It's official - we're moving to Western Australia later this year ! Yasss! I'm terribly excited to start a new phase of our lives in a place we both love. It's been 5 years since we returned from a short stint living in Perth and we've been talking about moving back ever since. The pandemic threw a spanner into our plans but the borders have just reopened and we're gearing up to go. There is so much to think about and do and I'm certainly a little overwhelmed by it, but I'm trying to think logically and systematically about the chaos to come and just enjoy my last months in this wonderful home that has held us for all these years. We've grown so much here and I'll look back fondly on our time in this house. But it's time to move on, so that we can live by the beautiful Indian Ocean that we both adore so much. I've been drawing Western Australian themed things in anticipation:
The inspiration I felt in WA was off the charts - I mean, it's where I started watercolour painting again, and where the whale paintings began. The wild beauty of the south west coast really spoke to my creative soul in a way that nowhere else has and I am so thrilled to take my practice back to that place. There are things I'll miss here of course, like our family and friends, the beautiful rainforests and the summer storms, the lush tropical plants and all of the beautiful natural wonderlands we visit every weekend to keep us sane.
One of my very favourite things is the sounds of the forest birds around here. Every morning I wake up to a cacophony of birdsong and it is the most beautiful alarm clock in the world. On the weekend we went for a drive up the mountain to a lookout where the birdsong always gives us pause to stand and listen in reverence. I will miss this birdsong very much when we move from here - it's a great reminder that life is bigger than humanity and that in spite of all the horrors in the world, nature still manages to create such magic.
Isn't it just divine? The bell birds are especially lovely. I always think of them 'ringing' in nature's cathedrals of forest. Yes, I definitely will miss hearing them on our weekend adventures. But I suppose there will be other birds to listen out for as we explore the great wild expanse of the west...again.
In studio news, this past week has been productive again. I've put down the ink pen for a while and resumed playing with clay. My mother gave me all of her leftover clay from various projects and I felt compelled to get into it right away. I finally made myself a rustic set of dinner plates that I've been meaning to make for two years - hooray! And I created a whole bunch of new nudibranchs for a project I've wanted to delve into for the longest time. They are all currently drying before I can put them in the kiln but I'm excited to glaze them and finish them all off next week.
Aside from that I've started a couple of new watercolours which are more fine artworks than illustrative. I've been focussing much more on the fine art side of my practice this year. I've been so deeply involved in illustrative works for several years that I didn't know if I had what it takes to delve back into the world of fine art - but of course, I do. And for now, I just want to keep a lot of that work to myself, because it feels right to do so.
I've been off social media for a full month now and I have to say that it's been exactly what I needed. I can see now how it was stifling my creativity. I've been incredibly productive these past four weeks - and consistently so. I've also felt like I'm formulating my ideas from the world around me now, and not from an app that shows the same kind of images again and again and again. It's very hard to hear one's own voice amongst all the noise on social media. It has to be said though, that I've only just stopped regularly picking up my phone several times an hour to check instagram or the like. That habit was hard-wired and I've had to consciously dismantle it! Now I watch a whole evening's worth of entertainment without checking it once! Tides are turning and my mind certainly feels far more peace, so that's a positive. Plus, I'm regularly writing studio updates in this here blog - another big win!
And on that note, I'm off to work on some more paintings!
Big love. xo
Comments