April

They came on one of April’s most brilliant days–a day as sparkling as a newly-washed lemon…a day when even the shadows were a melange of blue and orange and jade, like the shadows that poured from the tipsy brush of Monet.

– Beverley Nichols.

April. 2022. Yep, we're here already. I wish I could say that my month started as beautifully as the quote above, but a tummy bug followed by general fatigue has had me in a bit of a funk. Generally, I'd describe my mood as 'meh'. Never mind, I'm sure I'll be back to my tip-top self soon enough. It is curious though - how quickly one can go from marvelling at life (see the pictures above!) to a general dullness of mood. My spiritual side tells me it's just two sides of the same coin. I should probably listen to that side more often.

Anyhow, onwards we go...

I'm so thrilled to think that in another three months I'll be heading West to where the sky stretches out into the vast turquoise waters of forever. I thought it might take some time for me to adjust to the idea of leaving this house and this lush view, but it's taken very little time at all. There is no doubt that I've been ready for a shake up in our lives for a while now and it's likely we would have moved earlier if Covid hadn't happened. But it did happen and so this is the time. I'm trying to be realistic and to not have too many expectations about how life will be somewhere else. We've been very honest with ourselves in admitting that we are not just moving towards something, but also away from something, or perhaps, many things. These things are difficult to articulate, they are like 'stagnation' or staleness and allude to complications associated with living in the fastest growing region in the country. And, there's a sense that we want to build something new, something more intentional and aligned to who we both are. Something simpler and saltier, that demands we spend more time outdoors and less time in traffic. Something fresher and wilder and friendlier. Something more about community and feeling like we belong. Yes, something like that. Anyway, I'm excited!

But enough banging on about the move! What have I been up to these past two weeks? Oh geez, well, before I got the 'meh blues' I was being incredibly productive. I was glazing and firing functional ceramic pieces for most of that time, and spending my time in-between drawing, as has been the pattern so far this year. I am still working on pieces influenced by archeological 'venus' figures and have created a new section under the Projects tab of my website for these pieces. For now I'm calling the body of work 'Statuesque', but I'm really still working it all out and might revisit that name at some point.

I still take ceramic classes a few times a month and I've been working on finishing off a garden totem that I started early last year. The rainbow lorikeet below is my most recent addition, and I'll be finishing off a second lorikeet this week. I look forward to the day I can actually show a photo of this totem installed, but for now all the pieces sit on my storeroom shelves waiting to get packed up for the big move. It will be a momentous occasion when I do finally get to put it together!

In other news, I got my hair cut off and I'm totally down with it. I just want to change so much of my life up lately and this was just another thing on the list of things to be transformed. A shrewd person might intuit that all of the external changes really are a projection of a desire to change or transform my inner life in some way. And that person would be spot on. As my body changes, my inner life transforms and there is a kind of requirement that everything around me must transform too. A strange state of affairs, and one that I only just considered. I think that requires deeper investigation - if not to layer meaning onto life's season's just to satiate some curiosity about the strange momentum of my middle age (and hopefully reassure myself that all of this is very normal!). So, that's me for now! I've another month of social media abstinence (it's getting dull but I'm determined to see it through) and then I'll be back with a whole bounty of work to share. But you know what? I've decided that this space is far more important to me and will be my number one priority to maintain. It's been lovely to regularly reflect on my studio time each week - it really just makes this creative life seem so much more purposeful and poignant somehow, even without an audience (or followers)! Isn't that incredibly odd? Testament to the thought that life only takes on the meaning that we, ourselves, give it.

I'm gonna go mull over that for a while.

Blessings,

Shell. xx