The Kindness Of Strangers

A package from Poland, tagged and tied with string! What could it be?

An exciting stash of collage materials with special instructions: select 12 items from the box and replace them with 12 more; write a message in the little booklet enclosed; forward the package on to another artist who's name you've been given (in this instance, it was Rebecca from Barnsley). Finally: make a collage incorporating your chosen items and post on your blog.

Sometime before Christmas, I'd signed-up to take part in one of my friend LaWendula's postal exchanges: this one is named "The Collage Box Project". LaWendula's clever initiatives to bring artist-bloggers together never fail to energize my creativity and I wanted to make something that reflected the spirit of generous exchange and imaginative recycling that they brilliantly embody. So I chose 12 snippets that I thought would make a useful digital collage kit that could be shared with you all and used to create even more artworks. Once I'd scanned my chosen, here's what I did...

I made two textured journal pages. The photo above was taken while I was working. Below is a scan of one side of the double-spread textured pages

While I was preparing the journal page, I also made a separate texture on heavy card

Once scanned, this became the starting point for...

A set of digital papers. It's been so long since I fired-up Photoshop, I wondered if I'd remember how to use it. This was my first time working with with CS5 since I upgraded, which made things even more interesting...

For the paper above, I incorporated German algebraic text: scanned from another gorgeous vintage paper in the collage box. I think I'll also use this one for the front of a greetings card.

Please don't hold your breath for the kit: it's still work in progress because naturally, once I'd made a couple of papers, I got side-tracked and wanted to play with them myself, to see if they would work...

Here's some digital mixed-media experimentation using the Brushes app on my iPad

Finally, I made a scrapbook layout, once again in Brushes on the iPad. The photograph is used by kind permission of a dear Twitter-friend...

Thank you Joanna in Poland for passing the box on to me.

If you'd like to see what others have created with their chosen snippets, take a trip to LaWendula's inspiring blog and follow the links, but don't leave here yet because in my last post, I promised that I would finally reveal the name of the person who'd won my second bloggerversary draw. Actually, as I'd left it so long, I decided that I'd draw two names out of the hat and the lucky winners are...drum roll...ta da!

Kelly Marzycki of Imbue Studio

and...

Deb (of Dryad Art: really sorry to the other Deb!)

Kelly and Deb, please feel free to take a good look around my Flickr stream and choose a print of any of my work, including older digital collages but please bear in mind that much of my early iPhoneography was done at very low-resolution and will not print well. Having said that, if you'd really like one of those pieces, let me know and I'll see what I can do for you before asking you to make a second choice.

Now, some of you have asked if my cat is still in the Land Of The Living. I'm overjoyed to share the news that Tinky has perked-up considerably since my last post. However, she remains a poorly little creature and is now VERY fussy about her food. The general rule is that if it is expensive, warm, and hand-fed, she's interested, but anything less, forget it! Having survived a near-death experience, she probably imagines that she's died and gone to Heaven!

Here is the link to LaWendula's blog

Time To Say Goodbye

REMAINS OF THE DAY: RALPH'S LAST TUNES

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FOLLOWING SYLVIE HOME

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DARK MATERIALS

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The past month has been a time of saying goodbye in the most final of ways. On February 18th, my family gathered in a tiny Welsh chapel to sing "The Old Rugged Cross" and pay our last respects to the memory of my mother's "baby" sister Sylvia. Because her mum was a passionate supporter of the Llanelli Rugby team who are also known as "The Scarlets", my cousin Ann, Sylvie's only daughter, dressed for the funeral in a beautiful Red Trench Coat: a bright and fitting tribute to the most sweet-natured women I've ever known: always smiling, never complaining, despite suffering considerable disability due to Diabetes. What none of us, including Auntie Sylvie, knew until just before she died, was that she was also suffering from Cancer.

Last Wednesday, we said goodbye to my wonderful "father-in-law" Ralph who, for several years, had been putting up a brave fight against Prostate Cancer. Ralph was a shy man of many talents, not least of which were his skills as a Magician. We wanted the funeral to be a celebration of his life, so Mollie, my "mum-in-law" wore black "but only because he liked me in the colour" with touches of red and white, to match the silks they used in their magic act. In remembrance of Ralph's happy National Service Days in Hong Kong, we chose a bamboo casket, adorned with flowers that were white with touches of red and black. My partner Michael made the broken wand that traditionally sits atop the funeral casket of a magician and travels with him to the grave. Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer" greeted us as we entered the crematorium for the committal and we smiled, knowing that Ralph would be pleased we hadn't chosen anything solemn and sad.

As I write this, Tinky, our little, old cat, is sleeping on the garden bench. For several days now, she has hardly moved, eaten or drank. Every so often, I stoke her for a while and whisper that I love her, but she's an independent little soul and it's quite clear that she wants to die in her own way: quietly and with as little fuss as possible. For the third time in almost as many weeks, my heart is breaking and I cannot stop the tears, but I know one thing: our loved-ones are temporary gifts that we must cherish while we may, not just at life's end and by the grave-side. These "goodbyes" have reminded me that life is short and precious. It seems only yesterday that I was thanking my Auntie Sylvie for a fifteenth birthday gift brought all the way from Hong Kong; meeting my lover's father for the first time; or sitting in a Summer garden, enchanted by the beautiful little tortoiseshell cat who had just jumped over the garden fence to say "hello". My Nan used to say "We only pass this way once" and when the pain has passed, I really do have to try to get on with my life, despite all its challenges.

Absence Of Memory

1:1:11 ABSENCE OF MEMORY
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Here's another of the images that I created from the shots I took whilst getting lost on a Welsh Hillside, on New Year's Day.

Pilgrims of Light

PILGRIMS OF LIGHT: LAST ASCENT TO THE RED CROSS

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I'm very behind posting photos, so the next few days will be all about images, with very few words. This photo was taken in December 2010, when we made our 8th pilgrimage to the Fetes des Lumieres in Lyon, France. Don't forget to leave a message with my last blog post HERE if you'd like a chance to win a print of any photo from my Flickr Stream!

My Second Bloggerversary!

JANUARY WALKING: EVENING PRAYER

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JANUARY WALKING: OUT OF SIGNAL

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On New Year's Day, we went for a stroll with a friend and became lost at the top of a rather cold, damp, Welsh hill. One session of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy isn't quite enough to get a severely anxious person through that kind of life-challenge without a considerable amount of panic, but as misty, evening darkness drew in around us, my thoughts turned to practical matters: would it be possible, I wondered, to fell a small tree with the edge of a Co-op loyalty card? Then we could construct a shelter. I wasn't so concerned about the cold for myself or my husband, but our friend does tend to moan a lot about the weather and I feared that at some point, during a night spent outdoors with him, we might loose the will to survive. I consoled myself with the thought that this was a very beautiful place in which to die of Hypothermia. My friend asked if I had the App that transforms the iPhone screen into a torchlight. Of course not! Why would I want that? Can I make pictures with it? Faced with the choice of saving my remaining phone battery power to make an SOS call or take more photographs, I chose the only logical course of action...I took more photographs...

Quite frankly, I haven't bounded into the new year full of vim and vigour, more like dragged myself, sluggishly, out of the old one, when I'd much rather have a nice long lie in. My conscience is grumbling: "it's 2011, the start of a new decade, that means you have to DO SOMETHING POSITIVE!" So, to show willing, I'm making lists...and I'm crossing things off...and I'm trying very hard not to mentally thrash myself if I haven't crossed EVERYTHING...or indeed, hardly anything, off the list, at the end of each day...let's see how long I can keep that up...

There's a lot that I want to accomplish over the next twelve months and now that I have a bright, shiny, new little garden studio to work in, what excuse can I possibly have? Well...the Panto Season may be coming to a close, but Mental Illness is like having a couple of Ugly Sisters permanently performing inside your head. They are not great company: Depression saps the imagination of its hopes and dreams. No sooner have you kicked her out the door than Anxiety comes knocking, nagging at you with countless reasons why hopes and dreams are bound to end in disaster. Before you know it, Depression has invited herself back in, put the kettle on and is eating her way through the chocolate HobNobs. Then there's The Cat...while we were away, just before Christmas and over the New Year, she had a little holiday at the vet's and so now I have a lot of making up to do. The Cat has an uncanny knack of knowing when I am just about to do something and at that precise moment, she desperately needs my lap and half an hour's reassurance that she is still the centre of my Universe. Whilst I'm in the midst of dealing with complex "nurturing issues", how can I possibly refuse?

Today marks my second bloggerversary. It's a cliche, I know, but it really does seem like only five minutes since I was writing my first bloggerversary post. Much has happened since then, but I have blogged about only a fraction of it. I've been away so from here for so long that this morning, I found it difficult to navigate my way around the dashboard and I've discovered an alarming number of half-composed postings in my drafts folder. However: I'm determined to complete this one, to thank visitors old and new for spending some time here and for your messages of support and encouragement over the past year. In the spirit of generosity that abounds in Blogland, I'm going to do the bloggerversary thing of offering a small gift as a token of my appreciation. Leave a message for me with this post and in about a week's time, I'll put everyone's name in a hat and pull one out. If your name is chosen, I'll send you a print of your choice from my Flickr Stream.

Wishing you all a very happy New Year!

Last night I dreamed that you came home

LAST NIGHT I DREAMED THAT YOU CAME HOME
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By now, some of you may have read my recently-published piece in Artful Blogging, that touches upon my experiences of adoption disruption and subsequent struggle with anxiety and depression. While I don't wish to define myself by what has happened to me, it did happen and has left me with a very sharp view of a particular emotional landscape. Finally, after three years, I've summoned the courage to redecorate what was my daughter's pretty, pink bedroom.The original plan was simply to apply a fresh coat of paint, but I ended up removing the paper on the wall around the window and will have to reline it. Now I'm attempting to paint the other walls, but the pink stubbornly refuses to be obliterated. Memories of preparing for our daughter's arrival come flooding back with every brushstroke and it is taking an age to transform the tiny space. My instincts are telling me that fresh paint is not enough, that I'll never feel comfortable in this room that is to be our home office unless I scrape off every last scrap of lining paper, go right back to the bare walls, and completely begin anew. This could be due to my innate belief in "doing a job properly" but I suspect a deeper motivation and need.

The leaves that are green turn to brown

OCTOBER WALKING 01
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OCTOBER WALKING 02
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OCTOBER WALKING: THE OLD TRACK
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OCTOBER WALKING: THIS FAR, NO FURTHER
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This is my first post in over a month and the first one written from my new studio. It is everything I'd hoped for: there is (pretty much) room for everything and the space is light and airy but at the same time, a warm and snug retreat from where I can watch the seasons change as I work. This afternoon, twilight and raindrops are falling on our pond and clinging to the bare branches of the elder tree. To my right, I should be able to catch a glimpse of the hill, but shrouded in English Autumn weather, it has completely disappeared from view. A few weeks ago, I took a walk up there and shot the photographs that were the beginnings of the images posted above. The apps used were Toy Camera, PhotoFx, Iris and Photo Copier.