our printer/scanner isn't the best...

but first things first, i need to read ALL the handbooks and course materials and introduce myself to my tutor...

truly, i am tooooo excited for words... but here's one

YIPPEEEEEE!!!!!

My name is Claire...

... and i'm a Mad Men addict!!

for a couple of years now, i've watched bemused at awards ceremonies as all these unknown actors collected gongs for this unknown TV show...

recently the BBC began showing episodes from the first series on a sunday night - i'm guessing i wasn't alone in my bemusement! - and wow!!!

this is TV drama at it's absolute best! cracking script, cracking actors, incredible sets - i now want to live in NY in 1960 (but only if i can have christina hendricks' body!!)

the misogny, the chain-smoking, the drink-driving, it's a strange world, yet the one i know my parents inhabited - they were 18 and 16 in 1960, mum working in a shoe shop in lincoln, my dad in training for the RAF - but within 4 years they were married, living in singapore, and proud parents to yours truly...

like the characters in the show, they were stylish, looking old beyond their years, often playing at being grown-ups, but for all their outer sophistication, they were incredibly naive...

my mum went to see her doctor in the summer of 1963 because she'd been feeling 'off colour', and was totally incredulous at the news she was at pregnant, 'But i've only been married for 8 weeks!'

Feeling so proud...

today i took myself into town on my electric scooter. i went to my pedicure appointment at 9am and then for a coffee at Panini's (a favourite spot), which just so happens to be opposite the Westgate Art Shop...

Nick and i did a dry run on saturday to check the scooter battery could cope with the distance - no problem! and he's working from home today, so i could ring for back up if i needed it...

i'm now thoroughly exhausted, but happy! i hope this is just the first of such solo excursions. finally, i'm getting some independence back :)

What a lovely surprise!!

we rarely win anything, but we did today!!

Montezuma's are celebrating their 10th anniversary and we won a Hayfever gift box!!

i think sometime i filled in an email form to enter their prize draw...

the kids are in chocolate heaven and it's a wonderful surprise treat for the last day of their summer holiday!! i'm a dark chocolate 70%+ girl myself, but any chocolate tastes extra yummy if it's a gift :)

so thank you Montezuma's for making not only some of the best chocolate in the country, but for making a cold, blustery monday suddenly brighter and altogether sweeter!!

Synchronicity

I love it when things come together...

I've been looking for a new magazine to subscribe to - so-called 'women's interest' magazines bore me senseless - they're always about the same things...

I saw this magazine in an art gallery last week. It's beautiful, but I'm not that into textiles...

While browsing the internet the other evening, I came across this. It looks wonderful, but it's Canadian, costs 18 canadian dollars an issue, and another 18 dollars to post....

So imagine my delight when we dropped into WHSmiths in the hospital after my gym session yesterday morning, and saw this beautiful specimen :)

It's produced here in the UK, costs £4 an issue, comes out every 2 months and I've taken out a subscription (costs £18 for the 6 issues). This issue has 128 pages, every one a work of art, interesting and quirky articles and barely any adverts!!

I'm finally in magazine heaven *sigh*

Anxious thoughts...

"The only thing that really matters is to create something."

Lady Ottoline Morrell

But she had enough humility to know that she was not an artist. She came to view herself as someone with the painful sensitivities of an artist but without the talent, and she devoted herself to making the world more hospitable to
artists... Her aristocratic background brought a particular frisson to her friends in the arts, and their creativity gave her a passport to worlds she might otherwise only imagine.

Katie Roiphe, Uncommon Arrangements, p. 194

I identify with Lady Ottoline... wish I had her wealth so I could be a true patron of the arts!! But I do my bit - by buying as much handmade stuff from etsy as I can :)

I, too, put great store by creating something - a family/ a career/ a home/ a memory - but I cannot agree with Katie Roiphe's assessment, as I believe everybody can be - indeed is - an 'artist' - including Lady O. She doesn't expand on this one sentence from Ottoline's memoir, so we don't know if Ottoline's definition of 'create something' was as narrow as Roiphe's...

I think being an artist isn't about being a 'successful' painter, sculptor, actor, dancer, etc. or being 'talented' - whatever that means - it's about creating something, creating a life that has meaning. I've read elsewhere that Lady Morrell's hospitality was legendary - she was the consummate hostess! And Ottoline may well have seen it as her contribution to the world, her 'art', giving her life meaning.

Hence, I'm deciding what's important to me, and making time and space for it. Deciding, yes, I do want to learn the skills of drawing and painting, because they are meaningful to me. If baking a cake floated my boat, I would want to learn the skills involved in baking cakes, but it doesn't, so I don't.

The anxiety comes when, having made this decision, I'm now full of worry and doubt...

How will I afford it?

Will I be good enough?

Since I'll never be as talented as the artists I admire, is it worth even starting?

Am I just setting myself up for failure?

Surely it's too late at 46 to learn to draw?

etc, etc, etc.

The reality, of course, is who knows??

But if I never try, I'll never know...

Indeed, I'll never be able to draw like Leonard da Vinci, simply because I am not Leonardo.

I will learn to draw like Claire Sauer, and the more I practise and practise, the better I'll get - hopefully...

Just finished reading...

... this fun book :)

The fact the author covers seven marriages in barely 300 pages means, by definition, this is simply an introduction to these famous couples. But she does include a decent bibliography, so I can follow up any that interest me.

However, the questions she asks about the nature of love and romance and marriage in the introduction are largely unanswered... I think she would have done better to look at only two or three couples indepth to really get to the bottom of her rather insightful questions.

But it is a good read - quasi-scholarly gossip is such fun!! - so I'd certainly recommend it!!

It's one of those books where the front-page blurb is actually true - 'Positively fizzes with scandal and emotion... Deliciously addictive reading' - so it is worth packing in your suitcase as holiday fare...

Then when you return home, you can go to the library to read more meaty biographies of those characters who have piqued your interest :)

Plus I learnt a very interesting fact that simply passed me by when I was a 'sort-of-political' student in the 1980s (I did go on anti-Thatcher street marches and join those protesting Somerville College not give her an honorary doctorate) - Shirley Williams (one of the 'gang of four' who broke away from the Labour Party to form the SDP - Social Democrat Party) was Vera (Testament of Youth) Brittain's daughter...

I simply never knew that!! And now I want to read William's autobiography about her childhood - she was actually raised more by Winifred Holtby (Vera's faithful friend) while Brittain was being feted on both sides of the Atlantic...

Sagely advice

I do terribly want you to be
yourself - to have the freedom to grow

and be whatever you have it in you
to be. The one terrible thing seems to be not so much unhappiness - which is
inevitable - as being thwarted, stunted, to miss opportunities and not live
fully and completely as far as one can...

so wrote Vanessa Bell to her son Julian when he was in Rome, considering marriage to an unknown woman...

Whatever the actual details of the situation, I love Vanessa's wise words. The fact she's wiser than to just wish happiness for her son - unhappiness is indeed inevitable - Vanessa's mother died in her 40s, her step-sister Stella died in her 20s, and her beloved brother, Thoby, died aged 26 - not to mention her sister Virginia's (Woolf) ongoing mental problems...

What Vanessa's wishes instead is essentially her personal credo - to live freely in a way that's true to one's own truth. She worked hard to create a home, first in Bloomsbury, then at Charleston.

Admittedly, her marriage to Clive Bell was highly unconventional (I love Katie Roiphe's description:

'The emotional arrangements at Charleston were so complicated, at times, that one needed a chart like the one at the beginning of a Russian novel to keep them all straight' (Uncommon Arrangements: Seven Marriages in Literary London 1910-1939, Virago Press, 2009, p. 145)), but she lived a full, vital life that was totally of her own making.

And so I'm endeavouring to work out my own credo, and then, I'll endeavour to live true to it... and I'll attempt to share my findings on this blog...

A new day, a new month, a new ???

boy! i've missed this whole blogging malarky!!

thank you for those who commented on my first post - it's so good to reconnect with you all :)

i have kept up with my favourite blogs over the past 18 months, and commented now and again, but it just feels good to have my own little corner of cyberworld again.

i'm still tweaking with the new place...

i've reduced the size of the title header - having seen it with fresh eyes after a couple of days away, i decided it looked like i was shouting in such a large font - DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT NOW - OR ELSE!! - and that sooooo wasn't my intention :)

this is so not a place for shouting...

hence the background image - i sooooo want my own library, my own oasis of calm, a place to sit and read and think, with floor to ceiling shelves of books, a big comfy chair, and a coffee machine...

and i'm creating it here in virtual reality :)

but what about day-to-day, messy, busy real-world reality??

at the moment we're living out of boxes and hoping another moving date will be confimed very soon...

at the moment, thankfully, everybody seems to be OK with this limbo state - the kids still have the TV, the playstation, their ipods, even though their bedrooms look like little warehouses, and are just glad to be not at school :)

at the moment, nick's back at work and in regular contact with the letting agents and taking a breather from the manic sorting and packing which have filled his days the past couple of weeks...

and at the moment i'm thinking about enrolling on a distance learning course with the london art college...

my dear friend tina b has sold some of my handbags (and yes, i did have quite a collection...) which could largely finance the drawing course i'm considering...

and this is all part of deciding what i want -

i want to learn to draw, properly,

but i don't have much money.

however, i do have some nice 'stuff' that just sits in a cupboard...

i can't travel to a college,

but i can do online learning...

i did enjoy the local art shop's lessons i took last year,

but they're on saturday afternoons, and i do like my live football commentary...

taking a course online - which actually costs less than the art shop lessons - means i can work in my own time...

so, i'm trying to work out what i really want, and take steps to making it happen - one little step at a time...

Hello

so, today - which should have seen us moving into a new house (there's a problem with the new rental and but we hope to move in a couple of weeks) - i've decide to return to blogging...

and as we're not physically moving house today, even though i'm emotionally prepared for it, i decided to move to a new blogging home instead :)

A LOT's swirling around my head and i needed somewhere to put it all...

the name of this new blog is from the quote by ben stein:

the first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want.

and this is precisely what i intend to do with this new blog...

those who know me well, know i've struggled with this whole issue on and off throughout my life, and it's especially become difficult since the stroke...

of course, i know the basic things i want right now - to walk unaided, to have full use of my limbs, to return to work (to name but three) - but the decision-making needs to go deeper ...

i knew aged 14 i wanted to go to oxford, i knew aged 22 i wanted to go to africa, i knew aged 24 i wanted to be a wife and a mother, i knew aged 34 i wanted my kids to have the best education...

but since then i've been scrambling around for that kind of certain inner knowledge, that kind of goal and purpose...

for several years now, this quote by alfred d. souza has been how i live my life:

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.

and i know it isn't working!!! something needs to change!!

and so, the first step is for me to decide exactly what it is i want, and only then can i begin to make it happen....