New Beginnings...

A while ago a friend asked me to produce some canvasses for her... she would be moving soon and they were to be for her new home, even though she didn't yet know where that would be. My brief? "New Beginnings"... whatever that means to me, however it inspires me to create something for her to hang in her living room....Any clues? size? style? cost? colours?.... No, just whatever you come up up with (oh, the sofa's red)

I love this girl, & not just cos i can paint & write whatever I like (or cos she'll probably read this!). It's actually quite a responsibility & a test of how I connect with her. It would be quite easy to look up a few "new beginnings" quotations & slap some colours together that would match her room.... but that's not how I work.... before she even left I was already seeing a line of red amongst green... an idea of light spreading out... of a seed beginning to grow.... And that was it. For weeks the idea got no further. Just a brief glimpse of a picture, a hazy idea... of red & green & a seed.

Then a few words started to form...'who knew how this seed would grow... planted in a heart...' the idea of her heart opening... I was thinking about Karen's personal growth, her journey with Yoga, Reiki... & Love. That night she emailed with a new address & moving date... oh, how the energies move! I wasn't ready to start painting yet, & words floated around tantalizingly for a good while longer.

When I did start to paint it was with the idea of an earthly/physical heart, grounded in the earth & the physical plane, but also the feeling of higher energies & spiritual connection. I still had the picture in my mind of a red line amongst green, but didn't really know what I was actually going to do... so I took a deep breath & opened myself up to the energies that flow... walking around, letting my fingers run over various paints... thinking of Karen, asking for guidance... translucency.... aha, acrylic inks- pink & green... grounded, earthly- wood dyes, light & medium oak, ooh & some pale green acrylic... physical heart- red acrylic...

The bands of colour over-lap & blend...I used a small sponge roller & a brush randomly creating texture & blending on the canvas, moving quite quickly... another deep breath when I finished this stage, actually feeling nervous about whether she would like what I was creating (it is different from other work of mine that she has seen), but knowing that this is exactly what it should be.... It was only after this that I could start jotting down phrases & ideas for words, nothing concrete, just random thoughts...

And this is my work in progress... the canvasses are 24 inches tall, 18, 30 & 18 inches wide respectively, so take up the full drawing board... I need to work on them together as the lettering runs across them all.

The strip of paper acts as an anchor point as i write, helping to keep the lettering straight without the hardness of a fixed line... also I can test colour on it, mixing as I go... or ghost write a word to help judge spacing... and acts as a guard sheet for my hand. I pick out phrases from my notebook, turn them round in my mind & write as they come together. Sounds simple, but it took ages! Acrylic dries fast, but can be lifted out with a wet cloth if I spot a mistake within a few letters!

The lettering is done with a small pointed brush; on it's side for the thick strokes, lifted back to its point for the thins... i used white acrylic ink, randomly mixed with the pink & red (with green ink & wood dye for the lower lines) ... varying from almost translucent to nearly solid... dancing ethereally across the canvas (I hope!)... a mixture of lower & upper case... higher & lower dimensions... physical & spiritual co-existing, merging happily side by side... unified... just as we seek to unify the aspects of Self, both within & without...

Who knew how this seed would grow, 

planted in a heart well hidden?

Heart unfolding- seed unfurling- transformed by inner magic 

& silent healing whispers calling to this soul.

Who knew where this dream would flow, rooted in this 

earthly plane & flowering in the heavens?

Mists part- veils lift- revealing this vision.

Gaze & wonder at this sight- the joy of new beginnings.

If you came from suzi's scribbles, click here to go back

Otherworlds...

... the lands of the faerie...

There are worlds within worlds, not too far away. Whole eco-systems, that are probably totally unaware that we are watching.... or are they?

...magical places...

Tiny communities to us, a metropolis to their inhabitants as they scurry about their daily life. Do they wonder what is 'out there' beyond their known world? As we do...

...look into the depths...

It's only a matter of scale. This could be a huge crevasse where unfortunates have plunged into the depths, never to be seen again...

...where we can't tread...

But step back, change your perspective... Have you ever just sat & gazed into the doorway of another world? Just sat & stared, not thinking...? Meditated awhile...? Listened to messages from another time, another place?

...gateways to somewhere...

You can get lost in there for a while... journeying... sensing... learning.... sharing the wisdom of ancient trees & nature sprites. They know we're here, the dryads... nymphs.... fairies... spirits of nature. Their name doesn't matter... feel their energy.... send them your love.... let your higher self connect...

...secret places...

Could someone be watching us, in our tiny world, wondering if we know they're there? Maybe they took a picture on their morning walk & posted it somewhere 'out there'.... we could be ethereal beings in someone else's fairy tale.... couldn't we?

...and fairy houses...

I just love old tree trunks.... Symbols of a greater tree, no longer living in the way it did... but living, thriving in other ways. Look at the textures, the patterns, the colours... they inspire me in so many ways. What about you? 

About Hilda Conkling

After writing the previous post I dug around a bit furthur:
Hilda Conkling lived 1919-1986 in Massachusetts, USA & all her published poetry was created between the age of 4 or 5 to10. As she got older, her mother stopped writing them down, apparently she stopped making poems when she hit her teens & is not known to have written poetry later in life.

Mmm, that makes me wonder.... did she really not write any, or just not tell people about it? did she feel she could not match her earlier work? or what?
She spoke the poems, fully formed, word perfect & remembered them exactly... were they 'channelled'? as a child, was she in touch with her 'higher- self' or 'spirit guides' that spoke directly through her sub-conscious?

Did they come from her or did her mother, also a poet actually write them?- it seems not
fullbooks.com/Poems-By-a-Little-Girl
has an interesting preface by Amy Lowell written when Hilda was 9- here are some extracts:

"Hilda tells her poems, and the method of it is
this: They come out in the course of conversation,
and Mrs. Conkling is so often engaged in
writing that there is nothing to be remarked if she
scribbles absently while talking to the little girls.
But this scribbling is really a complete draught of
the poem. Occasionally Mrs. Conkling writes
down the poem later from memory and reads it
afterwards to the child, who always remembers
if it is not exactly in its original form. No line,
no cadence, is altered from Hilda's version; the
titles have been added for convenience, but they
are merely obvious handles derived from the
text....

...Now to turn to the book itself; at the very start,
here is an amazing thing. This slim volume contains
one hundred and seven separate poems, and
that is counting as one all the very short pieces
written between the ages of five and six. Certainly
that is a remarkable output for a little girl,
and the only possible explanation is that the poems
are perfectly instinctive. There is no working
over as with an adult poet. Hilda is subconscious,
not self-conscious. Her mother says that she
rarely hesitates for a word...

...The child who writes them frequently transcends
herself, but her thoughts for the most part are
those proper to every imaginative child. Fairies
play a large role in her fancies, and so does the
sandman. There are kings, and princesses, and
golden wings, and there are reminiscences of
story-books, and hints of pictures that have pleased
her.

...The little girl is quite
untroubled by any questions of technique.

... Did she quite grasp its meaning
herself? We may doubt it. In this poem, the
subconscious is very much on the job.

... If a child can write
such a poem at eight years old, what does it mean?
That depends, I think, on how long the instructors
of youth can be persuaded to keep "hands off."
A period of imitation is, I fear, inevitable, but if
consciousness is not induced by direct criticism, if
instruction in the art of writing is abjured, the
imitative period will probably be got through
without undue loss. I think there is too much
native sense of beauty and proportion here to be
entirely killed even by the drying and freezing
process which goes by the name of education."

It seems the writer had a premonition that childhood may have been the prime time of Hilda's output. I'd rather like to think that she did continue to write or speak poetry, but maybe, self- consciously, chose not to share them.