Revisiting my dim and distant past!

Hello there! How's your Halloween been? I bought some bags of sweets in case of trick or treaters as usual, no-one turned up as usual, so we ate all the sweets as usual. :) Yum. It's just an excuse for us all to pig out on lollies really ...

Anyway, today I've been thinking about how my creativity has developed as I've got older and remembered that I found some old drawings at my mum's when we visited the UK last summer. Here's one of my favourites - I think I was about 16 or 17 when I drew it! This piece of paper is over 20 years old! Yikes. Although the face is not in proportion and there are heaps of things 'wrong' with it technically, I like the overall feeling of light and vitality it exudes. And who wouldn't love luscious hair like that! It also sparked a history lesson, one of my children asked who Lucy was and when I replied it was one of the Beatles' songs was faced with a blank look. And ... they had no idea who John Lennon was! What are they teaching in schools these days? (Now I am sounding like my dad!!) It's great to keep a record of everything you create, in a journal, photos, sketches - interesting to see the development and the individual style you follow. Snippets of your life on paper ... I like the thought of that.

Getting ready for summer

A Tale of Two Seasons - winter warmer and summery skirts

Why, you may ask, have I taken a picture of my wardrobe? Well, today was a day for doing chores as the weather outside was unbelievably winter-like - heavy rain, trees swaying in the wind and very cold. Strange after a day like Sunday when we were all wilting in the heat! One of my chores has been to find out my summer clothes and put away my winter stuff (felt a bit premature doing that after today). Anyway, I love wearing my pouffy, tiered skirts in summer but up until today I've had to try and squeeze them into my chest of drawers - no more! I spent a small part of today choosing ribbons to sew into the waistband of the skirts so that I can hang them up in the wardrobe. Now I get to look at a kaleidoscope of summer colours every time I walk through my wardrobe and I just love the way the fabric 'flouffs' out as if each skirt is saying 'pick me, pick me!'.

The winter warmer mentioned above is the purple scarf I started knitting a couple of months ago - obviously too hot to wear these days, but it's so frilly and twirly I'm thinking of keeping it as a decoration, simply to look at and enjoy! I have a soft spot for the yarn I used as my gran used to knit matching cardigans for my sister and I in the multicoloured wool. Funny how we form our attachment to things isn't it? And how much pleasure these little things bring us! Here's to noticing the smaller things in life that bring us big smiles - may we all have time to notice them!

A Day Creating in the Sun ...

Quite pleased with my sign letting everyone know what Creative Seeds was up to!

Our 'communal artwork' - we had great ideas for this, but kept forgetting to ask people to add to it as we were so busy having fun! Thank you to those people who did add to it - we love it!

Our table - a hive of creativity!

Some of the works by our fantastic creative teenagers.

Experimenting with a photo of the small canvasses Linda and I have painted on previous occasions. They all look stunning laid side by side. We have a vision for these paintings ...

Here are a few photos of our very creative day at the Zig Zag Festival yesterday. I think I'm still recovering - it was soooo hot, in the low thirties I think, which is really hot for me! We were in the youth area, right by the youth music stand, so at times I was reminded of my nightclubbing days when we had to shout in each other's ears to make ourselves heard! Try talking to people about the meaning of colours with loud rock music going on - "well, yes, you'll find that blue is a very peaceful colour ..." It did make us chuckle! Actually, the bands were excellent and we were blown away by one group called 'Convict X' who are all still in primary school, writing their own songs and music and sounding very much like rock stars of the future. Good on you!

Zig Zag!!

Today it's the Zig Zag Festival in Stirk Park Kalamunda!!

Starting at 11 am until about 8 pm there's lots to see and do - music, art, stalls and a parade!

Come along and celebrate 25 years of this fantastic festival! Hope to see you there, we'll be in the Youth Art section by the Youth Stage if you want to pop in and see us!

A Great Quote ... and light and shade

I was going to share some pics of my 'scapegoat' doll that I started yesterday, but my husband has gone out with the camera and won't be back until late, so that will have to wait.

Anyway, when he's out I get the chance to watch my choice of DVD and tonight I watched a programme about discovering our shadow side, ooooh, very thought provoking! Well, there was a quote that I may have posted before, but it is just so beautiful I want to share it again, so here it is:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” Marianne Williamson

Oooh, it gives me goosebumps to read it, I should have it printed on postcards and pasted to every wall of the house so that I can read it every day!!

Today was a lovely relaxing day - I went to the local rose gardens with my youngest, and we delighted in feeding the huge koi carp, who practically climb on top of each other to get the morsels of bread. Of course we had to visit the cafe for a milkshake - very yummy, I had a special rose thickshake and didn't feel too guilty as it's made with soy milk. Feeling quite virtuous I followed my youngest through the gardens and was lead to a beautiful rose trellis arch. I just love them! Today the sun was shining through the boughs, casting dapples of light and shade on the ground, we walked from end to the other and back again. Somehow I always feel closer to God when I do that - always have done since I was a little girl and had no conscious idea of spirituality. I've just always felt that there's more to life than we know and I feel it more in the presence of light and shade through the trees!! Maybe I shouldn't watch too many more thought provoking DVDs!! :) As we walked back to the car the air was suffused with the subtle aroma of summer roses - absolute bliss. These simple moments of pleasure are what makes life great aren't they? Go on out and be brilliant!

ps The DVD is called 'The Shadow Effect', with Debbie Ford in case you want to know! :)

I feel like ...

OK - so why do I feel like a pair of big pants? Lots of little things really, nothing that bad at all! Firstly, I have been feeling quite homesick, I guess it's to be expected when my mum has just gone home. This homesickness feeling is like a little dog that follows me round all day, no matter how fast I try and run away from it, it manages to keep up with me! (And I think there's a piece of art in there somewhere ...)

I intend to use my 'feeling like pants' day to help me with my next medicine doll tomorrow. The second doll I have to make for my Medicine Doll Course is the Scapegoat doll where I can explore my fears and the shadowy side of my personality. I'm going to look at all the negative self-talk I constantly bombard myself with, and unfortunately I listen to it too much. (I promise you this is all leading somewhere!) For example, I started the day feeling low; later on in the day I went online to check e-mails and to read my favourite blogs. Instead of just enjoying them I started comparing my blog to others, looking at the number of blog visits, coming to the conclusion that I'm not as good as everyone else. Now, I am not whinging and fishing for a sympathy vote - rather I'm coming clean with a confession that I think I have an issue with checking blog statistics for a start! And also confessing that I'm annoying myself with this constant self-sabotage! Maybe if I declare my problem publicly I will be on the journey to overcoming it! Part of the journey is to be able to put all my feelings and emotions experienced in my self-sabotaging behaviour into a doll - it's an immensely powerful experience - I'll be sharing photos of the doll here without a doubt - I feel ready to make the doll now; I've been chickening out of making it for a while!

Now, the next part is that I made a drawing with a visual comment of my feelings about my day - the result being the beautiful big pair of pants at the top of this post! I can tell you I felt so much better and lighter in my mind after drawing the picture - you can see that by the flowers and hearts I added to the pants that I was already feeling more lighthearted. It's positive to see the lighter side of life! More proof that art helps heal I believe.

When I sat down and really thought about it I realized that blogging is important to me simply because I love writing and putting my thoughts down on 'paper'. I do it for me, and blog visits and statistics don't really matter. The other great thing is through blogging I've got to meet some awesome creative people, and I get to share a little of their journey. Check out these sites for inspiration and a dose of sunlight in your day: Violette's folkart site, an awesome whimsical artist; Attic24 for crochet and lovely images; Virtually Sally where you'll find creativity and friendly chat. There are so many, I can't include them all here! Go exploring ...

Scrapbooking with intention!

When I was little one of my favourite activities was to cut pictures out of magazines and catalogues and stick them into scrapbooks. I've refined the technique these days in that the madness definitely has a bit more method! As before I'll choose pictures that interest me, but now I'm choosing consciously because of colours I love, styles of clothes I like, ideas I may want to incorporate in my own designs and artwork. The brilliant thing is I have a ready made excuse/reason for sitting and cutting out pretty pictures in that it is actually helping me to de-clutter my living space as I work through my pile of old magazines and make it smaller. Good plan hey? On the serious side though, my scrapbooks are a good source of inspiration and because they are all pictures I'm attracted to, I'm sure to like them for some time, and I find they're a kind of self-made 'coffee table' picture book that cheer me up on a dull day. They work on a multitude of levels. So there, now you have no reason to feel guilty for sitting down and making a scrapbook of your favourite images (or it could be quotes that inspire you).

Don't know how the picture has managed to turn itself around from the original, but there you go! I'm not going to change it though because I rather like how the glue looks like it's defying gravity ...

Back to real life

My lovely holiday with my mum is over - she got back home this morning.  So I've spent today tidying up and getting rooms back to normal. We had so much fun going out and about we had no time for chores (that's just how life should be!) And we did have fun! From trips into the city, a river cruise to Freo, camel rides on the edge of Kalamunda, a trip back in time at the old village - it's been awesome! I've posted a picture of mum and I when we were having fish and chips in Fremantle last week at Cicerello's - a must do if you visit!

I've been thinking of arty ideas too in amongst the holiday activity, and should be able to share some here in a while.

It's good to be back, but it was such a lovely time connecting again with my mum! Thanks mum for coming to visit us, it was wonderful - love you!

Walking the Zig-Zag

Beautiful windmill shaped flowers by Michael Alvares mark the start of the Zig-Zag walk

One of the bends in the Zig-Zag!

Another artwork encountered on our walk, I'm sorry to say I didn't take a note of the artist's name on the walk (should have done!), but the artwork is called 'Why?', asking us to think about our environment and endangered species.

Natural artwork - the fringe-lily - breath-taking

Yesterday mum and I walked the Zig-Zag with hundreds of other people, and what a beautiful springlike day to do it as you can tell from the photos. The walk happens on the first weekend in October every year, and as you walk down you encounter stalls with information about sustainable living, musicians, camels (really) and artworks amongst other things, as well as the amazing wildflowers which WA is renowned for. We felt quite uplifted and ready to take on anything when we passed the Scottish pipe band at the beginning of the walk - only 3km or 4km to go, depending on whether you believed the council website or the road sign at the top of the hill!

It was lovely indeed to bathe in the kinder springtime sunshine and it had a great community feel - almost like a mobile village fete! I felt quite impressed with myself for completing the walk in less than an hour and have decided to be more ambitious next year and walk back up the Zig-Zag after reaching the bottom of the hill. I must say there weren't many doing that yesterday, but well done to everyone who had the energy!

Rocky paths and spring chickens ...

This photo was taken on a walk with mum to Lesmurdie Falls. The falls were gorgeous indeed with all the rain that has fallen at the beginning of spring. But ... being the intrepid explorers that we are we decided to walk to the bottom of the falls to get a different view (silly people!). We were a bit worried when the cascading water sound stopped as we walked the curvy path, but found the stream eventually at the bottom of a slope barricaded with netting and a scary warning sign that the path we'd just climbed down was structurally unsound. Ooops. Anyway, we found a different path up which we'd seen on the way down, but it looked rather too treacherous at the top. On the way up we scaled the slopes like two spring chickens (more like two old chooks! :) ) and arrived energized and only slightly puffed out at the top!! The flowers are gorgeous, and I was very impressed with how my little point and snap camera captured their image. I just love spring!