A room of one's own

All I want is a room with a view.

Virginia Woolf said that every woman needs a room of her own; a place of refuge and sanctuary. That breath of solace in a world gone quite insane, where the door can be shut to the racket and the walls are the colour of calm and tranquillity. I remember when my little sister Esther and I finally got separate rooms, and I could choose the wall paper which was the wall covering of choice in the 70’s. My choice was a picture wall of a forest that had to be pieced together from 9 large sheets. I recall feeling as if it was my own piece of Narnia, through the looking glass into a world that was completely my own. All I want is a room with a view – an ever changing view depending on the mood of the day. A view of San Marco in Venice, Paris in spring time, Barcelona on a fragrant summers’ day or my favourite view of all, the ocean.

I was reminded of that during a little New Year’s house boat holiday on the River Murray, which is a room with a beautiful view of a river vista. I have a new digital camera and was taking a lot of shots to test settings and the performance of my new Canon. The sky was blue, the river a muddy dull green, the cliffs many shades of ochre and salmon and the trees lush and green. In the morning, the river is at its most beautiful – when all is quiet and the day is fresh and still. So still that you can hear the woosh of the wings of the birds flying over the house boat. There is nothing more pleasurable than that first morning swim, to get to the other side of the river, touch the cliffs, dodge the cockatoo poo and swim back to the aft deck of the boat. Life does not get any better than that.

I did not take much beadwork with me, what I did take was a UFO, that needed final finishing. By only taking that piece, I was forced to complete it LOL, I recommend that technique whole heartedly. My new camera has two macro modes – one standard and a super macro function. Even with my limited photographic skills, I was able to take a relatively good shot of the finished piece. A Sea Urchin lariat. I played around with graduating colours in the rope, which is formed around a 4mm thick rubber buna cord core. I have used some variation in the colours of the urchins, but they are still in my favorite turqoises, bronzes and teal greens.

Happy New Year, although it is already 5 days into the year that is 2010. Who knows what surprises the Universe has in store for us this year, but I wish yours be filled with abundance, happiness and love. May the Muse whisper to us in the still of the night, just before the morning breaks and may we create magic together, our Muses and us.

The Tree of Life

We're all tied to the tree of life, till all the dancing's done.

This line from the Wendy Matthews song Ten Miles of Timber rings very true to me. The first line of the song is about someone planting trees, whilst others sleep through yet another day.  What does that really mean? To me it means waste not, carpe diem, pluck the day, seize the moment, embrace the now. Don't spend your days flatlining, and moaning about what you don't have, spend your days planting trees.  Have you ever asked yourself why some people spend a lot of energy  lamenting why life has treated them so badly, instead of spending that energy seeing the trees? Or planting them? Why are you carrying on about shrubbery and metaphors, Bianca? Good question! It seems like everywhere I look or listen or see there is someone carrying on about little things, life's minor hurdles, inconsistencies, trivialities. It started me thinking, what makes one person see only the negatives, whilst someone else blurts out well, I've not long to live, but look at that sunset. Isn't she marvellous.

I once read a research paper that determined that chemically negative thoughts have a much bigger impact than a positive one. This might be why years later you can still feel the hurt from something that happend a lifetime ago. If that is even remotely correct, isn't there a good case for positive thinking? And if the thought comes before the emotion which drives an action, isn't it possible that we can change our world by deliberate positive thought? I suspect we all know that on a very deep level, but we have become a society of victims. The paper is full of fighting words - the war on terror, the war on influenza, the war we wage on obesity, the war against cancer, the fight for workplace equality. We are attacked by koala's, bushfires, virusses, but also by happenstance. Everything seems to be an attack or a fight or there is some victim and the fingers look for a target to point. Just try to find the words in the paper, where they are used in a totally absurd context, you'll see what I mean. How on earth can we live amongst all the angst and fear and still contain some form of positive thought.

According to Marci Schmirnoff, the author of Happiness for No Reason, it is about choice. We know that there are people who always see the glass as half empty, I can't live like that. If you can find one positive thing every day, you gain so much. And if you believe you cannot find it in your life, maybe because one can get very tied up in believing in ones identity as a victim. You can't hate someone you wish well, you can't feel bad if you send out good thoughts, you can't be a victim if you have a choice. I've cut a lot of people out of my life who just wallowed in the victim role, and expect people around them to perpetuate that and get very angry when that is challenged. It is almost a contact sport to compare notes on how hard done one is. Enablers, competing for the prize for having the worst life. All the while having great kids, a house, partners and not walking the street hungry. And I know people who are really sick, don't crap on about it and get very little real compassion from those around them because they choose to respond in a certain way.

Sometimes I get so caught up in my own trivialities too, something happens at work that knocks the wind out of my sails and I have to work really hard not to let my sense of injustice take over. I try to do that by deliberately being grateful, although it is not always easy. The sun shining, relative peace, friends, my creative work, being relatively healthy. Crikey, how can we not be grateful for all we have here? But most of us are not, all we see is what we don't have. And we don't have a good sense of our own worth as people, not as owners of things, which makes it so easy to get caught up in the downward spiral.

We're all tied to the tree of life, and we have a choice. We can spend the day sleeping and wallowing in what we believe is missing from our lives. Or we can get out there planting trees. I know what I'd rather be doing.

So this is how I apply my philosophy to the creative endeavors. I have tried my hand at some gelatine printing on fabric my friend Steph sent me, a messy business. It did not work out as I wanted, the gelatine sold in the baking section is just not firm enough to be used as a printing plate. But the glass is half full right, and so we make lemonade from sourpuss lemons. The print on the right (with the messy background) is actually the cleaning cloth I used to wipe the top of the gelatine after printing. Came out better than the deliberate prints. These samples will appear in finished pieces at some stage.

Heart on my sleeve

One of my weaknesses is that I wear my heart on my sleeve. By that I mean that I am usually very open about what I think, my opinions, myself, my creative work and many more things. At times that can be exasperating for the ones around me, as I am sometimes not very good at translating the raw imagery in my head to a palatable message. So I'll wear my heart on my sleeve today: I'm really struggling with myself at the moment. When I struggle, I go into my cave, hoping that some quiet contemplation will work out what is bothering me and hoping that some quiet contemplation will re-energise me. Hence the absence lately, I've been cave dwelling. I am not sure if it helped at all, I feel so physically and emotionally drained. Perhaps the renovations kicked me over the edge, it is not easy keeping everything ticking over whilst doing hard labour every day and weekend.

There is something else I am struggling with and that has to do with my latest creative endeavors - fibre. I have always liked fibre, rope, thread, cord, fabric, paper, cloth, leather, silk. But I never knew just what to do with it as I have never been very good with sewing and traditional quilting is just not my thing. I admire the geometry, yes, but it is way too measured for me, too controlled. Let me start at the beginning: several weeks ago I happenstanced upon a magazine called Quilting Arts, actually I was at a hairdressers appointment and I treat myself to a different magazine to surrender to 3.5 hours of foiling, cutting and scalp massaging (lots of hair you see). In that issue was an article by Jill Amanda Kennedy, about fabric cuffs from scraps embellished with beads and you know when your creative brain goes Whammo - well it did.

Truth be told I was playing with felting a bit, not to overtake my love of beads, but to complement it and be able to create fabrics for bead work. But suddenly this whole other direction opened up - textile and fibre. So what on earth do I do with that now, see that is what I am struggling with. Where do I go, why can't I just focus on the one medium, why do I always have to experiment and try and travel down yet another road of creative expression? I don't get it, I just can't seem to be able to ringfence myself to the one thing. And it frustrates me to smithereens as it means that I have to. I can't let it go, that is not how it works with me. I have to try things. And of course that meant buying a sewing machine, and learning to work it. Sewer without a clue. That is yet another thing that must exasperate the ones around me, that I am always and forever learning and trying new things. Other materials appear, piles of stuff, ribbons, mesh, silks, cottons, paper. Some I already had, some I get from friends, or swap, some I well, rip of clothes that don't fit me no more. Where am I going to take this, nobody knows.

I had a discussion with a well known bead artist last year about being a tryer outerer of everything and a master of none, at the time that made me sit up a bit. I don't master much, I don't tend to spend all my creative time on one medium. I need additional input and inspiration as it is all connected for me. I try to master technique but even that is not always possible when ones mind is going in all directions but I always come full circle and use what I already know with the "new found materials". At the time I thought she was right, but now I am not so sure, as that does not work for me and it if don't work for you, how can it be right? It also means other duties suffer, such as keeping a house maintained, or clean or even remotely unmessy and my body exercised and lean and the torch going and the kiln fired up. Because I am thinking about creating all the time and my head is full. Full I tell you, completely and utterly stuffed to the brim with ideas. No room for anything else. Maybe that is another reason I feel so darn tired and frazzled.

I regularly tell people to just play, to just do it, don't overthink why, get rid of your internal censor and critic and just do it. I don't respond to boundaries very well, what I respond to is the promise, the possibility and vision. But it sometimes means I loose myself in different paths, and I get lost without bread crumbs. I take deep joy in the creative process. So where is all this diatribe leading?

I played. Big time. I joined the Holey Moley club, led by Dale Rollerson from the Thread Studio. This is an online workshop/group spending 12 months exploring different fibre techniques. Every two months Dale uploads new techniques and fibre fun is explored and practiced. I joined the group somewhat late so I am catching up a bit, I am combining themes of workshops - Holes, Lines and Patterns. My first reasonable attempts are below, I started to make little bags with my fabric samples. I like the concept of bags, you can put something in it, whether the content be thoughts, bagage, messages or food. Nom.

I'd love to hear how other artists deal with the creative jumbles in their head, do you surrender or fight it? Embrace or reject?

The love of books

I have a passion for books, I cannot walk past a bookstore or a stall or go for a day without checking what Amazon can offer me. The other day I visited Borders, to gawk, and I felt incredibly happy. There are people who do not understand my love for books and my insatiable need to own them. Books are magic. Pieces of paper bound together, with no intrinsic value. But the words upon those pages are what makes them powerful beyond anything. I have always loved reading, as a child I remember purchasing Enith Blighton books with my Dutch Guilders 1.10 in pocket money, which is about 70 cents in AUD, every Saturday morning I would buy one of the series. When I was in Borders I looked around me. What attracts me so much. It is the seeking. Books hold truths, kernels of wisdom that might explain in one sentence what has been eluding me for years. Solutions to problems, the sudden realisation of the meaning of an emotion, a feeling, articulation of a sentiment. I seek all that in books.

Some writers have the ability to touch you with their words, it has occurred to me that there are lines that will forever be etched in my soul. Call me Ahab. I can see it in other book buyers too, touching the jackets, leaving through a novel, caressing the spine. What can this one teach me, does it contain what I am looking for? Will it have that pearl of wisdom, the escape, the solution, the hidden treasure. Can it fill my life, enhance what is missing or highlight what is already there. Books are time capsules, recording the writers thoughts and creative energy from the time the first word was written on the paper.

I received a book today in the mail, Beaded Opulence by Marcia DeCoster and that book is filled with other magic. I have learnt to appreciate RAW late in life, it took me a while before I could appreciate the stitch; to learn to like its ability to be fabric, strong and soft at the same time. This book shows you all of that and more. I really love the conversational tone in the book, sometimes bead artists who write feel the need to write as the third person, to me it almost depersonalises that very intimate dialogue between writer and reader. Marcia does not do that, she actually gifts you with the things she has learned and does that in a logical and personalbe way. And yet, passion shines through on every page. My brain has been firing on all cylinders since I opened the book. There are a few strenghts I would like to highlight: there are sections that discuss different attributes of RAW: Fabric, Layering, Cords, Armatures and that gives you the opportunity to mix techniques and truly understand the options in front of you.

Then there is the creativity, the lightbulb moments. Oh gosh, is that what you can do, is that how you can make that beaded fabric curve. Is that how you get a smooth tube, is that how you get that organic look. And those lightbulb moments are gold, they take you beyond what you see in front of you and they slot in what you already know. I have purchased and read a lot of books lately, here are a few on the shelf:

Jenny Rolfe - Beautiful Embroidered Bags

Lizzy Houghton - Creative Felting

Sarah Keay - Jewellery with textile techniques

Diane Fitzgerald - Shaped Beadwork

Marcia DeCoster - Beaded Opulence

Rachel Nelson Smith - Seed Bead Fusion

All these books have an extra quality, that bit of spark and passion that sets my world on fire. Even if I never make a project from the books, they make their way in my work.

Books are magic.

Now if only I could sew, but that is not a skill I posess.