I got an e mail from a business recently, addressing me by my first name, friendly and chatty in tone, then, a couple of paragraphs in,  telling me 'Remember I'm just a bit of software' !! It refers me to FAQ with any queries and then, as a last resort, to a person. The security check bit says 'If you are a human, please copy this'.

I know I'm sometimes communicating with machines online, but to be reminded of it by the machine   is really a bit funny, in both senses of the word, don't you think?

I skived off yesterday.

I went up to Glasgow on the bus and as I stepped off I saw the Edinburgh bus was sitting next to mine, just about to leave, so in a 'laugh and go' moment I hopped on. It was a warm and sunny day in Edinburgh. I had a Caesar salad and a glass of wine on the terrace of a rooftop restaurant, wandered round some posh shops, browsed in a new shop called Anthropologie, bought a small notebook in Paperchase, admired this new simple landscaping in St Andrew's Square and came home again, wonderfully refreshed!

Browsing at www.ted.com - always something of interest there - I came across this...
 
http://www.ted.com/talks/stefan_sagmeister_the_power_of_time_off.html

An interesting concept and some interesting design ideas (but a very weird ending!) The first five minutes is best.

Julia Cameron in her book The Artist's Way - A Course in Discovering and Recovering your Creative Self    talks of the need to fill the well  :-

     In order to create, we draw from our inner well. This inner well, an artistic reservoir, is ideally like a well stocked trout pond...any extended period or piece of work draws heavily on our artistic well...

     As artists we must learn to be self nourishing. We must become alert enough to consciously replenish our creative resources - as we draw on them - to restock the trout pond so to speak.

I am beginning to think that my current restlessness has something to do with the need to fill the well. I've been painting full time for over a decade now - obviously filling the well frequently - but I feel a great need to drain it completely, clean it out thoroughly, repair the walls, and top it up to the brim with fresh new water - hundreds of thousands of gallons of it!



..do you need to fill your well?....

Another simple way to create calm in a room is with limiting the number of colours you are looking at at any one time. Colour is wonderful, but it can be distracting too, and multi-coloured everything can be very tiring I think.

Try putting things of only one colour on your shelf, or coffee table top. Gather up a few things from around the house in your favourite colour and arrange them together, not too many.

Instant calm.

If you found yesterday's photo calming, can you create that feeling in your own room? Even a small area can have the desired effect.

You might take a shelf in an alcove, or the surface of the dining table or coffee table, or you could choose the bit that is usually the messiest!

Clear it completely and clean it. Then put back only a select few things. Objects which please your eye, or conjure up happy memories, or otherwise give you pleasure. Something alive - flowers, a sprig of ivy, or a healthy plant. A photograph or a card, just one (you can always swap it for another favourite next week/month). Perhaps a candle. Arrange them carefully. Try a few arrangements - it only takes a thoughtful minute - and ask yourself which looks best. If it doesn't look right, take something away.

Be minimal, if only in this one space.

Every time your eye goes to this space, you will feel a little calmer and more peaceful.

If this works for you, you may like to create a little oasis of calm in each room, or you could extend this practice over the whole room, or the whole house.

Try it with just one small space and see if it works....

I've done it Maggie! Maggie has been telling me for ages that I should print some greetings cards from my photographs from the blog.

Here is the first set of five cards.They are on sale at the Open Studios week-end, and if you'd like some please e mail me at studiofive46@btinternet.com They are £10 for a set of five plus £1 p&p. (UK, other countries on request.)


It has been a lovely first day, with a trickle of interesting visitors, a few sales, and a clean and calm house (well the visible bits are clean and calm!)

Gretchen Rubin of The Happiness Project says 'Outer order contributes to inner calm'. I took the photograph below this morning, and it makes me feel kind of peaceful just to look at it, and sitting in it this evening, with a wee wood fire going and a glass of my nephew's damson gin - well, it's just making me count my blessings....

Cheers!

 


I wasn't laughing this morning when the paint on the  studio floor was still tacky. It said on the paint tin 4 - 6 hours drying time! This was 10 hours later.

And the frame I need to finish is against the window on the far side...

(But it does look good with the bright sunshine creating beautiful patterns on it.)



I'm not really a hopelessly disorganised person - it just looks that way sometimes....

Masses to do before Open Studios starts this Friday. I get a bit panicky as a deadline approaches, yet I still put things off! It doesn't make sense, but by this point I'm not thinking sensibly - I expend as much energy feeling guilty and castigating myself for leaving things to the last minute as would get the thing done. (I remind myself that this is how I usually do things....)

I'm painting the concrete floor in the studio white. I see it as a major, major job - all the stacked up paintings will have to be moved, and where to? And  all the stuff under the worktable, and the boots and shoes and logs and other clutter that all end up here by the back door. It has to be vacuumed, washed, dried, painted, with time for the paint to dry before I need to use the space. I feel overwhelmed and begin to think it is an impossible task.

Then I ask myself 'What would be simplest?'

Just start.

Take the first baby step.

I clear a strip under the window from wall to wall, about 3 feet deep. I already feel better - because I have started. I wash it and go for a walk while it dries. Last thing I paint the clean strip. It's actually quite pleasant to do. I'll do more tomorrow.

Now that I have started the panic subsides. I am calmer and I can see that it will all get done.

It always does.

But only if I start....


..the wedding was lovely. There was rain, hailstones, and then just in time for the photos - sunshine....

Off to the wedding.

Dress fits! Hurrah!

Hoping for sunshine for the happy couple.



....hope you have something nice to celebrate too...

Here is a thoughtful and honest piece about blogging, and about how misleading a picture of other people's lives photographs can sometimes give!

click here  http://www.flaxandtwine.com/2011/07/capturing-moment.html

It also shows how important noticing and capturing those moments can be. Enjoy...



....apologies if this link is not working for you - it's worth typing it in! Help would be appreciated from anyone who can tell me why it sometimes works and sometimes doesn't!
 
Reminds me of my sister's haiku (2 May 2011) :

Yesterday it worked,
today it did not work.
Windows is like that.

Grrrr..

PS - fixed! Turns out it was me, not the computer. Oh dear...Thank you to Anne for her help and for the lovely blog post.

I think I've spotted a new trend!

An ad for Filofax, the paper personal organisers, describes them as:

                                                  'stylishly old-fashioned'

Will old-fashioned be the next big thing I wonder?

Wealthy philanthropist Peter Moores, 79, is downshifting.
 
He is selling his 17C country house for £9m.

'I want somewhere where you can walk to Tesco's' he says.

Ah, the simple life....!

Island life, it seems to me, is simpler in many ways. But simple isn't easy.

A small community, farming, distilling whisky, and tourism. Spectacular scenery (though I remember an unemployed teenager on television saying 'You can't eat the view'.) Weather really matters. A community garden struggling for volunteers. Wonderful live music, in Gaelic, in the local hotel, which you had the feeling would happen anyway, with or without tourists. Fine quality crafts, no Primark bargains here. Nature reserves, also dependent on volunteers, small museums and a fair bit of nostalgia for times gone by. More traditional farming methods provide for wildlife in abundance, but it's a hard living for many on the more remote islands. Sheer slog for some. The old ways are hard and you need to be fit and strong, self sufficient and resilient.

We only saw two bits of graffiti, suprising with all those white walls, and they both read - rather optimistically I thought -'OK'.
 
I wonder if OK has some special significance here.....

A little bus, a bigger bus, an 'awesome' coach, according to the proud driver (it was!), and a new Cal Mac car ferry that was fitted out like a cruise ship! (Click on image 5.) The trip to Islay by public transport was very interesting, and leaving the car behind very freeing in a way. The service was great - clean, efficient and friendly, and 'joined up'.

You do take less stuff when you don't have your car. Simpler, yes. But if the weather is wild, and it was, I'd really want the comfort and convenience of a car on Islay, and was grateful that friends were picking us up in their car when we got there.

As I say at the top of my blog I am

                                                       'an artist seeking a simpler life, but not too simple!'

Talking of the travel bug - I'm off again! Three buses, a ferry and a car....back soon.

Have you been bitten lately?

Is there something that you habitually do when you have a decision to make?

Walking works for me. I just have to move. Sometimes a long walk does it, other times I just keep heading out of the door, several times a day or even over a few days. Not necessarily mulling over the matter about which I have to make a decision , but just physically moving.

And it really doesn't matter where either - but this forest walk clears my head and refreshes my brain.

After a few such walks I find the decision has been made....


..What works for you?

   This is the window of a closed-down sports shop in York - I wondered if they were being ironic, or maybe optimistic?