present

My Studio Adventures

| Sheree

A studio is a sanctuary. A studio is somewhere you can escape to. Escape from the noise, from all the other commitments. The stresses of the world.

Here in a studio, you are able to immerse yourself in inspiration and creativity. It’s a personal space where you can be yourself, enjoy the freedom of taking risks and daydreaming without interruption.

Over the years, this has been what this space has been; Living Wild Studios. These studios were created so I’d a space online to explore my creativity and myself. A safe space where I’d be able to pick up pen and paper, paintbrush and glue and not worry about what was about to pour forth. I felt secure in my ability to explore and learn from it. I’m so grateful for creating these studios for me, first and forth most. But over the years, I’ve grown to love being able to share them with you.

Now that I’ve moved homes after a separation from my husband of nearly 25 years, I’m fixing to created another studio, closer to home, a physical studio to call my own.

Over the years, I’ve tried to create this space through different homes and means. At one time, I had a corner in a sitting room, another time I took over the spare room once the eldest went off to Uni. At another time, I had the privilege of being able to pay for a purpose built studio along a train platform. But that didn’t last.

I’ve lived for the last few years between rooms in a flat as a studio. Always having to move my resources and supplies as the room was needed for something or someone else.

This is my studio as it stands now. Needing a lot of work. But I can see the potential of the space as I attempt to zone it into the different art forms and headspaces I occupy when I create. Of course the bike isn’t staying. It can’t stay. But I think as it stands in the middle of my studio now it’s an indication of how I’ve been treating my creative genes for the past few months. A dumping ground as well as neglected and discarded.

This room will be changing next week. Check back into see the studio take shape and become a working wonderland of curiosity and fun.

Be thankful for the life you have

| Sheree

We take so much for granted in our lives.
We tend forget that life itself is a gift.
A gift which we have the potential to make amazing.
We owe it to ourselves to take the time and space to become more aware of what we already have. And appreciate it.

What I’m grateful for at the moment:

1. A roof over our heads.
2. Food on our plates.
3. Our health as a family.
4. Friends to care for and be cared by.
5. Broadband to support me to create new work opportunities.
6. Pen and paper and magazines to cut up.
7. Love.
8. The morning sun. The morning rain.
9. Water.
10. My hoping heart.

June Readings

| Sheree

I’ve started, so I’ll finish. My thoughts when I think about coming here to record my readings for last month; June. This is the only way I’m keeping track of what I’m reading in terms of books, and when I started I felt it would be a worthwhile pursuit. Something to look back at, at the end of the year, and be proud at the achievement. At the fact of reading so many books. I didn’t set a target I don’t think. But forgive if I’m wrong as January feels so far away now. And thank God for this practice as I can’t remember what I read back then. Or even last month if I think about it. Hence being here now, before any more days of July rolls by and I haven’t marked down what books I read in June.

So here is the list of completed reads. And I’ve got so many other books on the go at the moment that I won’t be able to share them all, but I’ll share a smattering of them to give you an idea. There have been times when it’s been difficult to concentrate on a long read. I’d read a chapter and then skip off to do something else, or read something else. Concentration and focus have been elusive. I think that’s where poetry collections come into play. Quick and easy and brief.

Books read this month:

1. Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful by Alice Walker

2. Mama Amazonica by Pascal Petit

3. Between the Islands by Philip Gross

4. Hare Soup by Dorothy Molloy

5. Ledger by Jane Hirshfield

6. Postcolonial Love Poem by Natalie Diaz

7. The Creative Doer by Anna Lovid

Books in progress this month:

1. Overstory by Richard Powers

2. Becoming by Michelle Obama

3. Grassling by Elizabeth-Jane Burnett

4. The Sea Inside by Philip Hoare

5. Seeing the Body by Rachel Eliza Griffiths

6. Ecotherapy: Healing with nature in mind edited by Linda Buzzell and Craig Chalquist

Day 16 – All that you are is all that you need

| Sheree

To cool down after a hot shower, I sit with my flesh exposed.

From the open window, a cool Spring breeze caresses my skin.

I feel delight in the simple pleasure of air, of space, of me.

Seagulls squawk and voices mumble across yards. Cars roam.

Hanging baskets of white and pink blooms sway.

I seat and soak it in, swelling from the inside out with love.

In this moment, I am beautiful. I am all I need. I am enough.

Day 6 – Curlew, Sphagnum Moss, Peat

| Sheree

a spongy carpet;

clusters of green stars

holding water

storing carbon

amongst cotton grass

big rosemary and cranberry.

Curlew, Steng Moss Bog

peatland upland graasland.

blue stockinged long long legs

wading curved bill down.

I miss the air

against my skin

flicking hair impressions.

before they breed

the male bubbles a call

high pitched across the greyish mist.

threatened they skim

mudflats and dig for shrimp.

this closeness to nature

of cream of buff

of feather is like love

being ripped out

from the roots and fashioned

to fit the narrow folds of life,

yet still being golden and wild.