Spring is in the Air

Spring is in the air; the clocks have gone back – and it is nearly Easter.

It is at this time of year that our magnolia tree looks amazing and it makes my heart sing.

I find it takes me a little while to acclimatise to the hour change! For me the lighter evenings mean that Spring is here, and Summer is not far away – which means that September – while still 6 months away is creeping closer and this matters – Why?

Well because I have a pop-up exhibition in September at Galeri Harlech – and although I have lots of ideas for new work, my fingers are not keeping up.

Sometimes it feels like my head is a Christmas snow globe all shook up with ideas swirling everywhere. This is what the Buddhist teachings call our “monkey mind” The wonderful author Natalie Goldberg writer and Buddhist suggest that the monkey mind is your inner critic. It is the part of the brain that becomes easily distracted and can prevent you moving forward.

Alongside my studio life – there is “life-life”, which is probably filled with more “should” and “ought” than is sensible,  and sometimes life just gets messy, or busy, or simply out of balance.

My antidote to the snow-globe mind is to clean and sort in the studio. Together with lists – nothing like a good list! This gives me some breathing space.

Recently the studio has been in a lot of chaos as the roofing felt was blown partially off in a storm.  For a while it had a leaking roof.

I had to clear away the “messy” area (Painting, dying, gelli printing … all the fun stuff) and everything got stacked. Whenever I wanted something it seemed to be at the bottom of the stack. Additionally, I was teaching a workshop, so there was much experimenting and materials to find for the students.

My studio space quickly got out of hand!

Shedman has mended the roof now, and Jane has been round to help me clean where the water got in.  The workshop I taught Cwiltwyr Ardudwy was fabulous fun, and everyone did really well.

(Big thank you to Kate Wright-Sydenham for taking a photo of me where I am smiling and having fun!)

I have spent the last few days giving the studio a massive sort out. I still have too much stuff. (I suspect that every artist, craft person and creative on the planet has too much stuff.)

So tomorrow I will be back working on the pieces for September with a clearer head and a studio where I can find everything – well … I will be able to find everything if I can remember where I put it!

Meanwhile here is a list of things you can do if your head sometimes feel like a shook up snowglobe and you would like some inner calm

• Breathe
• Be kind to yourself
• Take a walk in Nature
• Practise mindfulness
• Write in your journal
• Meditation (weeding used to be my form of meditation)
• Yoga, Tai chi or Qigong
• Clean your studio, workroom, kitchen table or wherever it is you create.

How about you? What do you do when your head is so busy that it feels like a swirling snow globe?