Distilled

 

"The truth is, all things unchanged, the women we will be at 70, 80, and 90 are the women we are at 40 and 50 - only distilled." Jean Fleming.

So if we are bitter at 40 or 50, it doesn't bode well for our old age - if nothing changes. We are free to carry on as we are, but wouldn't it be better to continue to grow? To keep on becoming the women we want to be? To forgive, to be patient, to be gracious, and most of all, to be loving. I don't want to be the same person in my 70s as I am in my 50s because that means I've become stagnant, and I certainly don't want that!

Alien landscape

 

Alien landscape.

This page started with the green gelli-printed tissue paper and then the brown sweep across the middle. The space over to the right was just crying out for a tree, and once the tree was on there, I wanted a 'sun'. But the background was yellow and I wanted a splash of blue on there, so why not a blue 'sun'? Then of course it was an alien landscape.

Even though all the colours are not the usual ones, we still read it as a landscape. Even though the tree doesn't have the usual branch form, it still reads as a tree. This made me think about people who have different cultures from our own, or who have lived very different lives from ours, or whose bodies are different from our own. Even though our histories and backgrounds, shapes and sizes, are very different, we still have a lot in common. Their lives may be alien to us, but there are still many things that we can relate to. They are not so 'alien' as we might think.

Encouragement

                     

Encouraging others lifts oneself. 

It's been a busy week and my art journal page hasn't really moved along, but today I did a workshop and encouraged others to journal. They all left with a few exercises and some pages that they were really happy with. I find that when I encourage others, I am encouraged myself, too. Skill-sharing is a great way to encourage people.

Happiness

 

"Happiness depends more on how life strikes you than on what happens." Andy Rooney 

Happiness is a state of mind more than a situation. This is why some people seem to sail through life without a care and others, who seem to have everything, do not. If you can laugh easily, and not conflate the small things into crises, then happiness is yours. Happiness often comes down to not sweating the small stuff.

Conditions

What are the right conditions for your growth? They aren't necessarily the same as someone else's.

Just as different plants need different amounts of sunlight and shade, water, type of soil, we also need different conditions to thrive. When we look at other people, do we envy them? We shouldn't, because what suits them may not suit us. We may think that if we had this, that, or the other, life would be better, but would it really? We may think that we want fame and fortune, but would that bright sunlight suit us? Might we be happier with a better balance between direct sunlight and shade? 

Work out what makes you thrive, and aim for that, without looking at what everyone else has.

Accidents happen

 

Meet accidents with grace.

Accidents happen unexpectedly - it's their very nature. Meeting something unexpected can cause us to be anxious. It can make us respond in ways that aren't gracious. It's understandable to be shaken if you are in an accident in a vehicle, and when we are shaken we don't necessarily think well before we speak. But there are those other accidents such as the one we had happen last week: When the solar panels were put on our roof, a foot ended up coming through the plaster in the hallway. It's an accident. It was apologised for and is in the process of being fixed. People already feel bad in these kinds of situations. There is no reason for us not to be gracious and to let them know that we don't lay blame. After all, it's just a ceiling, and no-one was hurt.

Aspire

Aspire to always improve, whether in big steps or small.

All these arrows made me want to rise up. They made me think about moving forwards, about improvement. Sometimes we don't recognise the improvement we're making because the steps are so small. But when we look back over a longer period of time, we can see that we have made progress. 

I look at some of the canvases I did a few years ago, and although I still like them, I can see that what I am producing at the moment has much more complexity. That doesn't mean to say that I won't move on to things that are simpler again, like this art journal page. It's all part of the journey. Being able to put a few elements on a page and getting balance is a skill to improve in, just as building layers and complexity into things is, too. The thing is to keep at it.

new canvas

 

I think this canvas is finished. I don't think there's much space for anything else unless I paint the whole lot white and start again! I keep coming back to 'make your mark' and so those words have made it on to this canvas. These colours are vivid and I just love them. Yes, there's a lot on the canvas, but I do a lot of different creative things and why should I put any of them down?

Modest life

 

" A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success with constant restlessness." Albert Einstein.

There is a lot to be said for a quiet life.

New growth

 

Ready for new growth.

I'm entering a new phase in my life with a casual job in a local independent bookshop, starting today! It's a long time since I worked in a bookshop - the mid 1990s to be exact. I home-schooled for our child's entire education and have done some cleaning and digging holes for interment of ashes (yes, our child is delighted that I went on to the census as a gravedigger 🤣) but nothing really where you deal with the public all day. It's exciting and terrifying all at the same time. But I keep reminding myself that I can do this. I'm capable and I've done it before. If I tell myself often enough, I might just believe it.

Be seen

 

Be seen for all the right reasons.

The neon yellow ink on this page just kept overpowering the page. No matter what I put down, it  shone through. It made me think of the safety jackets that help workers be seen. It keeps them as safe as possible in situations where they need to be seen.

But sometimes people are seen for the 'wrong' reasons - they draw our attention by their bad behaviour. 

What are people seeing when they notice you? Are you drawing attention for good reasons?

Fall into line

Do you fall into line or make your own way?

Of course, it's that little circle at the bottom, not lined up with all the others, that prompted my thought for this page. There are pros and cons to both ways of living. Yes, we all want to feel that we are unique and making our own way - and we are - but there are places where the wisest choice is to fall into line. You have the freedom to drive wherever you like on the road, but one side is safer and less litigious than the other! 

The wisest course in life is to choose when and where to stand aside from the crowd.