The tail of the year, the time to look back & look forward, funny cos in so many ways it’s an arbitrary number, tomorrow will still be tomorrow whatever we call it. But I enjoy the process of evaluating where I am in this life from time to time, so now’s as good as any!
Can’t wait that long? sign up below and get a lovingly hand crafted ebook all about color right now!!
…then join TWELVTY…obvs! 😉
Be well, my friends, Much love to you all X
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(Your email is absolutely safe with me, I’ll just pop by and check up on it time to time, feed it biscuits, plump up its cushions, that sort of thing.)
Last month I began a new practice of creating an art journal vision-board type spread with the New Moon.
New Moon Vision: Nov/Dec 2016
I’ve used the new moon as a time to sow seeds of intention for many years, usually in a journal or diary. This got the intentions out of my imagination in the form of words on paper, but within a day or two they were lost under the ensuing pages.
Transform Your Life: I have high hopes for this book!
Now I have this visual reminder I can keep in my eye line in the studio – for now it’s propped up against a shelf opposite my workspace. The simple beauty of it being in a book means it can travel with me wherever I go. (Even though it’s quite a BIG book – it likely won’t travel that far!)
A Lifetime’s Obsession with Collective Inspiration: I am the culmination of my thoughts so far
It’s now the second time I’ve done it … and I’ve lived through hundreds of new moons, so it’s early to judge… but so far I like this method much more.
Bright, Vibrant, Unique Art: subconscious reminders… in case I forget!
I expect over time it will evolve to include more writing too, the process will fine tune and evolve, as all things do.
This and last month both have writing under the collage, so in that sense those words are even more buried than usual. Meanwhile it’s a place for all those collage bits I snipped out of the lifetime’s supply of magazines I dismantled last year.
Heavy on Metaphor: planting seeds for new ideas
Do you have a new moon practice? or a vision board practice?
How do you find they work for you? I’d love to know.
Happy Serendipity of Collage
This Moon/Month I’m pushing all my energy into launching my biggest project yet:
The TWELVTY program. After a final flurry of readying, I opened the doors yesterday, and the first subscribers jump right in. I’ve got a really good feeling about this – we’re building a community of makers and doers, artists and creatives, and together we’ll explore how color impacts our lives, our moods, our work and our art. We’re going to delve deep into one color at a time and soak up all its lovely juicy spirit.
If you want to find out more, it’s all here on my website. If you’ve got any questions or want to find out more, comment below or message me through my site and I’ll be happy to answer all I can.
Let’s join together in 2017 and Create the Marvellous!
All I had was this two word note that me-in-the-past had dropped in time, for me-in-the-future to happen upon and to investigate further.
A while ago I found a scrap of paper in my studio, on it was scribbled the name Neil Harbisson. Neil who? I don’t think I know any Neils these days… my mind wanders back in time to past acquaintances, the connections, the links, the friends of friends…
No. No Neils there.
Some times passes, some weeks, I go on my usual drifty way blundering through my days, cherishing my studio time.
Another day, while rooting round for just the right scraps to collage into my art journal, the color that pings, the shape that blends, that one piece that harmonizes and unifies and completes.
And I see him again, this Neil I don’t know, scribbled on a scrap, and my memory rolls back in: the thought process that produced this scribble.
I was listening to the radio in the studio, and this guy – Neil – he’d either been in an interview, or the presenter had spoken about him, enough to make me want to find out more.
But more what? The memories weren’t stretching that far and they didn’t hold any content.
All I had was this two word note that me-in-the-past had dropped in time for me-in-the-future to happen upon and to investigate further.
(More time passed.)
Then on one of those days when I must’ve had a deadline so close, a task so pressing, so so much, that I was on the brink of shutdown.
Those times when the overwhelming emergency of it all is so loud all I can think to do is nap or run away.
And the easiest run away of the moment was to dive down one of the rabbit holes on the internets and hide out there until bedtime. Or a little later.
And I remembered this name. I visualised the scrap. I recalled the recall.
I urgently wanted to know what was so fascinating I couldn’t let it float by in the past. I’d anchored that moment for a reason, and I was going to find out why.
And here is what I found:
I smiled at the notion of becoming fascinated with something so very visual I’d heard about on the radio. The magical crossover of hearing and seeing was repeated, overlapped in a pleasingly elegant irony.
So why am I remembering this to you? Why here and now?
And where exactly are we here and now anyway?
We’re back in my art journal, the one of the moment. This is the place my mental fallout lands.
I began it on the last Equinox a couple of months ago and I figure it will be my art-ing abode until solstice. (I’m alligning my makings this year, it seems out be working out well)
And when are we?
We’re (well, I am – and you seem to be here with me too) riding the rapids of thoughts and ideas that unless I take these diversions I’ll be utterly swept away.
I’m putting together a program all about color, so previously explored rabbit holes like these are the mileposts along my journey.
And I figured you might find this interesting too.
And if you like this, you’ll almost certainly want to play with me next year in my TWELVTY program. If you haven’t already – sign up here and you’ll be the first to hear all about it.
(Your email is absolutely safe with me, I’ll just pop by and check up on it time to time, feed it biscuits, plump up its cushions, that sort of thing.)
It seems to be speeding up, but is it though? is it really? seeing it telescope up and out as time passes and individual perspectives shift. And the volume’s winding up all the while.
(this image is from my new-moon-vision-board-book . not as a statement of fear or doom, but shift and transformation)
But FFS, it’s relentless.
Right? I mean, isn’t it?
It doesn’t let up.
I can’t process it in any particular order, so I spend little bits of day here in my world, releasing confusion into my art journal.
This is a world populated by mismatch and clash.In that sense, perhaps it isn’t so different from the one outside.
Looking out, looking in. Trying to digest. Thinking forward, plans to make a positive contributionand fighting the voice inside that laughs in the face of that notion.
If you’re disconbobulated in scrambled emotions, if you’re feeling helpless, if you’re full of fear, my thoughts are with you. Much love, my friends.
I got back from my travels last month so wiped out with jetlag, post giddy-with-deleriously-excited induced tiredfulness that I lost most use out of almost a full fortnight. Then no time at all later I went and took off again. I’m back now, this time long enough to catch my own tail, to take a deep breath. And again. And to make some plans.
Last weekend brought a new moon, which on this side of the world was the second new moon in the month making it a black moon. I’ve loved the mythology, the tradition, the woo-woo – the whatever you want to call it – of aligning with the lunar cycle since I was a wee scrap. It’s part of my way of fumbling through this life. The new moon is the time to sow seeds – literal and metaphorical. Actual plant seeds want you to pay attention to the season for best success, but the seeds of ideas can be planted any time. I like the belief they get a head start when fuelled by intention and belief.
Inspired by a couple of dear friends I’ve met this year, this new moon I was inspired to begin this new moonly ritual.
A New Moon – Moodboard – Art Journal – Scrapbook. … Snappy title, right? ha!
The idea was introduced to me by Kate Robertson, I love it so much as it brings together a bunch of things I already do – the art journalling, the new moon intention setting, my unending love of cutting up and gluing together images… I haven’t moodboarded much before, for want of getting around to it, and finding a space for the thing to live, so to have it in a book is the perfect solution for me. Said book is now propped up open at the current view and in my line of vision where I sit and do my artly doings.
The process was enriched by the influence of Hali Karla, who I was delighted to meet up with in real life on my travels. Hali is an artist, intuitively in tune with an astrological practice that she weaves into her creativity, she provides an Art Practice New Moon audio recording each month you can listen to here. On Sunday I settled myself down with the big ole box of magazine pics I’ve been hoarding forever, a big new art journal, and as I listened to Hali’s words I chose the images and thoughts that shone out to me as what I want to bring into the coming month.
These shorter darker days call in more than ever the warm bright glowing colours for me, for cosiness and comfort, for the mental hibernation and reconbobulation I’m looking to toward the end of a year of big changes and personal re-routing.
I’ve got a sense of releasing the past, letting go and lightening up. Looking into the place where the dreamworld meets the real world, matching the edges together and seeing what I can make next.
In doing this I’m piecing together new plans for 2017, plans I intend to nurture this month. (Much more on that soon)
Maybe it’s a throw back to school days, for me September has never lost that New-Beginning-y feel.
This bit of year where the edges of summer and fall meet up, crossover a little, shimmy back and forth for a week or two before chillier times set in for proper.
I love all the seasons, but I most enjoy the beginning part of each one.
All the first-in-a-long-whiles — the little things, the details — I revel in these. Now is the season of crunchy leaves, soup, socks, dark evenings with candlelight and blankets, all of it has novelty value for the first few weeks.
As the season turned I came to the end of my art journal that I played in through the summer, so last week – to coincide with the Equinox – I began this new book.
I also began I new way of documenting – by time lapse photo. I reckon by the end of this book I’ll have perfected the recording and editing, it’s a learning curve, which I’ll share with you here.
Here’s the makings of this first page: “Wandering Doodles”
EDIT 25 Sep: the lucky winners will receive notification from Dirty Footprints Studio by email before the launch on Monday 26 September. But it’s not too late – you can still sign up right here
Hey dear friends — I have a gift for you!
To celebrate my online class teaching on 21 Secrets I have TWO FREE COPIES of COLOR, COLOR, COLOR! the 2016 Fall Edition of the 21 Secrets program to share.
But be quick – it’s only a week until launch day!
Sign up here to enter the Prize Draw – two lucky winners will be drawn on Friday 23 September.
By entering this prize draw, you’ll be added to my newsletter list too. The newsletter is still young, and fairly infrequent – you can expect it dropping into your mailbox no more than once a month – or maybe if there’s something super spectacularly exciting I think you’d like to know. You can unsubscribe any time you like, no hard feelings.
Your email is absolutely safe with me, inside my computer where even I won’t be able to find it most of the time. I’ll just pop by and check up on it time to time, feed it biscuits, plump up its cushions, that sort of thing.
Hi folks, I hope you’re enjoying your summer (or winter to those who reside on the other side of this little blue ball).
What’s new with you? I’ve been busy squirrelling away on so many things and I haven’t been over here in wordpress world to share them with you.
I’ve been preparing my class I’m teaching in the 21 Secrets online program that’s out for pre-sale now, releasing in September. That kept me reeeeally busy for a while! I’ll show you some little snips of it here and there pre-launch – like this…………..
Ooooh! All those colors!!
AND busy busily busying art journalling as usual, but not in my usual fashion. <GASP!>
I believe it’s good to shake stuff up, re-jig, re-orient and sometimes reinvent ourselves. The world and its contents keep evolving and the only alternative is stagnation. And that’s no fun at all. Uck!
Art-journal-wise I’ve shaken things up this time. No nice new sketchbook, no repurposed new book, this was a tatty old ledger I found in among my dad’s old papers and desk whatnots, boxed away for years in storage. From the pencilled pre-decimal price inside the back cover I would date it around 1950-something. About a third of the pages had been torn out, the remainder were a little yellowed, but blank. Fresh for painting and collaging and doodling and whatevering all over.
My usual strategy is to progress page by page as one finishes I flip the page and start again.
This time I’ve been opening the book randomly and splashing, doodling, writing and out-pouring with no regard to any sense of the linear.
If you’re in a rut, this is a great shake up. As a process it ripples out into life as little shifts make dramatic differences.
In the case of an art journal, it meant for a few weeks there was nothing aesthetically worth sharing, all oddments of scribble, stark paint scrapings, lonely fragments.
Then all of a sudden faces started to emerge
The pages are filling up and feeling closer to completed. Coherency emerges.
This is the third journal I’ve been working in this year and they appear to be following the seasons, this one fully in the season of summer.
A few weeks time I’ll be ready to begin my book of autumn, I’m already looking forward to that.
Yesterday I went to the funeral of the mother of an old friend. I don’t see him much these days, our lives distanced in different directions, but as a teenager I spent some time hanging out at his house and with his family, so I went along to say hello/goodbye.
The last time we saw each other, a few years ago, was the funeral of another of the group who used to hang out. The brother of our lost friend was there as well. The previous grief rolled back in. As I walked home after my mind was flooded.
The sanctuary of this book was waiting for me, glad of the space between it’s pages to drift and soothe and hush the thoughts. There are no rules in here. Nothing appropriate or other. Just release.
Revisiting the crematorium, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been there, from my cousin when I was 15 through generations of friends and relations. With every attendance, every ceremony, each the same and each achingly unique, another layer of mourning.
The logical mind tries to interpret grief intellectually as profound sadness associated with an inexplicable ending, but it isn’t, it’s much more confusing than that.
It’s all of the emotions, all of the feelings in accelerating succession, then as that rhythm starts to normalise, another avalanche. And repeating, and repeating. Inexplicable, inappropriate, quite strange. I remember feeling indestructible after mum died. In conversation yesterday someone was saying how he floated in an unexplained elation for months after a close loss. Troubling and comforting in balanced measure.
I often think of how different our lives have become in just a few generations, since the media driven onslaught of communication. By partaking in modern society our circle of acquaintance is inflated to absurd proportions in unrestricted encounters.
These encounters zip back and forth in time, meaning for the first time in humanity we can spend time in the company of someone – albeit a one-way version of them – at any point in their lives. Years aren’t played out in consecutive order and the resultant discombobulation unsettles us, I believe, more than we understand.
Perhaps this is the shake up we need, rattling us out of the old paradigms.
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