Things change

 

It has been an uncomfortable year of internal shifts and ragged soul-work. Of staring down horrible thought habits and questioning and processing and wearing myself out. I read somewhere (probably everywhere given the blogs that I read) that when you are moving into a new phase of your life it can feel as uncomfortable as hell. That things feel shit right up to the moment that they get good. That you don't know the reason you feel like this is because your bones are realigning again. A new iteration is coming. Someone is being born. Someone different.

I looked at myself in the mirror this morning and thought I looked different. My face seems to have changed shape. I am working towards an exhibition that I've had booked in for ages, thinking I knew exactly what I would be hanging and what I would be working on. Not so. My work has changed shape too. And it feels right that it has but that hasn't made the process an easy one. I keep questioning myself. Will I have enough finished paintings? Will people like my work? What do I do afterwards? What next? Do I need a proper website? And on and on.

This evening I am trusting that it will all come together just fine. I will make myself a cup of peppermint tea, sit in front of the canvas and do the work.

Seed heads workshop

 

A happy day spent painting with a group of enthusiastic students. When I'm teaching I do tend to sit there sometimes and think "I can't believe I get paid to do this".

This kind of painting, the kind that pays tribute to the change in seasons, that asks you to respond the world around you, puts me right back in to the moment. After three months of drifting in and out of my life I have slipped quietly into autumn and, as the natural world winds down and prepares to sleep, I feel awake at last.

I had planned to spend the evening tidying the flat, exercising and making food in preparation for a colleague's leaving do tomorrow. However, I've paid a visit to my mum instead. She has wine. And homemade chicken soup.



A little recap

These are some of the paintings I did in November. I did quite a few other things as well. I took on a lot of extra teaching which seemed like a good idea a few months ago, when the job situation was looking particularly bleak. I also broke both my phone and my Ipod. There was a depressing evening in late November where I found myself slumped on the sofa feeling stressed and tearful and couldn't even listen to music to sooth myself. I also couldn't phone my mum.

It's all good now though. Work is winding down, we had our Christmas meal today and I'm blogging after ten vodka and tonics. By the end of the week I'll be feeling a bit bored.

Weekend frivolity

I am pretty sure that for the whole of my life so far my poor mother has dreaded my tendency towards boredom. As I have grown older I have found productive ways to fill my time; little projects here and there, painting, generally making a mess, but, even now, in my early thirties, Mum still gets the occasional phone call: "it's my day off tomorrow, shall we go out somewhere nice?"

Friday saw us traipsing off to Oxford where I purchased a small set of seasonal candles from Culpeper and some poppy seed heads. I love seed heads and I love the Covered Market in Oxford where you can find all sorts of wonderful things. At Christmas the butcher hangs out whole deer carcasses and rabbits and pigs and I love it! I know that sounds terribly blood thirsty and carnivorous but it does feel so festive and Dickensian.

I also have home grown tomatoes ready for brushetta this evening and two vintage pillow cases purchased from a car boot on Sunday. I don't usually go in for second hand bed linen but these were so lovely and look and feel so old and of such good quality that I couldn't resist. The lady on the stall had a remarkable array of goodies; glass bottles of rose scented linen water, old perfume bottles and original oil paintings of small french villages. I go to enough car boots with Mum to know that these kinds of stalls are few and far between, it makes it worth wading through all that Primark and Matalan crap.

Term starts next week and I still have a huge amount of prep to do for my classes but for now I'm just happy snuggling into my sofa with my candles burning and a good book- there are two on the go at the moment depending on my mood Inkheart by Cornelia Funke and Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.