Quiet Wintering

"Sell your Cleverness and buy bewilderment"

Rumi, translated by Edward henry Whinfield

Life has been peculiar of late. 

I have heard from others that their January was an odd beginning to the year and February was equally extraordinary. And March? So much strangeness has happened that it seems I have indeed "sold any cleverness I had and bought bewilderment", which may not be such a bad thing.

It's been ages since I experimented with the way I paint or draw. Recently life has prompted me to try something new even if only for a while just to play and see what happens. To allow the paint to paint in a different way and use different tools to draw and to just let out what ever wants to come through. At one point I found myself using a decorative hair stick...

And so with a fair amount of reluctance and a lot of encouragement, I did so. The hour or two that I planned to give to the experiment sneakily grew until it consumed nearly a whole day.

What came out was both surprising and not – I can definitely see how art can be a form of therapy.

These pictures are tiny. The smallest is probably only 2cm x 3cm and the biggest  about 10cm x 10cm. They were incredibly fast and fascinating to watch as they arrived.

...and then the forest arrived again and I got drawn into my favourite place and though the style seems to have reverted to my familiar method it began in a different place and I think it has a different quality a different depth of emotion.