My soul sister

I spent such a lovely day with my soul sister today...Gosh I have missed her so much!!!
Deep, beautiful, compassionate and passionate soul that she is, she has blessed my life and so many others, in so many ways. We have had our tests and I know that we will always have them, but I have known her for a thousand years and whatever obstructive or destructive forces of the time and season deliver into our friendship, there will always be a greater force to unite.

I had to share this. I recently read somewhere that..: "Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having to neither weigh thoughts or measure words; chaff or grain together; certain that a faithfull friendly hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of comfort, blow the rest away".

Unconditional friendship is rare, finding a friend who offers that is rarer still.

Something new...again

This was done compleatly with torn rubbings:

First, I walked around with loads of yellowish paper and a graphite pencil and rubbed on anything..from felt, to tree trunks, bricks, sand, iron grids, non slip steps, concrete, a woven basket etc, which gave me a whole range of interesting patterns.

I then drew in a landscape quickly, tore little strips from each rubbing and stuck them into the picture.

I used the ridges from the torn pieces of paper to create and complete the picture in charcole..not too bad. It worked. now am going to elaborate on that and create the same landscape in different colours

.

Someone's been eating my pumpkins!!

Mapopa, my Malawi gardener, came to me very concerned, asking me if I'd removed some of the pumpkins from the bridal lane (where they had grown under our fence)...someone had nicked a few large ones and he was very upset.

I have so many pumpkins that I've been giving them away to my friends (well some of my friends who like pumpkin anyway :o) ) and they can all well afford to buy them!! The people who stole them were probably people that found a big pumpkin lying in no-mans-land, a bit of a land fall....so good for them. They'll be eating pumpkin for a while.

Yay!!!!!.....I have avo's this year too

FRIENDSHIP

I have been pondering on the friendships that I have.

There are friends that I've known for 20 to 40 years; old and dear friends that I will call every now and again and vice-versa and we'll chat as if we've been chatting daily....subconsciously, knowing that we will be life-long friends regardless...and yet we don't share the day-to-day stuff with each other, the daily joys, fears, tears and disappointments. I quick call to catch up on the 'memorable' and 'big' stuff, seems to suffice.

In between, there are many, many people I have met and now consider my friend and they all add to my life in a very unique way.....none the same as the other.

There are also those that have hurt me and disappointed me along the way, and I'm sure I've done the same to them, but still, and always, we are friends.

But in the past four or five years, I have met people that, for some inexplicable reason, I have developed an extraordinary bond with.

I believe that with age, hardships, life-lessons, comes a God given wisdom and a sudden appreciation for reality and truth and peace within one's life and within ones soul... the need for these becomes all-consuming and we yearn for, seek, find and then begin to function from that long suppressed spiritual plane....because we now can. The 'mom' has time, the 'wife' has space. We are suddenly confronted with the 'me' ...the one that we have ignored for so long or been afraid of. We suddenly start to see clearly when, like paint peeling of a wall, the wealth, insecurity, position in life, anger, resentment and pain are and have always been, just the coating of a crazed, judgmental, superficial and fickle word ..we suddenly are able to see deeper, the raw structure of our lives, that which gives us strength, that which is meaningful and beautiful....and now, only now, we start to value it. We seek people that can understand and in their own way, feed that value too, not only through their own lives, but in others so that that 'structure' which is you is able to truly live and stay strong.

I am now so aware that my friends are being carefully chosen for me. There are no chance meetings. There is a roll being for filled in these friendships, even if its just to share some deep spiritual understanding, like mindedness, a gift, abandoning laughter, and deep hurts...what a blessing to have found compassion and unconditional love from another human being.

A LESSON ON THE METAPHYSICAL/METAPHORICAL

The pic below is part of a dream I had
the pic on the right...something I'm still busy on which I started with Noreen..my first abstract!

Ihave been told that I am subconciously adding Christian symbolism in all my work. Today I saw this for myself! ART THERAPY FOR ARTISTS..... my first of four lessons that I had with Emma (UNISA).

This is the outcome:

The complete picture: we were given a storey which we had to reflect on, involving walking through a forest, finding a small clearing, a little house in the clearing and a small child in a back room of the house...what I said to the child (Thank God you are OK), what the child said back (you found me!) and me leaving the house (but not without the child!!!!!).

My interperetation: The 'spirit person' sitting on the rock on the top R is an old soul, looking through a magnifying glass into a mandala of pain...the yellow person (life, happiness) is shown to have her skin pulled away and the raw pain (burning heart and cracking down her core) to truely show her pain. The 'uterous' allows an escape, a re-birthing, into the forest by the 'me'(at one with creation) leading the 'little me' out of the pain, both naked and vulnerable, but doing the journey together...as a cognative whole

YES, I AM ON A JOURNEY.

The first question I asked myself today: Am I and artist in the true sence of the word and the second, how would 'Art Therepy' impact on the art that I've been comfortably doing for a few years, classical style, fine art...pretty pictures.

The most interesting thing for me to learn, was that we need both left and right brain in order to do art. Alber Einstein said: " The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithfull servant. We created a society that hoours the servant and has forgotten the gift" How profoundly true!!!!!!!!!

I know that I rationalise my art to the point of being anal, and that my inner critique is my nemesis. But of late, the layers of my 'onion' have started to fall away and I'm going into uncomfortable areas of my psyche and my life which, yes, leave me raw and exposed, but also free. There is great power in metaphorical expression, something I learned today...a great power to visualise the internal, and heal it through the sence of touch, sight, smell, sound and even taste ( not really.... I put the wrong end of a ink-loaded brush into my mouth!!!)

In answer to my own questions, yes!!!...I am an artist in the true sence of the word and to the second; art is a form of on-going therepy, it sustains me, it feeds me, it complete's me .....but is not part of me, its just a gift which I choose to honour, hopefully to give not only myself, but others, pleasure. Its all a process of learning, sharing, creating. If a single person in the whole world valued and empathised with whatever I choose to share from deep within, then mission accomplished!! I have to be true to myself always...I am drawn to the classical style, the old-master genre..but not the challenge for me is to be able to incorporate both. Both have the same value....and I value both.

At the end of today, when discussing my pieces, motivations, symbolism, etc, the comments seemed pretty unanamous' that my work was akin to Frida Cahlo. (not sure about the spelling).. I know little about her other than what my soul sister told me...i,e. she has/had a mother of a uni-brow, ...and I recently read somewhere that she bats/batted for both sides...but other than that, nothing! I'm not a little intrigued! I dont believed that I truely cracked the metaphorical, I used a load of symbolism....but then, maybe I did...although I buggered it up by being aware of the metaphor as I was busy with the picture then able to interperate it to the class. Lord, I gushed in excitement!!!