a visual review

Far too much has happened in the 14 months since I last update my blog to go into all the details and I have spent very little time on social media or commenting on blogs I follow. Settling in to a new home in a new location has had its highs and lows, some expected and some, not at all. But here I am living in a lovely home, I keep in touch with old friends and have made some interesting new ones. There is a variety of delightful walks close at hand for the dog and me, and Whanganui, while small, has everything I need for the most part.

In my last post I shared details about a pennant that has been to Sydney and since returned. The installation was co-ordinated by Mo Orkiszewki over at It’s Crow Time and you can see a stunning display of everyone’s work here.

Earlier this year I participated a workshop organised by Fibre Arts Australia with Hannah Lamb where I stitched a memoir of sorts on a top that I wore until it died and then deconstructed to use as a pattern. There is more of this work to come . . . right now it’s just notes and sketches.

An Internal Landscape: Beneath the Surface is a comment on my life.  A family of orgin gone separate ways, events seldom straightforward, occasionally unraveling, messier beneath the surface, support often unseen by others, always moving on creating a new landscape.

An Internal Landscape: Beneath the Surface.       Wendy Watson – Late Start Studio

 

An Internal Landscape: Beneath the Surface. Front, exterior.    Wendy Watson – Late Start Studio

 

An Internal Landscape: Beneath the Surface. Back, exterior.       Wendy Watson – Late Start Studio

 

An Internal Landscape: Beneath the Surface. Back, interior.       Wendy Watson – Late Start Studio

Later a 5 day course, organised by Fibre Arts New Zealand, with Mary Hettmansperger set me off twining (a skill I taught myself almost 40 years ago because I was fascinated by taniko) and working in wire.

Wendy Watson – Late Start Studio

Wendy Watson – Late Start Studio

Wendy Watson – Late Start Studio

Wendy Watson – Late Start Studio

Then it was gum nuts picked up on the riverbank . . . 100 gum nuts bound in cotton. Remains is a comment on individual difference.  I also wanted to comment on how when a primary use, or perceived usefullness, has been served there is usually another purpose to be found. This came about when I was musing on the number of gray-haired woment who were out that day walking their dogs and how they could be so easily dismissed as just a member of a particular demographic.

A converation overheard during the exhibition:

A:  One is diferent.      B:  They’re all different.

Remains.                   Wendy Watson – Late Start Studio

I’ve continued messing around with a quick collage as a warm up most days or eight very quick androgynous sketches in acrylic and charcoal.

Wendy Watson – Late Start Studio

I continue to enjoy learning new skills, developing old ones, using them to express my thoughts . . . and generally enjoying my life.

A sun-filled studio has been set up in the house and another workspace in the garage so I can fling paint around. My last attempt to paint was a brief dalliance with oils about 20 years ago and a play with acrylic on a orkshop in 2015 so I’m not sure why I’m drawn to it again: I always said I use paint but I don’t paint. At the moment I’m playing with colour and texture and aren’t at all certain of where it’s going. Somewhere? Nowhere? Does it matter?

I’ve taken a few painting and mixed media online courses with Misty Mawn and Jeanne Oliver.  Both sources offerings are reasonably priced, specific and professionally produced by knowledgeable and supportive tutors.

Wendy Watson – Late Start Studio

More of my results with later perhaps.

That’s it! There are no plans for attending future workshops at this stage . . . time to consolidate and just work with what I have.   And while I have work at a couple of outlets I’m more interested in developing the work than exhibiting or selling at the moment.

Catch up soon?  Soon is a relative term.

sailing . . . but where?

I love the vessel I’m sailing in, it’s sound, tested as sea worthy, and I’ve come to realise that I can land at any number of ports . . . thanks Quinn . . .  Quinn McDonald is a very astute life coach with a mind like a steel trap, ears that miss nothing and heart, lots of heart.

Spring is a time of change, particularly when it comes to wind direction here in New Zealand.  There’s not a lot of land out there to shelter us and the Roaring 40s are well named . . . we expect it but I have to tell you I am OVER IT!  I would like some nice settled weather to get out, walk the beach and think, I think better when I’m walking.  I used to think best when I was running and I had up to 64 kilometres/40 miles a week of thinking time!

I’ve thought so much about what I want to do, which direction I want to go, that my head hurts, and my good-sense-self says “if it hurts, stop doing it!”  So I will, I’ll stop the thinking and just do, do whatever I like, when I like and how I like.  Oh such luxury to be in this place . . .  but I am spoiled for choice. An apt expression, it’s that word spoiled, it brings to mind rotten meat or milk that has soured, eggs that have sat out for far too long, citrus fruit mouldering in the bowl . . . spoiled.

Yes indeed, a plethora of choices is not necessarily the easiest thing to manage.  It’s that whole, ‘to choose one thing is to shut out a lot of other things’ conundrum . . . a very black and white way of looking at it I know.  So like the Lord High Executioner, I have a little list,  sorry about the Mikado reference but it always echoes in my head when I say “I have a little list,” and I don’t even like most musicals!

Sometimes lists are great, you get a wonderful feeling crossing items off upon completion, keep you organised when times are stressful and they help sort out what’s important, especially when the items are arranged in the form of a PMI (Positive, Minus, and Interesting).  I wrote down everything I liked to do, as well as everything that needs to be done, on little bits of paper so it’s not technically a list I tell myself.  (How picky!)  I then shuffled around the bits of paper into the different PMI categories.  After that I put shuffled the items according to my level of enjoyment or lack thereof, and began to see that some of what I get the most satisfaction from work well together.  Of course there is no way to wrap everything into a neat package however a lot of things fit into bookbinding.

I looked at satisfaction level more than what I’m good at . . . I have learned that just because I can do something well doesn’t mean I have to.

Just some of what I like to do . . . before sorting. The ‘after’ will be clear in what I produce.

So there won’t be a change in what I do, just a slight shift in direction towards yet another destination.  I started small yesterday by refilling a notebook cover I made ages ago with stained sketch pad paper . . . I just felt like hoisting sail and going off in that direction.

A3 sketch pad paper, stained with blackcurrant and apple tea, salt crystals on the puddles, dried and repeated on the reverse.

And while I am allowing myself to be propelled by impulse for a time, there will come a point when I know I will need a goal, something big to work toward, because I know me, and I know the NBG (Next Big Goal) is not going to come while I’m thinking . . . I need to be doing.  Direction does not come in a BFO (Blinding Flash of the Obvious) as an adult any more than it does when you’re a young adult starting out in the world, you find your way through finding your way . . . somethings don’t change.

And the Christmas market? Not a raving success up on the school stage away from the throng. While a little disappointed I’ll try again, sell everything off, recoup my outlay, and then give away or donate what is left to charity.  And think again?  No, no more thinking.  As much as I enjoyed some aspects of the preparations, I don’t like the feeling of being on a production line so I shall make ‘one-offs,’ bespoke items, and then decide what to do with them.  Maybe take the odd request, but I shan’t use the word order, I don’t take orders at all well . . . it brings forth a strong rebellious streak.

On the positive side, my work was much admired at the market and I received many encouraging comments although one child was rather bemused that I had already painted the pages of the small notebooks . . . he thought they should definitely be white.

There’s just no pleasing some people.

Acrylic on sketch paper, recycled manila folders as covers.

And the winner of my giveaway? Using a random number selector Jo’s name came up!   Congratulations Jo, I’ll rustle up a box and have it ready to send as soon as I have your address.

Cheers everyone . . . kia kaha . . . stand strong!

being transparent

I can’t say being honest because sometimes, like most of us, I lie to myself, however I try to be open so that you can really see me . . . flaws as well as strengths.

Now that I am a Creative Leisure Consultant (my fees come in the form of some good wine and cheese at this point in my career) I am grappling with issues and those aforementioned flaws on a full-time basis.  By the time I have them sussed I’ll be able to charge wine, cheese AND crackers as a koha (donation) for my services!

Seriously though, I don’t know what I want to do when I grow up and I’ve had several attempts to grow up . . .  sometimes life events have given me a nudge or a good kick but inside, I still feel like a gauche 11-year-old going on 66-year-old sometimes.

So the questions is, because I know you want to hear the wisdom of my vast experience with this conundrum, what do I do about it?  I embrace it!  It’s a bit shortsighted to reject parts of yourself isn’t it?  I mean to say . . . here I am with almost 66 years experience at living in this big wide world and I reject a 11-year-old aspect of myself?  That 11-year-old had more creativity in her little finger than I have in all of mine!  Sure mine are more skilled perhaps and my logical brain can team up with the creative part and problem-solve extremely well but she was freer, braver, less inhibited.

So I sent in the Wise Crone to stand alongside and tell her that she can take life one day at a time, she can try anything she wants, she can step out in any direction because she’s going to have a strength not available to many . . . she will be versatile.

My first commission was to draw a picture for a boy in my class . . . it was a girl in an “Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini“ and no, there was no actual payment but I was 11 and I did feel special and that was a very rare feeling for me around that time.

Since then I’ve been asked to make all sorts of things from painted flower pots, vinyl sheriff jackets, beaded macrame dog leads (must make one for Rosie) to Raggedy Andy-type dolls and I sold them as well to fund Christmas presents for my children.

Do you see a pattern here?  They are useful, they were marketed . . . however the thing that gave me the most satisfaction was the drawing of a girl in a bikini.

So I tell that gauche girl to hang on to that joyous feeling, hone her skills, her talent will always be there to be utilised in any way she chooses.  It will be always be there and will be fed by world travels, relationships and ideas from out of left field.  She won’t always have to think of usefulness or marketability.  And the main thing that will undermine her talent is her own criticism of herself.  I tell her to simultaneously to harden up and to be vulnerable . . . to be real . . . to be a gentle warrior!

Kia Kaha Wendy is what I say . . . Stand Strong!

I am trying to stand strong and it isn’t always easy.

Rosie: my new, shy, little sheltie who has perfect manners.

I got snail mail!

Yesterday afternoon, as I walked on the beach I found a piece of driftwood as black as pitch that looked for all the world like a crow’s head.  Now one of the blogs I read on a regular basis is Violette’s Creative Juice – and Violette has a special place in her heart for crows. 

So there I was, wandering back from the beach with my crow, thinking about Violette and her love for crows, I checked the mail and YAY!  Violette had sent me her Teen Dream Journal DVD – lucky, lucky me!  I am probably the only person in New Zealand to have one!!

In my job I work with students at risk of failure due to learning and/or behaviour difficulties and self-esteem is a big issue – I mean, if you don’t believe in yourself you’re not going to make optimum progress (at any age).  This DVD is so jam-packed full of material designed with increasing self-esteem in mind and I can’t wait to use it!  It’s school holidays now so I have to be patient – and that’s not a strength I have when enthusiasm strikes.

I’ve watched from the point of view of a teacher who perhaps doesn’t have much experience in art but knows that kids love to experiment and express themselves.  There are enough wonderfully clear demonstrations, explanations, PDF materials and templates for even the most cautious student and teacher to create something unique that reflects their thoughts and feelings.

I can’t wait to use the DVD with teachers and students and I’m certainly recommending it very highly to a friend who works in an alternative school.    Actually, if you’re new to art journaling at any age, it’s a terrific resource.  Get Violette’s book Journal Bliss as well and you’re on your way!