January meanderings…

I saw these unusual flowers, like big bright yellow round blobs of sunshine on the end of bendy sticks waving in the grasses while out on a walk recently. Yellow is not my favourite colour but they were so unusual, having no leaves or petals and so brilliant yellow, that I had to stop and admire them in their coastal garden.

Yellow, to me means transformation. I don’t really know why, but when I see yellow, I think of change. Maybe its from the years I spent in Canada and the yellow of leaves representing the changing seasons? Whatever the reason, I have been thinking about change a lot.

I realised this week, that I can not really call myself an artist, having not painted in over a year. I have dabbled in creating some mixed media pieces, but really apart from my journals, photography and writing, I haven’t really created anything of note. Worse of all, my art room – my studio – has sat empty, neglected and abandoned for most of 2013. It had turned into a dumping ground for all sorts of unwanted stuff (and not in an eclectic, interesting, creatively inspiring kind of way, but more a “I don’t want to set foot in there” kind of space)…it was a sorry sight – curtains closed, cobwebs taking over, and boxed piled up…. That I had not used it in such a long time really shook me. So yesterday, in a fit of new year/new attitude, I emptied it, cleaned it, sorted it and only put back in those treasures that inspire me. I turned it into “my space” again…a space to create (although I have packed my paints away) and to write.

There is a story to be told, a thread that runs through my blogging – a story about change…about life turning out not quite how you expect, and about a dream and a search for a more creative/more inspired life and this is the year it happens. There may be less art in the way of painting this new year, but I think there will be plenty of photography, writing, running, and musings on life, love, inspiration in the everyday, raising kids and all the messy bits in between.