• if it feels resonant, write your own brief to respond to over the next 5 weeks. 

• Continuing with small images, testing out ideas.

• Beginning 1-3 larger pieces, perhaps two in charcoal, graphite, pastel and one with paint.

• Writing up ideas for this body of work; the sacred geometry, Welsh blankets, moths, patriarchy, soft light, bright light, shifting ancestry and heritage, quantum physics...

• Continuing to make artist copies, working from images of artists who embody elements of the work that you are calling in. 

• Dialoguing with the inner critic voice. Writing down what it is saying and then responding from the voice of your higher self. 

• Art Career one - All your hopes and dreams for what your art practice could become. Dream big!

• Art practice one: Ideas for work, mediums, artists who inspire, themes etc. 

• Continue to play intuitively and spontaneously without a set goal, with both drawing and painting mediums.

• Create more images as part of a series linked to the ochre piece, potentially some larger pieces too. 

• Update goals / mind maps to reflect the shift in your practice. Have a think about when it might be good to do things like set up a website, plan an exhibition etc. 

• Possibly write the first draft of your artist statement, but only if this feels resonant. 
• Your words, which I wrote down:
  'Beautiful, but subversive and a tension between the two... the unseen / the untold being important... seeing through the veil of the chaos... simple and pared back... an aid to help people connect to something important but perhaps forgotten. 
  
  
  
  
  

• Painting onto the raw canvas in layers.

• Working with the dispersion method on paper.

• The abstracted drawings of shapes in the landscapes

• Stitched pieces from the landscape drawings. 

• Research: The uncanny https://www.freud.org.uk/2019/09/18/the-uncanny/
  
  
• Drawing from film: Possibly The Prisoner TV show, 
  Pan's Labyrinth, Vivian's garden, The Red Shoes. 
  
  
• Some transcriptions of Mama Andersson paintings.

• Lots of loose, experimenting whilst on holiday. Gather lots of source materials and references for this. 

• Creating a large composite painting once back in the studio. 

As an aside I was listening to a podcast interview with The Black Farmer about fitting in to society. He said at some point (paraphrasing) you have to decide whether you are on this planet 'TO BE' or 'TO BELONG'. As belonging is to conform and to be is to carve your own path at the expense of social norms. I really resonated with this idea and why I've always been unhappy to conform.

Things to think about.

• Creating a guide to the creative process. Initially for you, perhaps to have up on the studio wall, but in the future, something you can share with others.

• Continue to work with the higher self energy and the message: 'Don't overthink the future.'

• A pin board for ideas that are forming, guided by her. Possible studio / atelier, area, colours, smells, sensations. What does her home look like? What does she do with her time?How does she unwind?

• Beginning to piece the textiles together: patchwork, simple shapes, monochrome.

• Small canvases: Banner style.

• Also clothing, to begin to sketch out some ideas. Graphic and simple.

Georgia O'Keefe as a guiding light!

Words you used:

Overlapping pieces.

Unity the earth needs

Universe

Plants

Big Canvasses

Distillation

'my first language is visual'

However, following that, my month hasn't been the most satisfying in physical creativity. I had half term so spent most of the time with Seren then we stayed with my brother for the weekend. Big mistake. I felt it was wrong when I was travelling down, but I didn't want to disappoint Ed and Seren. The whole weekend I felt sucked dry of my positivity. He's a kind person but is so full of anger and apathy. He's an astrophysicist and it's funny that I feel like he's a black hole. I was very derailed after that visit.

I tried get into work but I felt empty. I knew it would pass but it doesn't make it any easier when you are keen to get on with your life. Anyhow I did some playing, trying to re-familiarise with the processes that I might want to use and then thought maybe the energy would be better found in planning. In among all this I had started visioning what playing big (unrealistically massive) could look like - SoHo house meets a creative wellness retreat complete with gallery and studios. Anyhow it's more about the brand ethos so i sat with Ed and talked it thought and we started on thoughts on a brand mission...still very much early essence at the moment.

And then I got ill.

But some things I have learned.

• I need to separate my textile work and painting work into completely different chunks of time to focus mind and minimise the clearing up time between disciplines - so may be two weeks then shift to the other

• Colour and texture are important and are influence by the seasonal light so I want to give permission to have my palette change with the mood. Maybe do little collections around the seasons but with shifting light

• I'm liking making my own paint with pigments so that could be a thing

Questions I have for myself:

• Is my work precise or fluid...or can it be both?

• Is my work figurative or abstract or both?

• I haven't the space for creation and storage of lots of large paintings, so what do small works look like?

To do:

• Get into a rhythm of making the channelled ink drawings regularly.

• Post regularly on instagram.

• Look into blogging. Should it be part of the website? Substack?

• Go on some fun outings! ice skating, nice meal, dancing. : )

Over the next 3 months.

Learn to sew well

Make the work beautiful, unique and fresh.

Hand died and dip dyed pieces.

Art can be business as usual.

Stick to processes used already.

Get into a flow and rhythm with it.

A new body of work is forming.

Nebula

Representing the experience when listening to different frequencies of music.

Message given to you.

'Be visionary now'

Calling in someone to help initiate it, to co-create it with.

Erin Claire Jones Human Design

Could be good for learning about using your strategy and your human design blueprint for business.

She's been a guest on quite a few podcasts too.

https://erinclairejones.com/human-design

Pam Gregory Astrologer, Interviewing Nancy Rebecca about the light surges in November. Could help explain the intense energy of the past month!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnUzM60yaXk

Does it start with internal healing? Can we really heal the world without that? If fear lies within us, we fall into the negative patterns because that is all we know and trust.

We teach our children to compete. To be top of the class. That our value is based on an individual league table that doesn't celebrate individuality. A seed of competition, leads to war at all levels - internal and external. What if collaboration, app and win-win was our criteria for success? Where our individual gifts make the whole much richer.

Meeting ID: 826 1463 5052

Passcode: 949129

Things we discussed.

Doing your own thing on the the esop course and not being thrown 'off course'

dyeing and bleaching fabric to paint in the garden.

Journalling and dreaming into the year ahead. Who am I at the end of 2024. What has happened, what have I created.

Below is an an article by Isla Mcloud and a dreaming ritual that I did with the creativity cafe group. You may wish to do it also before the course starts.

Winter by Isa Mcloud

As the long nights are drawing in, the Callieach's cloak wraps us up in the darkness. Grandmother of mountain, stone, cave and cliff, She knows how to endure the desolate places our souls meet in the depths of Winter. Those confrontations with the bare bones of our lives that we must see for what they are and reconfigure in the dark cave of our dreaming to grow ourselves again from the fertile earth.

Her way is fierce, protective, creative and destructive as she unravels the stories that have kept us apart and kindles the embers of our forgotten longing. I can feel the layers peeling back as the Old Crone of Winter blows the wild winds of transformation and bellows from the edges of sight, calling for me to go deeper into the darkness. To withdraw from the familiar world and enter the wild landscape of my soul.

The Callieach, the watchful grandmother of this Winter tide, demands that we ask ourselves some of the deeper questions about the way we are living our life, individually and collectively. What needs to die so a new way can be born with the returning light that is in alignment with truth and freedom? Her fierce love and penetrating gaze can force us to our knees if we are not willing to be reshaped by her ravaging Winter winds. Can you allow the force of her sacred breath to blow apart your inner landscape to reveal the radiant beauty and luminosity of your soul?

Within the cauldron of creation, new life is stirring... What is taking shape from the quiet whispers of your Winter's dreaming?

Dreaming into a creative vision for the new year 2024.

Through the months of Winter as we retreat into the darkness, we are incubating our dream-seeds – all our hopes and visions for the future. At Winter Solstice and beyond, when the Sun is reborn, our seeds are given the strength and vitality they need to grow and thrive above ground, to be made visible. 

This ceremony is designed to help make these dreams conscious and support these seeds to blossom in their perfect time.

• Preparation - Collect physical images from magazines, journals and Pinterest that inspire you and resonate with your vision of what you wish to create in the world. What do you want to feel? What images awaken your longing or speak to some hidden dream? How do you want the wider world to look and feel?

• Create Sacred Space – Tidy and clear a space that has enough wriggle room for some crafting and dancing. 

• Speak your Intention – Light a candle as you speak aloud your intention, something along the lines of ‘ I look within and unearth the seeds of my dreams, to spark them to life so that they may bear fruit at the perfect time. As the Sun is reborn, so am I, ready to emerge into the light and a new way of being.’

• Enter the Silence - Turn off the lights so all you can see is this candle flame. Sit in front of this candle, gazing into the light as you welcome the silence like an old friend. There is nothing to do here. Let thoughts come and go, whilst staying curious to what arises. Spend 20-30 minutes here.
    

• Make a Dreaming Board – gathering your images and a piece of card (A3 will do nicely) begin weaving this web of your dreams. Stick the images down in whatever arrangement feels good and instinctual.  Leave some gaps if you like, and add your own words, phrases, symbols or drawings.   

• Identifying Weeds – When your dreaming board feels complete, take some time drinking it all in, feeling the sensations in your body. Is there any contraction, resistance, holding? Can you sense any thoughts or beliefs that doubt your creative potential and ability to manifest these dreams in your life? Write down these weeds on a piece of paper, all of them! 

• Turning Weeds into Compost – Using your candle, ignite a corner or this piece of paper as you watch these weeds being burnt away (hold over a saucepan or ceramic dish). Commit to yourself that you will not be bound by these limiting beliefs; that you will create new, loving pathways that support the embodiment of your fullest potential. Offer any remaining ashes to the earth, a house plant or your fireplace.

• Dancing your Dreams – Choose a song or playlist that compels your body to dance wildly! You might like to dress up for this, wearing your most fabulous finery. Placing your dreaming board on the floor, or somewhere in front of you, press play, and imagine you are courting your dreams, enticing them to life, luring them out of the darkness, as you dance them awake with your energy and intention.

• When you feel you have given your full, embodied attention to your dream-seeds, take some deep breaths down into your belly, filling yourself up with all this vital life-force energy, feeling the warmth in your body and the power in your heartbeat. Make a pledge to protect and nurture these seeds as you blow out the candle.

• Tending your Dream-Seeds – Over the next few weeks, through these long nights, spend time meditating with your Dreaming board in front of you, drinking in the images and feeling gratitude for all that is becoming.

I am (jokingly) slightly concerned that this is my open throat in action and my chiron in gate 8. And I wish I had all the wisdom I need right now. Something inside me is telling me I already know...but I can't access it right now.

I am feeling some call to work I've done in the past (landscapes/water/ warm sunrise/sunsets) and I don't know if it's out of fear of not being clear as to what I'm doing or whether there is something there I need to pick up.

I have clear vision of where I want to be and have manifested part of that... but it seems like when this came into reality a bit emptiness/pause came into my life.

...As I write this (and journal alongside), what is coming to me is whether my work is simply about 'matter is just energy'. We are all just temporarily trapped energy wandering around the cosmos. Anything more than that is overcomplicated. And maybe why I experience so much resistance in my own work when it has too much form.

...and this ties into my long term goal of maybe running my own gallery and residency/retreat is that I want help people unlock their creative energy.

To Do:

• Lots of small pieces to unlock the next step. Play. Explore colour, texture and shape.

  
  

• Occupy the intellectual mind with writing every day.

  
  

• Get out into nature to give time and space for contemplation. Taking time out.

nb. I've put a link to the Pearl Sequence Gene Keys online retreat on the column to the left.

Gene Keys Pearl Sequence Online retreat. It's not the Venus retreat coming up, as I had originally thought. The Venus retreat is all about journeying into the core wound. This Pearl sequence is a journey into unlocking prosperity in life.

They become part of me.

I become part of them.

It's somewhere West.

Where the sun sets and rises on the sea

And the light is always changing.

Where mountains dissolve into the water creating the ever changing shore.

Where hopes and dreams merge with the land.

Where the tides reveal the whispers of those that came before.

And where the wind leads us into the future.

It could be the place that Lilith was chased when she left Eden.

So here we congregate.

Come, shed your burdens at the wrack zone.

Here we find peace.

In this moment,

Here we create our own Eden.

The day after we spoke I got offered a shared studio at Assembly House, and all things being well, I get the keys next Monday. At the time, I had no idea how I could afford it but thought I'd apply as they had shared my work on instagram after seeing it at the exhibition. I thought, if they offer one to me, I'll worry about the money then, I just want to make my intention known. Then my brother offered to help with with a year's rent. So the universe did provide in unexpected ways.

Other than that I've been giving more time to writing - which I've enjoyed - and focussed on taking things step by step to connect with what brings me joy in my work. So looking at colour, texture, media, composition in a bite size process without worrying about what this means for finished work.

A couple of extracts from my journal below I have found helpful to focus my mind when it comes to work. Rather than an old skool brief something that conjures more of an atmosphere in my mind.

Things I mentioned in the session.

Kirlian or Aura Photography

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirlian_photography

The word inchoate, for your current work. It seems to fit well!

Agnes Martin's Writing https://dn790003.ca.archive.org/0/items/AgnesMartinWritings/Agnes%20Martin%20-%20Writings%20-%20Agnes%20Martin.pdf

I wondered why I was feeling knackered a couple of weeks ago and then realised a lot of this newness takes a lot of energy.

Anyhow work below in no particular order. Words - origins and transformation feeling relevant to work. Focus on cycles of birth - death - rebirth and stripping away illusions / old lives. Also interested in the illusions of the Maya versus the issues of sight loss (Glaucoma family history) and occular migraines.

Things we discussed (with a few additions!)

Allowing it all to evolve in it's own time.

letting go of the need to be productive in the 9-5 way.

The inner peace that comes with that.

Planting seeds

Aligned action.

After Esop, finding the threads of what to run with for the next 5 years...

Beginning to produce a body of work, dreaming in the artist retreat etc...

Gene Keys work might be good at this point, to help orient, once the course is finished.

The Dream Arc online course with Richard Rudd and Rosy Aranson might be a good transition from the course to working on your own in the studio.

Links etc mentioned.

Artist Ithel Colquhoun (book)

Eileen Agar (new book)

Hettie Judah (link on next column) writes a lot about art and motherhood, with a recent book out on the subject.

Dream arc online course.

Rosy Aronson and Richard Rudd.

Ithel Colquoun

https://rb.gy/wr0zrb

Eileen Agar

https://rb.gy/krhqtt

Hettie Judah

https://www.hettiejudah.co.uk/

Dream Arc Course

https://genekeys.com/dream-arc/

Rosy Aranson

https://www.wisdomkeepers.net/

Taken it slowly other than that, letting the energy shift around my body. Culminated in a crying session last week, which I've decided - or discovered - is actually a necessary part of my process to cleanse what doesn't serve me any more. It left me empty which was perfect to clear space for what's next to flow in naturally.

So following this episode I decided to start with making intuitive work and see where that took me. A feel for new places and understanding that I think my work is about in someway the breaking down of the illusion of our bodies/selves being separate from the landscape/place at a subnarrative levels it speaks of ownership/respect of land / female body and a quest for freedom to live in our own natural expression. (or something like that).

Lyrical, ethereal and hopeful, I use fluid and transformative processes to create artworks where  dreamy worlds are evoked, moving enigmatically between figuration and abstraction. Stories of the natural cycles of transformation, belonging, origins and light are explored, as organic forms and contours merge and dissolve into echoes of the natural landscape and the human body. A desire for freedom from control - and to breakdown the illusions that humans and the natural world are separate - are thoughts that weave their way throughout.

I find my process cathartic - a way to heal and put the noise, chaos and shadows of the external world into perspective. It begins with grounding both my work and my sense of self through drawing with charcoal and watercolour direct from the British landscape, found objects and images to create a create a library of moments and new connections. These are then synthesised through music, dance and mirrors to create intuitive and poetic paintings and prose. Mimicking the endless cycles of creation, my work evolves through an almost ritualistic and nurturing process of creation, destruction and rebuilding again to create luminous, subtle and visceral oil paintings on wooden panel. 

As if windows to a hinterland where peace and contemplation of our place in the universe can be found, I like to see my work as quietly totemic: where the viewer can return to the portraits, ravines, meanders, trees, sea and sky to gather inner strength. My influences include Eileen Agar, Ithell Coloqhoun, Leiko Ikemura, William Blake and Lewis Carroll. 

Some things you spoke about being important, in relation to your work:

Identifying patterns that are broken and fixing them.

Intention and trust

More elegance and light and starting into sunsets

Making people's lives lighter.

What you would like to do before we meet next.

• Create some oil paintings from the small paintings.

• Go public: Create a visual journal on instagram. Show process in a poetic style.

We are all woven.

Full of unseen connections.

With each other. With the land. With the stars.

Through the shadows we find our light.

And celebrate.

The past and future are all here in the present.

For we are all woven in light.

Moulded in earth.

"I've been expecting you." I reply.

"You've always been there. I've seen you.

"And when I haven't seen you, I've felt you.

"Circling above me.

"Waiting to pick my bones."

"Yes." They say.

"We've always been there.

"Circling above you.

"Ready to pick your bones.

"And now it's time.

"It's time to go home."

Honouring the down time and not forcing. Not listening to the urgency within.

Working with the waxing and waning energy levels.

Wanting freshness and change, but needing to find contentment and the wisdom in the waning times.

Remembering cycles.

Having the anchor of talking to Tessa once a month.

Community.

Finding a network of other artists that are serious about their work.

A female peer group.

Setting up an artist collective in

early 2025.

The business side.

Taking one day a week for art admin.

This can link to your intention for your work also.

Future dreaming.

Creating an artist retreat and studio complex that is family friendly.

Possibly in the Calder valley.