Posts Tagged 'creative'

Walking towards joy

Published 05/01/2019 Counsciousness , Death , Growth , Life , Philosophy , teaching , Uncategorized , writing 1 Comment
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2018 I am glad to see you go.

You nearly got the better of me. You tried hard to break me, along with 2017, 2016 and 2015. All of you went on rampages of preposterous proportions to see if you could be the one to wear me down and make me admit defeat. You nearly did. Each of you in your own way did your best. Throwing at me whatever you could muster. Digging deep to maintain the deluge.

I’ll admit you brought me to my knees a few times…. more than a few….but I am made of more than the sum of all of your excruciating pain and heartache. I am made of stardust and little bits of warrior woman. I have fueled myself with love and hope and I have rebuilt myself on a foundation of strength and softness. I stood up to your storms and swayed in your wind. I am still here. I am still rooted. You did not win.

These years came with heartache, immense loss, death and betrayal on a scale I hope none of you ever come remotely close to experiencing. I have mourned and cried. I have shuddered under the weight of worry and surrendered to the storms. I have extended grace where I could and wrapped those I love in all the light I can find.

I am still doing the work. I am still fixing and healing and soothing my soul. There is always work to be done.

Listen carefully 2019. I have set an intention. My intention is simply to move towards joy. I seek joy. I seek light and love and laughter. Work with me universe. Work with me. It is a simple and unassuming request. I do not ask that you provide it, for I can find it for myself. I only ask that you do not stand in my way.

Do not block the light I seek so desperately. Do not stand in front of love.

2019 I ask that you hold my hand and walk with me towards joy.

On travelling solo.

Published 11/05/2017 Growth , learning , Life , Philosophy , Travel , Uncategorized , writing 1 Comment
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No one can say that my life has not been interesting.  From the very beginning it appears I was destined to live a life full of challenges interspersed with an occasional adventure.

It all began in Singapore where my mother, just twenty-one, fell pregnant with her second child.  She had married my father, a slim and charming Irish airforce man at nineteen and their first posting had been to Singapore.  A couple of years later we returned to England and within a year or so we were off to Germany where I began my schooling. I distinctly remember being dragged to school through the snow… not eager to leave the warmth of our top floor flat and the sweet stories of ‘Listen to mother’ on the radio.  Three years later I had to leave my first best friend Gillian and return to England.  I cried for a week and experienced my first broken heart.

Back in England it felt like we moved incessantly.  House after house and school after school.  I became a bookworm.  The corner of the school library and a soft cushion became my friend. The books I read being familiar faces no matter where I found myself.  It was during these years that I discovered the value of knowing how to be alone and I remember my mother telling me how important it is to know how to do this.  To being easy in your own company.  To savour the very sweetness that is solitude.

Finally in my teenage years when my father left the airforce and started his own company we started to settle and yet life began to fall apart.  My father, a typical irishman was a drinker and the more money he made the more he drank.  During his airforce years he had never really been home and I was probably to young to be aware of his addiction.  Now it was glaringly obvious and his indifference to me became a thorn in my side but, at the same time, I developed a deep friendship with my mother that lasted until the day she died.

A week after my seventeenth birthday, having been dumped unkindly by my first boyfriend, I hopped on a plane and went stateside to escape yet another broken broken heart and my father.  I stood at Atlanta airport feeling tiny, afraid and incredibly vulnerable.  All I could think was ‘how am I going to survive this’….but I did.  I ended up in South Carolina and spent a year exploring life, making friendships that are still alive today, learning to stand on my own two feet and the art of ‘conversation with a stranger’.

A year or so later I returned to England and instantly regretted the decision.  Driving through the grey, damp streets on a foggy November morning I longed for the sunny skies of the carolinas, the friends I had made there and once again to be far away from my father and the shit storm that surrounded him.  Just eighteen I sat in my parents little house in England and felt lost, alone and once again incredibly vulnerable.  No plan and no idea where to start. My parents marriage a mere pile of rubble and his love affair with the bottle all the stronger.

Now so many years later I am so grateful for those early adventures.  I am eternally grateful for those early life lessons of savouring solitude and travelling solo.  Of learning to talk to strangers and of reading anything and everything.  Of knowing that broken hearts do mend and that there is power in vulnerability.  Of knowing that you don’t have to tolerate other people’s stuff no mater who they are.

Today I savour my solitude and that little armchair at the back of the bookstore is still my friend.  I have more books than clothes and still love ‘conversations with strangers’.  To hear snippets of their stories and exchange friendly smiles.   I am alone, a little lost and once again feeling incredible vulnerable…..but it feels like home.

Traits of conscious living

Published 07/03/2016 Counsciousness , learning , Life , teaching , Uncategorized , writing Leave a Comment
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I recently saw an article in which were words written by the actor Keanu Reeves. Keanu had written about how he did not like living in a world where people did not seem to value either themselves or each other. I agree.  The fact that millions are obsessed with the inane daily existence of a family that seem to pride themselves on the size of their butts rather than the depth in their hearts breaks my own into a million pieces.   Where is our deep commitment to the human race, our planet and everything that resides in our environment?  Why the desire to hurt and why the ludicrous obsession with things that have no meaning or depth.

His article reminded me of notes I had written in the back of an old journal and so I rummaged around until I located those tired scribbles. There in my tatty moleskin I found the list I had made some time ago on what I believe are the traits of people who live a conscious life.

They are dedicated to personal growth. 

By this I mean that they put effort into being a better person that they were yesterday.  The seek to expand their minds and are open to constant learning.  They understand that there is always room for improvement and are willing to work on the space between who they are and who they want to be.

They understand that they are more than a physical body.

Our physical body is home for our soul.  Perhaps we will never understand just what our soul is but we do get that it is vital to who we are.  Both our body and our soul are energy.  Our body vibrating atoms of energy and soul the deep conscious energy that makes us who we are.  They understand this about themselves and equally of others.  They are prepared to meet others on both levels and are respectful of another’s journey here on our planet.

They take care of themselves

Living a conscious life means taking care of the home their soul resides in. Attending to all the physical needs of the body.  Making time for exercise, drinking lots of water, eating quality food and avoiding the perils of sugar, alcohol and drugs. It means taking care of your own emotional needs and stepping out into the world knowing that if you take good care of yourself you have more to offer others.

Embracing their beauty

This really boils down to being comfortable in their own skin.   Taking the time to love themselves, who they are and what they offer to the world.  This is no mean feat. Even liking ourselves seems impossibly difficult in a world that tells us we are not enough.  Conscious people tune out from the media perception of beauty, physical or otherwise and embrace all that they are.

Care for others

Conscious people understand that we are all connected.  That we are all part of this universe and that we are all made up of the same energy at a deep cellular level. This understanding guides them to treat others as they would treat themselves.

Care for the earth

It is pretty obvious isn’t it that if you have conscience at all you are driven to treat this plant with the utmost care.  Reducing your consumption and lowering your carbon footprint are just the tip of the iceberg.  Care for the earth means caring for our environment and everything in it.

Emotionally mature

This doesn’t come easy to some but it starts out by engaging in personal growth.  All the work done there provides the basis for emotional stability and maturity.  This has nothing to do with physical age.  I know young people who’s emotional maturity knocks the socks of people twice their age.

Lives with integrity and doesn’t settle

A conscious person approaches all that they do with grace.  They are true to their word and uphold their own code ethics and morals.  They know their boundaries and expect others to treat them with the same honour as they themselves treat others.

Opens even when it hurts

It is not easy to stay soft and open in a society that wants to beat you with it’s own brand of harshness but this one is essential.  Staying open means not closing down ones heart.  It means understand that the energy of love really is what gives meaning to our lives. It means being tender even in the moments when it is hardest to do so.

Receives elegantly

I struggle with this.  I find myself very uncomfortable with the process of receiving gifts but to not receive with grace denies the other person all the joy of giving.  Of course it is not always a gift from another person.  Receiving also means accepting and loving your talents and anything else that makes you special.  It is understanding that you are deserving of this and being brave enough to go out into the world with that knowledge.

Is brave and courageous.

In the words of Gandhi ‘Be truthful, gentle and fearless’.  Being brave and courages does not denote being hard.  It means be courageous enough to be gentle and be brave enough to stay open.  Stand sweetly in your own power and respect that others do the same.  Move fearlessly out of your comfort zone when required and help others in their quest for growth.  There is a beautiful sanskrit word ‘Shraddha’.  It means learning to rest in complete uncertainty without moving into fear.  For me that just sums up beautiful the ability to be brave and courageous.

I truly believe that we all have the ability to be highly conscious people.  That every single person on this planet has the depth and character to do the work required, and just imagine if they all did.  What a wonderful world it would be.

My friend Jungle Jim

Published 02/12/2015 Art , creativity , Life , photography , Uncategorized , writing 1 Comment
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I find it amazing how the universe finds a way to bring people together even if they are either sides of the world.  How your vibration matches up with that of another even when you are on different continents.  The universe just decides you need to be in each others lives and it makes a plan.

I have such a friend.  We studied photography together from opposite sides of the world.  He was incredibly supportive of my work and we would compare notes and essays and eventually finished the course together delighting in our equally good results.  I loved his engaging open manner and we developed a sweet friendship that moved from just fellow students to encompass our whole lives.  It seems we had far more in common that just photography.

One day he emailed me the first few chapters of his book and one day I bravely emailed him the first few chapters of mine.  He would write each day will travelling his wet and rainy commute into London and I would write from coffee shops on warm sunny african days. Worlds apart and yet the same.  He of course is ten steps ahead of me and was near to completing his book.

Then on one of those exquisite sunny days a parcel arrived.  His book in all its glory.  I held it in my hands and ran my fingers over the cover.  In the pages between those covers I could feel every tiny atom of energy he had poured into those words.  I could feel his pride and excitement.  This was a big moment.

That weekend I was going away with a friend and as if the universe knew how to play this game the skies darkened and the rains came.  I lay in my bed listening to the drops fall heavily onto the roof above and the sounds of the lion call far away.  I took that precious book in my hands and as I turned the pages I was transported into the world of Jungle Jim.  To his adventures deep in the jungle with the rain coming in equal measure there in those pages.  I devoured it.  I was there.  I was her.  I was young and full of adventure.  How sweet that the universe made sure my world matched those on the pages.

I don’ want to give away the story.  That is for you to enjoy and I promise you will not be disappointed.  Jungle Jim is an adventure that captured my heart and imagination. Every one of those pages is filled with James King’s adventurous spirit and massively soft heart.

I am so proud of you my friend.  I loved this book.  I loved it’s energy and excitement.  I loved that it captured me so and I loved that it is so much a part of you.

James you have inspired and encouraged me.  You have listened when I needed a friend and you have entertained me with your adventures.  This book is only the beginning and I am eternally grateful to the universe for bringing you into my life.

James King’s Jungle Jim is available from http://www.troubador.co.uk/book_info.asp?bookid=3512, Amazon and Kindle.

 

 

On life and loss…..

Published 18/11/2015 Death , learning , Life , Uncategorized 5 Comments
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This year has been hard.  Unbelievably hard.  Excruciatingly hard.  I have lost so much of what I once held dear and found myself feeling more vulnerable than I ever thought possible.

My year began with divorce. Divorce from a marriage of twenty seven years.  A painful separation with all that I had known for my whole adult life. Nothing can prepare you for the loss.  With divorce there is always loss.  Huge, huge amounts of seemingly unbearable loss.  Loss of what you thought would be.  Loss of a future you once imagined.  Loss of friends and on occasion, loss of hope. For me the greatest of those losses, apart from the obvious, was my beloved ramshackle house in the bush. This was the place I called home.  Where my heart and soul felt the most peace. Where I took all my deep breaths and made all my big decisions.  The place I went when life became overwhelming.  So in the most overwhelming time in my life I could not go to that place that I knew.  I could no longer sit in that place where I normally sat.  In essence, even my decision making process had to change.

Life was, in fact, to became more overwhelming than I could possibly imagine. Nothing it seemed, bar my name, could stay the same.  I moved house, changed my car, changed my bank accounts, changed phone accounts and wifi providers, became a yoga instructor and took on photography work I had previously shied away from. It was hard. Seriously hard and I was physically, mentally and emotionally exhausted.  I had to claw and fight my way back to creating a life that was sustainable, even if it was temporary.

Then just when I thought I could catch my breath the universe dealt another massive blow.  It took from me my mother in a bizarre set of circumstances.  Nothing could possibly prepare me for the month that was to follow.

Last week I sat in her little home in the cold autumn of England and tried once again to catch my breath.  I could not seem to find it.  It was not amongst the all letters she had saved.  Letters that I had written to her when I was still a teenager and living in America.  It was not amongst the clothes that she wore, nor was it in the cupboards of china that she loved so much.  I could not find it in the garden she had tended so carefully or in the boxes of photographs I rummaged through.  It was not in the cards that arrived nor the quiet ticking of the clock in the night hours where I lay awake in a bed that had once been hers.  Surely I would find it somewhere.

I have yet to find that breath but in amongst all this terrible loss here is what I have found.  I have found open hearts and incredible compassion.  In my vulnerable moments I have seen people step forward to comfort me.  People I did not know well. People who were merely on the fringes of my friend zone.  They have opened their hands and hearts to me.  They offered kind words that I have re-read again and again in those dark hours listening to that ticking clock. They gave me heartwarming hugs.  Hugs that gave me strength when I felt depleted.  They have taken me into their circles and protected me.  They have listened when I needed an ear.  I have made new friends.  New friends that have bought me meals and found ways to make me laugh and smile on the darkest and wettest days….you know who you all are.

I have found strength.  I have found that I am made of more than I thought.  I have found that I have strength to cope with a whole lot more than I ever imagined.

I have found calmness.  Yes, in amongst the whirlwind of trauma I have gone deep into myself to find a place of calm.  Now that I know where it is I know that I can go there whenever I need to.  Perhaps it was not there in the bush, perhaps it was just inside of me all the time.  I just didn’t know how to find it.

We are all just journeying from one end of life to the other.  Life is just about experience.  Big experiences and small.  Sometimes those big experiences are spaced out with long gaps in-between.  Sometimes they come all at once.

I have had a year of big experiences and big loss.  Big discoveries and monumental growth.  I hope the universe thinks that I have done enough growing for a while.  I hope it gives me time to catch my breath.

Practicing non attachment

Published 29/09/2015 creativity , Growth , learning , Life , teaching , Uncategorized , writing Leave a Comment
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A confidence crisis is not confined to an artist.  However, anyone who practices any kind of art will at some point or another face some sort of wobble in their confidence at some point during their creative life.  Probably several actually, and if they are anything like me then they will have them on a regular basis.  They will doubt their technical knowledge.  They will wonder if their creative pool has dried up and they might even want to sell all their kit convinced their last ever piece of create work has long since been produced.

Recently whilst standing before a class of eager and expectant faces I wondered what it is that gives us confidence.  What gives me the confidence to go before people and teach despite the fact that I still have so much to learn? What gives me the confidence to write these words that may will be shunned with hefty giggles and dismissive vocabulary? How do we take confidence into our hearts and lives.

For me confidence simply comes from non attachment to the outcome.  When I first stood on my mat before my very first yoga class I had to overcome a moment of anxiety.  Could I teach? Would they like me? Would they come back?  I reminded myself that every person there that day would have a different opinion of me.  Some would like me and some would not.  Some would eagerly return for the next class and some would go on a search for another teacher who resonated more with them. I let go of the outcome.  I reminded myself that it did not matter what each of their individual opinions were and that it was more important to teach in a way that resonated fully with me.

I believe our education system has to take a great deal of the blame for the collective confidence of the human race.  Imagine, if you will, the young child who stands before her parents and siblings in full confidence singing out a tuneless nursery rhyme.  She has no attachment to the outcome and is glorious in her unadulterated joy.  Fast forward a few years and put her in front of her class where she now has to recite a poem or speak on some inane subject she has no interest in.  Now she is told very clearly there will be a rating attached to her performance.  She simply has to be attached to the outcome.  She is taught to be attached to the outcome.  Each and every day, in everything she does she is learning attachment to the outcome.  In the words of Buddha ‘the root of suffering is attachment’.  She spends twelve years in education being taught to be attached to the outcome of everything she does. She is doomed until she has spent an enormous amount of time working on herself and unlearning this very thing.

There are seven billion of us on this madly spinning planet.  Each and every one of us has a different perception and reality.  If you are creating something every single person that views that work will have a different reality of it and if you attach yourself to the outcome of each of those realities you will end up at the very root of suffering.  Create what resonates with you.  Detach yourself from the outcome.  Write the words that sit pretty on the page before you.  Take the photograph that is breathtaking in your eyes alone.  Paint on that canvas in the way that feels exquisitely beautiful to you.  Run the way that you want to run.  Move the way you want to move.  Sing the way you want to sing.  Detaching your self from the outcome allows you to do and say things that you otherwise might be reluctant to do or say. It frees you from your comfort zone and somewhere out of your comfort zone is where all the good stuff lies.

Try it for a day.  Detach yourself from the outcome of every single thing in your day and see how it feels.  Learning to detach yourself from the outcome is an incredibly liberating thing.  It frees you up to be your true self in all your magnificent glory.  It gives you incredible confidence.  It brings you back to yourself and in that place is all the joy and happiness you could ever want.

 

 

Letting go of your stuff

Published 22/05/2015 Art , creativity , Growth , Life , photography , Uncategorized 3 Comments
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Recently I had to ‘let go’ of something that was very close to my heart.  It had been in my life for a long time and loosing it was especially hard.  It took many deep breaths and quiet meditations to realise I would be OK without it.  That in reality, letting go of one thing allows space for another to come in.  It’s the letting go part that we sometimes find really really hard.

Life sometimes has a way of stripping you down.  Taking you back to the basics from where you start again.  During this process you may loose many things, or even many people but you will also find yourself.  It is a human trait to cling to stuff and people but loosing either pushes us out of our comfort zone, and it is out of our comfort zone that we truly realise what we are made of.  It’s where our creativity lies.

I want to put this into the context of art.  Lets imagine for a moment you are a photographer that loves equipment.  Has a passion for that extra stuff, reflectors and strobes, triggers and backdrops.  This is your comfort zone.  You are happy shooting your portraits surrounded by your expensive complicated gear.  Then one day your studio is broken into and all your extras are stolen.  You did however, have your camera at home with you.  Just your camera.  No tripod and trigger.  No tethering cable.  No flash.  Now the next day you have a portrait session booked.  It’s really important and you cannot cancel.  So you go back to basics.  You scramble in your mind for a location with great light.  You adjust your camera settings and start to play a bit.  You find yourself being less static without the tripod and shooting from new angles.  Stripped down you find a new seat of creativity.  You are so out of your comfort zone but that alone forces you to be creative.  The artist who finds himself with a blank canvas, a brush and three pots of paint will dig deep and get creative. He will mix those paints into every shade possible and create shadows and light out of nothing.

It’s the same with life.  Have you ever noticed those people who are hoarders.  How they are so often the same people who are stuck in their routines.  How they never move forward and expand.  They stay in the same house for most of their lives.  Shop at the same shop and eat the same food.  Hoard their stuff and die never having gone out of their diminutive comfort zone.  Then there are the people who have no fixed location and few belongings, that live from experience to experience and adventure to adventure.  Always seeking and probably always finding.

It is very easy to get stuck in our space.  Both our physical space and the space in our heads.  It feels safe and we as humans like to feel safe.  We like to feel like we can control our environment and we do this by knowing our comfort zone and staying there.  We don’t always choose to move out of our space.  Sometimes we are forced to.  Life comes along and gives a big kick and we are blasted out of our comfort zone into a new space that is unfamiliar and, to be honest, quite frightening.  We take a moment to catch our breath.  Thats okay.  Then we pick ourselves up and take a look around.  This is the point where we start to get creative.  Forced to expand we start to move forward.  Here’s the good part.  Here is where we find our creativity like the guy who looses his job and is forced to go it alone and work for himself.  When we loose something we make space for something new.  We open ourselves up to possibility.   We move out of our comfort zone and somewhere in that space we find ourselves.

When we are stripped down in life and we lose a lot all at once, this is when we have the greatest expansion.  This is when we have our greatest growth and become open to the most possibilities.  The more space we make the more ‘new’ can come in.

It is not easy.  No it is definitely not easy, but it is when we are laid bare, totally out of our comfort zone with nothing but space before us that we truly find ourselves. This is where we find ourselves being deeply creative.  Where we find the greatest expansion of our mind and our spirit.  If you never leave your comfort zone you will not grow.  In fact the opposite will happen.  If you do not let go of something there will be no space for the new.

Take a deep breath today and let go of something.  It does not have to be something physical.  It can just be an idea, a belief, something you have clung on to.  Send it away with an exhale.  Now there is space for something new and it feels so good just to have that space for a while.  Feel yourself expand as you wait for the new to arrive. When it does enjoy the growth.  It will often come in unexpected ways but it will come and you will grow.  The bigger the exhale the bigger the inhale.  The more you let go of the more space you create and the more room for growth.

Let go of something and you will come closer to finding yourself.

 

 

The value of us

Published 25/02/2015 Art , creativity , photography , Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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My youngest daughter was recently doing a university assignment about the value of photographers in society. So often photography is viewed as a sort of ‘pretend’ profession. As if what we doing is just play play and we are not serious people doing serious work. Perhaps because for so many it is a hobby and they cannot comprehend that what they do in their spare time is what we do each day. That we don’t share their relentless rat race grind and actually get to spend our days doing stuff that is fun and creative and rewarding.

Lets think for a moment though. To take inspiration from Michael A Singer, we are just tiny specks on a planet that is spinning wildly through space in a vast galaxy that is just a tiny speck in an ever expanding universe so vast we cannot begin to comprehend its size. Why are we taking anything seriously?

Really, just think about that. Think about what is really happening here. People cling to the idea that they are important, that what they do is important and yet if they were to pull back and look at the bigger picture….the really big picture, the huge ever expanding universe picture, they would realize that they are not. We are made up of atoms that were around in the big bang. Some made you and some made me. We will die and those atoms will recycle and the space we left will be filled with another. You are not that important and neither am I.

In my humble opinion we should live our lives with some sort of humility. No one is that important. Loose the ego and enjoy the ride. What ever it is you do it puts food on the table and a roof over your head, but if you look at the big picture, the ever expanding universe picture, you will realize how totally insignificant it really is. I get to share in peoples moments and give them back to them in the form of memories that they can hold in their hands.   I get to have fun on my journey. I get to be creative and see the beauty in everything and that is so awesome but it is not less or more than whatever it is that the man on the other side of the café with the large ego and self important attitude does to fill his days.

Take a moment today to step back and think about this whole big picture. Make a point to let go of your ego and have fun on your journey for that is all it is. You are atoms clinging to a planet that is spinning wildly though space and so am I. It’s like a giant fairground ride so go ahead, relax and enjoy it.

Making space in art and life

Published 08/12/2014 Art , creativity , photography , Yoga 3 Comments
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Space is one of my favourite words.  I love all that it implies and how it relates to our lives and our art.  Do you carve out space for yourself during your day?  A few moments of silence.  It might be with your early morning cup of coffee when you take time to smell the scent of the morning breeze and all that the day has to offer.  Or perhaps when you go to the gym or for a run or maybe even just when you drive to work.  Or in the last few moments before you go to sleep when you utter the last few sighs of your day.  It does not matter how you find your space – just that you do.

In yoga we talk of making space in our bodies.  Before I go into a pose I think about where in my body I need to make space.  If I am doing a backbend I need to make space in my spine and perhaps my shoulders.  If I am doing a forward bend I might need to make space in my hips and between my ribs, and I always, always need to make space in my mind.  I carve out space for myself everyday on my mat or when I go for a run.  With each inhale and exhale I release the old, the cramped and the clutter from my mind and body and make space for the new.  Old thoughts, old patterns and old habits are let go and then there is all that beautiful space for creativity to unfold.  Space allows room for dreaming.  It is when the stirrings of new ideas begin and images already dreamt can evolve towards reality.

I like space in art.  It allows the viewer to linger and imagine.  It allows the viewer to dream.  What they dream of does not matter.  It only matters that they do.  Allow space in your photographs for a sigh from the viewer.  Space for their gaze to wander and wonder.  Make space in your stories so that the reader has room to imagine.  Space for those inhales and exhales to happen.  Even if you are shooting stock, as I do, allow space for words in your photographs.

Space, is to me, one of the most underrated of modern day concepts.  Parents and schools fill their children’s lives and give them no space to breathe.  Children need space to dream.  They need to lie under a tree and look up at all that beautiful space in the sky and imagine.  They need to be allowed to make space in their bodies with movement.   They too need spaces in their stories.

Space is not necessarily meant to be filled.  It can be just space.  Let it be that.

 

 

 

Who do you want to be?

Published 17/11/2014 Art , creativity , photography Leave a Comment
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Lifeguard-2

I ask you this. Who do you want to be? What sort of person do you aspire to be? What delightful traits do you see in others that you wish for yourself? Do you admire a person’s tenacity or their dedication to worthy causes? Or the extraordinary effort they put in to maintaining good health or perhaps just their desire to learn and grow. So what is stopping you from being all these things? You can be anything you want to be.

When it comes to being an artist I want you to question what sort of artist do you want to be. Now by this I do not mean do you want to be a landscape photographer or a sculptor. I mean how do you want to move people with your art. Do you want to merely take photographs that will be placed on a mantelpiece? Simply reminders of a moment captured with a camera and lens. Or paint a painting that is bought simply to occupy a space somewhere in a home because it matches the colour coded décor.

Would you not rather produce a piece of work that stops people in their tracks? That makes them loose their breath and linger a while. That makes them wonder what your thoughts were when your brush touched the canvas, or what sorrows your soul has suffered to be able to put words together so sweetly that they tumble off the pages and find spaces to settle in their hearts. Do you want to take portrait photographs that make the viewer pause and wonder about the life of the person they see there. Portraits that make the viewer question what it is that draws them in and what beauty they see there in those eyes.

Do you want to travel and take photographs of children in far off places who’s lives are so tragically sad they make the viewer weep at the very thought of it all? Or carve a sculpture that the makes a stranger want to reach out run their hands over it, finding every tiny crevice and think with tenderness of the passion with which you carved it.

Or perhaps you want to photograph landscapes that make people linger and dream of standing there beside you, or capture the movement of an athlete that inspires awe and envy.

Whatever it is….do not be ordinary. Seek to be the artist you want to be. Search out others to inspire you, look at their work and discover what it is that makes you lean in and then find a way to put that quality into your own art. Find a way to make your viewer lean in and linger. It is surely worth it.

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