drilling for gold

i’m adding this post with questions for myself in the future:

in december 2015 you spent a lot of time being unhappy, something you generated for yourself … have you managed to leave that behind and are you happier for more of the time ?

have you got past the creative block you felt you had at the end of 2015?

how was your forest school training progression week ?

have you managed to negotiate new clients you do forest school with ?

have you got any further with the idea of staging an exhibition of new work ?

how is the finding commonality within the art practice and forest school practice going ?

did starting a blog with the intention of “going up” “growing” “getting somewhere” work out for you  ?

are you happier now ?

a year ago i reflected upon my 12 in 14 journey, today i start to consider how well my drilling has been this year.

beginning this blog i had no preconceived ideas of where i would be at the end of it, indeed i didn;t even have an idea of for how long it would be kept.

as i approach the end of the year, i see it as an opportunity to move on from drilling.  i see now that drilling takes me down… i needed to be going up.

by aound th emid point of this year i realised that the model of professional artist is an ill fit for me.  there are several reasons and quite possibly the strongest being i’m simply not that good.

what i can’t take away from myself though is an inquisitiveness that motivates me to create or make things to test out my knowledge.

i began this year not knowing that i would end it as a funded trainee forest school leader.  the concept of forest school sits well with me and i’m easing ever increasingly into being a leader of sessions.

while searching for outlets at the beginning of the year i explored counselling via ab evening course in active listening.  at the time it didn’t make sense however since the course what i learnt has actually been used and useful in various situations.  it’s a four week course i would recommend everyone to take as the benefits of being an active listener are multi fold for those we listen to.

via future learn i’ve attempted to learn about android programming and processing. the latter has been more in tune with my thinking and a plan is to return to the processing course and take what i know further.

there’s also an acorn of a plan to attend some photography club meetings.  i know i’m not particularly a club person but i acknowledge that i do actually need to get out more  and using  camera has been something that i’ve been doing from my teenage years.

something else that i retain from my teenage years is the notion of the drum solo as described by cozy powell.  simply put powell spoke about how when he was thundering around the kit he needed to take it down to the hot hat and snare so that he had somewhere to go to conclude the solo.  the idea of a conscious decision to take something to it’s smallest possibility so that that possibility could evolve and become bigger.

my practice has become it’s smallest possibility.

i have a plan to make a new blog, one that i desire to plot my practice evolution away from it’s smallest possibility.

it’s time to discover what model i do fit with.

it might be my time to make my own model.

not since the late 1970’s has there been a full moon on christmas day and i planned to capture the event in some way despite the heavy cloud cover in the preceding hours before sunset.

here are my four images of the full moon on christmas day 2015.

i woke this morning with thoughts of giving myself a new blog to write.

my morning has been relaxed and i have received a few things and i feel happy.  my best present is a made bird, i went onto learn it was awarded top marks in a textiles project at school.

i’d like to give myself space to make and do what i want.  it’s a tricky present as it involves time.

it’s time now to light the stove, look out the window at the rain and relax.

bestive festive wishes to you all xx