It’s time to travel…..

I am off to the School in Olhao Portugal early next week  http://www.artinthealgarve.com Then France for the month of May and after that a wedding in Georgia USA mid June.

I leave you with some sketches and photographs from Portugal….

watercolour/gouache sketch from the Saturday market Olhao Portugal Clare sketching on the Island of Armona – a fifteen minute boat ride from the School. quick watercolour sketch – Culatro island A simple and lovely lunch of grilled fish on the Island of Armona. watercolour – steps in Olhao Portugal The 150 year old olive tree in the School courtyard Olhao Portugal  One of the many characterful faces of Olhao Portugal.     Olhao is a working fishing town. watercolourDancing and music during the Saturday market – Olhao Portugal Rapid watercolour of sun setting in Portugal Jazz at Cantaloupe Jazz Cafe, Olhao Portugal.    Excellent for sketching .A sun drenched wall with trees – Olhao Portugal I leave you with colourful magical hummingbirds….   watercolour/gouacheA bientot

 

 

 

 

 

In an ideal world………..

watercolour

The following are excerpts from a talk I gave twenty years ago.

Much of what I said then is relevant today.    However, it is important to note that during these past twenty years our world has changed radically…with  iPhones, social medial etc.     The genie is out of the bottle bringing with it all sorts of new challenges and opportunities to inspire creative energy.

Madame Nottale sketching me – At the time she was 94. 

‘In an ideal world, everyone would spend a period of time during each day doing something creative.      It could be painting, playing a musical instrument, dancing reading, writing, singing, cooking, gardening, sewing, etc……

However, as we begin the 21st century, it seems that we are living our lives in boxes -boxes that constrain and seem to move us further away from creative living.

Milly visiting my studio….she loves to paint, Whether living in a large house or a one room bedsit, it is still a box.   We use metal box cars, trains, buses and planes to get around.     We tend to work in a box and then stay glued to the computer box.     At the end of our work day we get back into the metal boxes to return home to our original box, where many watch the TV box or continue to view the computer box……and so it goes.

This treadmill life can lead to frustration, anger, stress, anxiety and being desensitised to what is actually going on within ourselves and in the real world.

And yet we wonder why we have so many individual and societal problems.

Observe the focus of a child when creating. 

At the end of such days, with little tangible evidence to show for our efforts, we feel a sense of anxiety about the prospect of repeating the cycle over again.    We feel trapped.

Recently the mother of a bright young man, with seemingly everything to live for, told me how concerned and upset she was because her son was very depressed.       (Since writing this talk twenty years ago, I would say that levels of depression among the young have risen dramatically!)

It is said that 70% of our children are suffering with emotional problems.   All of this at a time in history when we have never had so much material stuff, and in many ways our lives have never been easier.

So what’s wrong with this picture?

Friends playing music at a local pub…..wonderful 

As we leave childhood and adolescence and move into the ‘real world….there is a natural need to conform.        I cannot tell you how many people I have met in later life who have regretted not doing what it was that they really wanted to do.        Instead of following their own desire they did what was expected of them. 

Using red and green apples as symbolic imagery…..I see the shiny red apple as a societal goal.     Looking good on the outside – despite what may or may not be going on within the core of the apple.

Green apples are often perceived as being different, and separate from the mainstream.     Artists and creatives fall into this category, fuelling the perception that the creative life is only for a certain mad few!

 

I believe everyone is a creative being, which making it imperative that creativity be incorporated into our daily lives.      Just as we need to breath we also need to create.

Perhaps the answer to these questions has to do with our thought process.      The way we think influences everything in our lives.      How many times do I hear people say…..Ah but I am not an artist, cook, gardener, singer, photographer, dancer etc………..I could never do that……

Yes I was definitely that child hanging upside down:)

Everything ever accomplished was initially a thought.     We often meet people who are subject to the same set of circumstances, but who experience those circumstances in entirely different ways.

An ‘I can’t’ thought for one person can be a ‘I’ll find a way’ thought for another.    What some see as a set back, others see as opportunity.

Like all new habits we begin with baby steps….slowly but surely turning the ‘I can’ts’ into ‘I cans’………..

This is definitely an ‘I Can’ attitude 🙂 

A Bientot

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Lives of Talented Creatives

Another gem from David Rogers featuring the beautiful paintings of Richard Claremont who I follow on twitter. I highly recommend for all creatives and for anyone associated with a creative…….

davidjrogersftw

Cherry Blossom Tree in Shinjuku Garden by Richard Claremont

Creatives do exceptionally well what others find difficult, and that is the definition of a talent. Talent is the distinguishing quality of creatives, usually talent in one field.  Although a creative can be very talented in more than one area, as many bloggers are, as Vincent van Gogh, a wonderfully expressive writer of letters as well as painter was, the creative’s talent in one area dominates. My seven year old grandson is a much better painter than I am because he is gifted in art, and I certainly am not. (It doesn’t take long for the buds of talent to burst into bloom in a child). My talents are linguistic, and of all the arts I, who grew up in home where music filled the house, I’ve always wished I could write beautiful music–but I can’t.

I have a composer friend…

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An Accident of Birth – short story about Sid the Boxer

I always carry a sketchbook and watercolours with me so that I can make quick sketches of the fascinating people I come across.

This short story is about one of those meetings.    The day I met Sid The Boxer.

Sid the Boxer.    watercolour  I first visited Barnes, SW London in August of 2005.

I was preparing to leave Wales where I had been living and working for thirteen years  to move to London, primarily for work, and to be closer to my failing elderly Mother.     It had  been suggested that I rent rooms in a house in Barnes in SW London.

This particular visit was to take a look at the area before making the move in October 2005.

On what was a lovely summer’s morning, I packed my watercolours and something to eat and went off to explore.

I found a promising place in a little park next to the river Thames between Barnes and Mortlake and set myself up on a bench.     During the next hour or so I enjoyed the sense of peace and tranquility that comes when I am painting and communing with nature.

Across the little park from where I was sitting were a group of people on another bench.    Other than this group and myself, there seemed to be no-one else around.       Eventually the group got up and began to walk towards the river and then towards me.     My first thought was that I hoped they wouldn’t want to chat with me and disturb my solitude.

As the group steered towards the river (thank goodness) one of its members broke away and came directly towards me.       He was a big man with dark glasses, drinking a large can of beer and generally looking rather disheveled.      He said ‘Hey love – you wanna paint my portrait’?     I looked at him and said ‘Actually yes – I would love to on the condition that I paint one for you and one for me‘.      I motioned for him to sit at  the end of the bench.

Clearly very surprised at my response….he actually became quite nervous.     ‘Did I mind if he drank his beer‘?   ‘Should he take his dark glasses off’?     I told him to make himself comfortable and then as I painted him he began to tell me about his life.

His name was Sid the Boxer – be was born into a gypsy travelling family and had spent most of his life in reform schools and prison.     That he had only recently been released from Wandsworth Prison for attempted murder.   Banned from every pub in Barnes and surrounding areas, he basically spent most of his time wandering around with his friends during the day time, until they could return to their hostel.

As dangerous as this might sound, I knew instinctively, intuitively that there was nothing to be afraid of.       I learned that Sid had a daughter who he hadn’t seen for over thirty-five years.   Sid had been a very good boxer and he went on to tell me this talent had kept him alive and given him respect when in prison.   It had been his protection.

As we came to the end of our time together, he asked if I had gone to a special school to learn to be an artist.    I told him that I had gone to the Medway College of Arts in Rochester Kent, and he exclaimed with great delight.   ‘That’s where I went to Borstal’ – (a boys reform school for the uninitiated)”!

We shook hands and Sid the Boxer left with his sketch and I kept mine.     As I thought about our meeting, I recognised what an accident of birth our start in life is.   In the random nature of things, Sid had been dealt a tricky hand, however he used his best attribute, that of being a boxer to survive.

Wherever Sid the Boxer and his sketch is, I send him this magical hummingbird, and hope that he is able to drink from some of the sweet nectar of life – if not in this life, maybe the next……..

The moral to this story, is to never leave home without a sketchbook…..You never know what interesting person you might meet……

A Bientôt.

http://www.janetweightreed.co.uk

http://www.artinthealgarve.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Intangible healing of creativity

“The creative process in all its many forms is the key to emotional, physical and spiritual wellbeing.”   Janet weight reed

My hummingbird imagery symbolises the unseen and intangible in our world.    Just because we can’t see or touch something doesn’t mean it’s not there or is having a profound effect on our lives.

The Aboriginals, Native Americans and many other indigenous peoples around the globe have a deep understanding of our spiritual, physical, social and cultural connection to the land.       They believe all of life as it is today, human, animal, bird and fish is part of one vast unchanging network of relationships.       They understand fully the importance of land management care towards our health and overall wellbeing. It seems that many people today,  young and old from all sectors of society,  are experiencing physical and emotional illnesses and distress.         Given our fast pace of life and that so much of the world’s population is now plugged into technology of one kind or another, is it any wonder  that our collective senses are being deadened?

 

 Technology has changed the whole world dynamic. 

 

In this fast watercolour sketch from Portugal last October, everything within the image is interconnected.    There are no starts and stops…no beginning and no ending, rather a continual flow.

Feeding our senses by spending time in the natural world, is healing.   However, like all good medicine, it needs to be enjoyed on a consistent  basis.

Many have forgotten the simple pleasure of sitting beneath a tree and how restorative it is.    I have been listening to a radio programme about the power of the placebo…and how it has been shown time and time again to cause a sense of wellbeing even though the recipient is fully aware that they are taking a sugar pill.     This has everything to do with mind, body connection.

    This photograph was taken on a hot day last October on my friend’s farm in Portugal.   I had just finished teaching a course and needed time to relax, focus and meditate.     Once I began to sketch and most importantly open my senses to all that surrounded me, within minutes I felt calm and refreshed. When we immerse ourselves into the creative flow, our minds are taken into what I call deep time.     A place that is totally different from our clock watching, rushing to the next appointment type of time.       An intangible sense of calmness and wellbeing ensues.   We return to what we were designed for – being part of nature and engaging our senses.

Portugese children on Armona Island playing with shells….    Trying to exist in this brave new world and finding a space for creativity, in all its many forms….might sound impossible.

I have raised a family and worked all my life and like most people have lived through some very stressful times.      I have learned that if I simply stop….and give myself some soul food each day, I am immediately calmed and feel a sense of well being.    Soul food time enriches and supports everything else we need and have to do in life.

It costs nothing.   It doesn’t mean major life changes.     It simply means addressing the part of ourselves that is in desperate need for daily food. One hugely important factor so often overlooked is that of populations growth.

I was born in London in 1946, right after World War 2.     At that time the world population was approximately two and a half million.    Today the world population is seven and half million and rapidly rising. This tells me that more than ever before we need daily soul food and to renew our connection with the natural world. 

If we don’t give ourselves this precious time, we are doomed to be like hamsters running around a wheel…..feeling utterly frustrated and exhausted, and at the same time achieving very little. 

I made this quick sketch when visiting my son and his partner on their farm in Pennsylvania last spring.     Their neighbours are Amish.      We have much to learn from such people. From Buddhist Offerings….

‘We see that life, composed of this mind and body, is in a state of continual constant transformation and flux.      There is always the possibility of radical change.    Every moment – not just poetically or figuratively, but literally – every moment we are dying and being reborn, we and all life’ 

 

A bientôt

http://www.janetweightreed.co.uk –   The Apple Exercise. 

I have just re-read Virginia Woolf’s  – A Room of One’s Own.     It has been at least forty years since I last read it.   Back then it didn’t resonate with me in the way it does today.  .

 

Artists and Their Love of Work

This is one of the best articles I have ever read on this subject and I am most honoured that David has chosen to use some of my work as part of it. I highly recommend this. Janet

davidjrogersftw

To the Artist Work Is Not an Obstacle, but a Gift

Artists have about fifty qualities that fit perfectly together to make them best suited to be artists rather than engaging in other occupations. One of those qualities is their love of and attachment to work. The majority of people do not like to work, consider work a burden, and would rather not work, but seek leisure and rest.  But most writers, painters, actors, and ballet dancers who will become known vary from that norm.

Creative people do not avoid work, but absorb themselves in it, even though the work of a recognizably accomplished artist is difficult, extremely hard to master, and taxing.  What drives them to the easel or keyboard every possible day is the joy of working and a desire for creative fulfillment, a special state of being that lies at the far end of hard work that…

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Magical hummingbirds for Mary Oliver

The American poet and writer Mary Oliver (1935-2019)  died last week.    However her soul and spirit will live on in her beautiful and evocative words.

She asks her reader    

‘Tell me what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life…..’  

She reminds us that material stuff clutters our lives.

“I have a notion that if you are going to be spiritually curious, you better not get cluttered up with too many material things……”

We are reminded of the importance of giving time, power and energy to that which we love and feel passionately about.

“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”

“You do not have to be good.   You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.   You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves…….”

In this poem she speaks of her intense love for Mother Nature and the smallest of birds flying among the scarlet flowers……..and that she cannot wait to be the hummingbird……

Thank you Mary Oliver for showing us how to drink from the sweet nectar of life….like the magical hummingbirds.

A Bientot

http://www.janetweightreed.co.uk

http://www.artinthealgarve.com