Walking into Joy - celebrating the labyrinth

At the weekend I attended a meet up of labyrinth enthusiasts at the turf maze in Hilton, Cambridgeshire. (I'm now wondering what the collective word for a meet up of labyrinth enthusiasts should be!) I'd been hoping to attend this for some time, I'd been in touch with the organisers, and when I managed to organise a taxi share for the last part of the journey I decided it was a sign and booked my ticket!

There were several talks from experts and I learnt some new information about labyrinths and how they are being used in settings like schools and universities. I think my two favourite parts of the day were the chance to walk two labyrinths, both this gorgeous turf labyrinth in the village, and a portable canvas labyrinth inside the village hall, as well as a very grounding meditation on a finger labyrinth at the start of the day, and the great spacing of the day which enabled lots of time for doing what you enjoyed and meeting new people and making connections. Often when you attend events it can seem that they are packed full - something I find hard as I struggle with my attention and sitting still these days for any length of time - and because it leaves me feeling slightly too full - like my soul ate too much up and I don't have room to digest it all. Saturday was perfect - just enough information, with lots of time to connect. I'm excited to find out that there are some possibilities to attend other labyrinth events in the UK later this year.

You can find some of these events at UK facilitators here by Jan Sellers and Kaye Barrett.
Labyrinths in Britain who organised this event have a facebook page here.

Also check out the resources at Labyrinthos, Veriditas an organisation based in the UK who offer events and facilitator training, and The Labyrinth Society who have a worldwide labyrinth locator on their site.

 

Celebrating love

I've been a little quieter than normal as I've had a much waited for holiday with my family! One of my nephews got married just outside Skipton and we made a week of it, travelling by train and staying in a little cottage in the centre of Skipton. I was very ready for a holiday! I seem to have had a constant run of things to do and think about recently, and it was nice to focus just on family and having fun!

Skipton itself is an area I haven't really been to although I've spent some time fairly close. It's a lovely area and I would definitely go back. I'm always happy when I can see hills/mountains (not something we see that much of now I am in Essex!) and we went to Malham for a day out with my extended family to see the animal safari which was great fun - one of my twins even won the duck race which he was super pleased about.

For me, I definitely need these time outs. Holidays are a permission slip for me to have fun - whilst at home I can always think of all the things that need doing, on holiday you are pretty much free from that pressure and can just enjoy things as they are. Which in this case was lots of family time, eating nice food, relaxing, listening to the radio, reading a book, playing games with the boys and doing a fabulous mix of things we love to do and things that appeal to the boys.

I've felt very much sobered and upset by the recent events in the UK, both the London event as I know the area well, and the Manchester event because it hit so many vulnerable people, children just out for a lovely time together. I don't know what the answers are. I do know that the feeling I get, the joy of doing things I love, with people I love, and seeing the amazing, empathetically run, and charged event on the concert from Ariana Grande, feels like part of the answer. When we do the things we love, the things we want, the things our soul cries out for, then we have that kernel of hope that helps us find our own little ways through. Love, light and prayers for those who are suffering at this time.

Stay safe, stay loving, art friends.

Creating a dreamscape

I've been working on a series of pieces ready for showing them locally in the Oasis Café in Leigh on Sea. I'd best describe my style of working as both abstract and intuitive - I rarely pre-plan pieces of work but focus on the colours I am using and see what emerges in the moment of painting.

 

Instead of preparing via sketchbooks, my preparation is moving into the right mind-set to paint. Often this is re-focusing from my role as mama to my role as artist. Learning to create rituals and events that help me transition more smoothly so the paint flows and inspiration finds room to come forth and show me what needs painting. I've found meditation early in the day, before I paint, so helpful for this transition time.

Meditating before painting allows me to stop and slow down. It is a sign that I am taking time for myself, stepping aside from other responsibilities and slowing right, right down and focusing on the breath. Focusing on possibility. Instead of hearing what I should be doing, hearing the words and letting go. I like the idea that this can help bring me the space in my head to come to a piece of work afresh, even if I've had a big break from painting.

 

This piece of work has been unfolding from an initial range of colours - greens, teal, yellow, silver and reds. The colours dance together. Photographing the work in progress helps me see how they fit together. It helps me assess what is working and what my need tweaking or changing. Sometimes changes are small, sometimes I feel a big swathe needs reworking. This is the joy of working from the heart and the soul. It feels what is working. I am working on learning to trust what is working, where the painting is, what it needs and when it is done. I am learning to find my own style. To say yes, this feels like my work and that feels good.

 

To be comfortable in sharing how I get there, the good and the bad, or rather the messy and the not quite feeling right. It's a stage, just as some of the uncomfortable things we go through in parenting, in life, in growing into our skins as a mama, is a stage. It can be uncomfortable in the moment. I can be hard on myself. I need breaks. Yet when I approach it with joy, and myself with grace, I find new possibilities coming through in the painting. Until it whispers - this is what I need. This is what you need. This is the message that needs to come through right now. This. Yes this. Trust this.

 

Until next time friends.

What inspired me in April

Wow, already all the way through April and into May! April felt like it was mainly about Easter and pre-school being on holiday. With two active 4 year olds it can be challenging in to get in time for me and my projects. I've started to realise that this will be something I need to work with and flex around more, especially as the long holiday will be coming up soon. This mama is definitely one that still needs to do things to soothe and fill her own soul up, so that she can be the best mama that she can be. Emily over at Makelight has a good blog on her take on being a working mama over the holidays.

I purposely took a bit of a step back in April. Partly because of the holidays, and partly because I've been thinking about what art I create and what I want to get out there. I went to a fabulous mentoring session with Helen Hallows, that I thought was mainly some practical elements to my work and ended up being so much more! It's made me think much wider about what I am putting out in the world. In case you don't know, I've done lots of different things but one of the things I've done in the past is coaching, and it's something I'm thinking fits so well with the direction I feel my artwork moving into. And it feels good, and right to think about how I bring them together. Sometime working with someone else can bring to light something that you just can't see for yourself. Others tend to see your light and talent without the miasma of doubt that we put on it ourselves!

The themes that bring them together are creating messages that are uplifting, encouraging and inspiring. Words that bring a light into the eye. A hug for the soul. A pause and a break. I've come to this after much of the political shifts that we have had over the last couple of years, and how it feels that there can be so much anxiety, and negativity and "fake" in the world. I want to live in a world that is authentic and true. I want to bring my children up that one of the biggest things that's important to them is kindness and believing they can.

I've been so not good at believing I can. It's probably my biggest challenge I constantly fall down on. I'm hoping part of this message out into the world whether it is art, or coaching, is about me moving past this, and maybe bringing some tips and tools and resources for others who find this hard too. Let's be stronger together.

This month the two main tools I have been using are meditation and visioning.
Meditation and mindfulness is something I've dipped in and out of in the past. This month I've been inspired by the idea that calming my mind can help keep me focused and out of the doubt mindset I can fall into so easily. Recognising this and  breathing past it, and out of it, has been very inspiring for me this month. I believe it's helped me to move fasster out of "I can't do this, I'm not good enough" mode and back into a place of seeing how things go. I've been enjoying meditations from Danny Penman's site Frantic World. The great thing is that some of these are very short, so fit in well with my lifestyle.

Visioning and vision boarding is something I am very interested in, and I've been doing some work on what's important to me. This month I've been reading The Vision Board by Joyce Schwarz, and I also went to a workshop with Lifeclubs all about moving ourselves forwards by visioning and the shape we see our lives now and the shape we want it to be. The good stuff of course, is in finding a way to move from one to the other.

Until next time, friends.

Sowing the seeds of self - creative wishes, motherhood and me

Creative wishes

This Mother's Day, let's celebrate the fact that we can be both mother to our children, and kind to our own soul. That we can maybe do our best when we sow the seeds that honouring what makes our own soul sing, is good for our relationship and our children and our whole family life.

When we become a mama it can feel like our world turns upside down, gets shaken up and sometimes it feels a little like all the essential bits of us fell out at the same time, like coins falling out of your pocket when you hang them up on the end of the bed at night. Being a mama is amazingly life changing - and can especially in the early days, completely subsume our soul with emotion, change, tiredness, doing all the thousand and one tiny and multiple jobs that bringing a child into the house means.

Believe, especially if you're in that early cycle. That essential you is still in there. She may be (most likely will be) changed by motherhood. As spring brings growth and renewal, it's ok to get in touch with that seed of your soul as you travel on the path of motherhood. If you're like me, it's much needed. I've been a stay at home mama to my twin boys since they were born, and something in my soul craves and needs that creative time to restore my soul.

I used to think that this was time to switch off from being a mummy, in fact something I've been thinking about a lot is that our journey as a mama is intrinsically wrapped up in our journey of rediscovery of what it means to be me + mama + creativity.

Our creativity does not exist in a vacuum. It exists in both the situation we find ourselves in, in our particular season of life, and in the seeds we nurture when we go after what is most important to us and in listening to what feeds our soul.

Maybe our best gift to ourselves this Mothering Sunday is to listen to what is in our heart and hear how mothering is allowing us to explore new places within ourselves that open the door to a new creative awakening.

Soul note

Listen to your soul

Schedule yourself a time out, with a lovely notebook and cup of tea. Cake on a beautiful plate. Breathe deeply and celebrate what new gifts motherhood has given you and how they complement your creativity.

Knowing you have these new gifts, how will you use them to expand your creative practice? How can you share this knowledge with your family? What will you do to water these seeds of inspiration?

 Until next time, Breathe deeply, mother lovingly, create mindfully.

Claire

A Creative Revolution - learning with Flora Bowley

 

It's been a little while since I've signed up for any new courses (those who know me will know I love a course and before I had children used to be almost continually on some sort of self development!) but this week I started a new course called The Creative Revolution with Flora Bowley.

It's good as an artist to look for new ways to work, and challenge yourself and your creative process. I wanted a course that fed both my soul, and gave me some new techniques to weave into my current way of working. The Creative Revolution felt like a perfect fit, as it brings together all these elements. The course information had intrigued me as had the short video Flora had released on visual riffing, a way to add new input into your work, and move past creative blocks by offering short, quick exercises that could be done easily.

So far we are just one week in and I've been enjoying the heart focused messages which feel close to the messages that I like to get across in my own work. I've been enjoying playing with watercolours, and have been sharing some of the results over on my Facebook and Instagram feeds. Although I bought some watercolours a while back I haven't used them very much so it has been nice allowing them to flow onto the page. I'm looking forwards to seeing what new insight it gives me about how I work and integrating this into my own way of creating beautiful art that I put out into the world.

 You can see what's currently in my Etsy shop here.

A family love celebration

 

You may have noticed that love is one the themes that constantly weaves itself through my work. We are very much a family where we tell each other how much we love each other. We have family hugs. This weekend on the run up to Valentine's Day I thought it would be fun to have a family love day, a theme to run through the day. It took a little, but not much preparation and was fun to arrange. The boys came down to see the decorations and thought it was their birthday! They loved the idea of having a love day!

We started off with a special breakfast together - chocolate chip pancakes, strawberries, blueberries and a few mini marshmallows. I had decorated the table with heart confetti which the boys thought was funny. After breakfast I gave them a small present, just a comic each wrapped in paper. Giving it as  present made it more interesting for them.

I'd arranged some activities for us to do through the day which I had found via Red Ted art which is a great resource for finding lovely activities to do with your children. I'd done some of the preparation the night before whilst P was watching the rugby! One of the activities was this paper hug activity, super easy to put together and even today they have been giving hugs with it!

A new book bought over the weekend, on mindfulness, gave me another inspiration. Goldie Hawn talks about having a happiness wall, and I thought our love day would be a great variant on this  - I cut out hearts from card I had at home, and wrote a little note to remind us who was telling us about what they loved about the person they were talking about. It was so nice to hear the boys sharing what they loved about our family, and each other. They said that they loved playing games with each other and having fun, and hugging each other. We put the hearts up on the wall as a reminder.

At teatime we had a special tea with heart shaped sandwiches and finished with some cupcakes with these lovely cake toppers I got from fellow etsy seller Cherry Made this. It was a lovely day.

 

Art, music and the Fishermen's chapel

I've been out and about a bit more than usual this week (thank you, Nanny and Grandad looking after the boys!). Twice this week I have been to the Fishermen's chapel in Leigh on Sea. It's a beautiful white building not far from old Leigh on sea. The downstairs is a lovely open space which hosts a regular meet up on a Wednesday, a coffee meeting for artists/entrepreneurs to meet up and chat. And the lovely chapel space itself upstairs.

 

Friday I was lucky enough to pop along and listen to the fabulous Daisy Bowlers, a local group I have heard a few times before. They are amazing singers and terrific fun to listen to - a lovely way to spend a Friday afternoon whilst the boys are at nursery. It was a full house and lovely tea and flapjack too.

 

 At both I had some of my art and cards available for sale. The chapel is starting to host some local artists work on their walls as an affordable art gallery and it lovely to see the range of local talent in our town.

Above all it's a good reminder of the importance of getting out and connecting with what's happening in your local area - sometimes as a small business it's so easy to get stuck just working at home and it's refreshing to get out and meet people and be inspired seeing others loving doing what they do and working with friends and family.

January, overwhelm and regaining hygge

 

I have a love/hate relationship with January if I am being honest. Always have. I love it, because of my background and interest in coaching and self development. I love the freshness that they idea of a whole new year gives you, the feeling that you have a blank slate and can design a year exactly how you would like it to be. For the last few years I've chosen a word of the year, an intention, and this has helped me to focus on what it was I wanted from the year and how I wanted to approach things. It felt like a golden thread on which to move gently from month to month.

Yet January can also be overwhelming, I think because it comes with this expectation that things can be different, will be different, must be different. A blank piece of paper is great - but it's either stressful because you can't think of anything to fill it, or stressful because you can think of so many things you start feeling like your brain is going to start popping out like a character in a TV cartoon series.

And, it's usually cold, feels like it is such a long month waiting for payday, and is missing the festive feel that was around over Christmas. As my parents would say, it's very much a time of going "back to brass tacks". But it has so many moments of beauty when we allow ourselves to slow down and see them and experience them.

This year, I've definitely felt those tensions between wanting to get on, and the slowness that the season feels like it is demanding from me. I've spent more time at home. I'm currently writing this, tucked up at home, heating on, with a cup of tea on the side and feeling cosy. I'm learning how to do things my way. Or, to be more precise, to tentatively find a new way of doing things.

I've always been a rusher through life. I like to read quickly. I flick through things to get to the end. I try to pack too much in. And this can be seen as a good thing - the world loves a sense of productivity, action and getting things done. And yet I'm starting to wonder if that's the best way for me. I often jump in too fast where a slower approach gets me better results in the long run.

So this year I am allowing things to unfurl a little more gently. I'm switching on the twinkly lights. I'm allowing myself to see what happens. And I'm going back to breathing and thankfulness as things that make a difference for me. Find my art around "breathe" here.

Let me know how you're approaching this start to the year and how you access those moments that bring you joy.

2016 in summary - belief in action

 

My 2016 word of the year as some of you will know was BELIEVE. Believing in myself is something I've had an ongoing struggle with and I really wanted to get behind it in 2016 and regain a little of the sense of belief in myself that used to be there. When I watch my boys, as pre-schoolers they generally have an endless sense of belief I themselves, their innate cuteness and interest to others and their ability to do things! It's a good lesson and one I'm trying to remember as they grow up.

2016 always felt like it was going to be a bit of a transitional year for me. My boys started preschool at the start of the year and all of a sudden, I found myself with some time to work on my art. I'd successfully had one of my pieces featured in Alena Hennessy's book at the end of 2015 and I took it as a sign that I could make art my own.

 

 

 

This year has been a slow meandering, and unfolding towards that goal. It's not always been as fast as I'd like - I'm generally known as someone who moves fast into action and likes to get things done. I was struggling with having been out of the workplace since the summer of 2012 and one of my biggest learnings this year has been that sometimes, you just need that time to let things unfold. Even if it's not your natural style and can also frustrate you. This year has been about become ready. Ready to call myself an artist, when people ask what I do. Ready to put my art out there amongst other fabulous art, without getting too stuck on where other artists are in their own journey as a maker. And ready to learn how to run a business again and trust that this is something I can do.

Here are some of my highlights

First exhibition
In March / April I was accepted for my fist open exhibition at Miss Annabel Dee on Leigh Road Leigh and had two paintings exhibited. It as exciting to see my art on the walls of this local gallery that supports local art in such a great way.
First stockists - Groovy Baby and Made 94

In June and then September I had my first stockists in Groovy Baby and Made 94 both fabulous small businesses on Leigh Road in Leigh on sea. More about these lovely small businesses in features later this year.

Branding launch

At the end of September I launched my new brand and tag line "Art of the Singing soul" with my branding done by Leah Beecham of Woodland Designs. She did a fabulous job of interpreting one of my mandala pieces in my favourite colour schemes and this gave me a strong start to move forwards in my business.

Printed versions of my original art

In September and October I created my first printed pieces of my work. It was a learning curve to find out how to manipulate then in Photoshop and learn how to maximise their colours and use photoshop to put them into the required templates. So far I've had giclee prints, digital prints, cards and notebooks and I am so happy with the quality.

Pitching Not on the High Street
In October straight after holiday I pitched in Richmond to Not on the high Street. Whilst I wasn't successful this time it had given me a huge push to think about who I am as a brand, what my maker story is, and to get my first products made. It was great to see where they work and to get some feedback.

Business launch - offline

 This year I have done four stalls locally which has been a fabulous experience to get used to getting out and selling my art in real life. It gave me a good feel for some of the local markets and helped me to see what worked and what didn't.

Business launch - Etsy

Finally right at the end of the year I launched my etsy shop just in time for some last minute Christmas sales! It felt like a huge pat on the back to myself to be able to celebrate finally launching online, and to receive sales and a review straight away as doubly exciting! Now it's onwards and upwards to continue to grow as an artist, a small business owner and entrepreneur and make a success of this in 2017 and beyond. Let's see what exciting things around the corner this year! Thank you all for your support in helping me to get this far and I look forwards to further joy unfolding in my business!