Studio Memories
Golden moments from my first studio in New Zealand.
One must resist the longing to be there again, to have done it better or noticed more… but just be grateful for those beautiful moments I still hold in my heart…. Little things that passed so casually each day back then, their preciousness almost undetectable in the busyness of life.
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Getting Lost and Found in Creativity
For me creativity isn't optional, it's the way I move through the world. But the times when I really feel my creative best, are when I am lost in a project. It could be sinking into the depths of a painting or sculpting tiny details on my silver jewellery…that utter absorption is when time dissolves, when I am truly in the present moment…in meditation. I become with every brush stroke and mark of the tool, as the piece reveals itself.
Interruption when I’m in the zone is incredibly irritating, painful even, it breaks the spell…and the process of creative immersion must then start again, so I only commit to these projects when I have the space to focus. Painting on a larger scale, for me, requires long uninterrupted time slots and the right head space, things seem to have to align, the tap cannot be turned on and off at will…But when I'm there…in the zone…I feel at peace, released from all that weighs heavy…and it feels great. It can be all consuming, everything else gets ignored, dishes pile up etc… I find myself thinking about a painting I'm working on when I'm not with it, it wakes me up in the morning, I’m itching to get back to the easel. I am liable to miss time sensitive tasks when in this state… in the past, school bus collection has slipped by unnoticed…I’ve learned to set alarms!
Fortunately for my children, when they were younger and we were living in rural New Zealand, the school bus dropped them to the front gate. I would hear the bus whirring up the country road, jolting me out of my trance, the whole day gone in ten minutes.
The memory of that time now seems like a golden moment… our young kids, hopping off the bus in their scruffy boho clothes or fancy-dress outfits, bare foot and carrying their shoes ( once accompanied by a friend's lamb, who had been allowed to ride the bus to school for the day.) In my memory it’s idyllic, the sun shining, birds singing, our small garden blooming and life simple. These are gold dust memories, strung together to make the highlight reel I now bask in the warmth of. One must resist the longing to be there again, have done it better, noticed more, but just be grateful for those beautiful moments I still hold in my heart…. Little things that passed so casually each day back then, their preciousness almost undetectable in the busyness of life.
Early Studio Days
Part of the memory that tugs is my first studio. I was painting regularly then, large paintings, influenced by my fascination at the time; listening to astrophysicists talk about our connection to the universe and all life on earth…wonderstruck by the fact that we are made of stardust…it captured my imagination deeply.
“The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their cores and exploded these enriched ingredients across our galaxy, billions of years ago. For this reason, we are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically connected to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically connected to all atoms in the universe. We are not figuratively, but literally stardust.”
Neil deGrasse Tyson
I can see my studio in my mind’s eye…the barn style doors flung open to our tiny but perfectly formed garden. It had so many fruit trees for a small space; a huge lemon… giant avocado… fejoa, nashi, pear, lemon verbena (which makes the most amazing tea) and the little vegetable garden I was growing. Swan plants the kids got from school held the bulging pupa of Monarch butterflies, enabling us to watch their life-cycle play out on its leaves. In my (no doubt rose tinted) memory, the warm New Zealand sun is steaming in my open studio doors, casting light across the concrete floor through the legs of my easel. A bee does a flyby past my latest work before it's buzzing fades away outside. My studio then, an old log shed, cleaned out and painted white, had a desk by the window overlooking the fields. It was my first proper studio and space of my own. If I wasn't working in the creative collective shop in our local town, (that I had opened with 3 other makers,) then I was usually found painting in it during school hours. My heart aches a little thinking about it, especially as my existing garden shed studio has been somewhat abandoned this year, my eldest seizing on the opportunity of an unused space is using it for her sewing room. I have been unable to find my way back to it this year, but thinking about being deeply in my element, makes me long to find the map to take me back there…I know I left it somewhere!
Creativity in Homemaking
Creative expression can take many forms and I have been finding things that fit smaller gaps of time, time slots too short for big goal dreams.
In creative home projects this year (to fill the void)… I’ve pickled vegetables, made sauerkraut and sauces. I started clearing the garage, (but that was slow-going, with barely a dopamine snifter, so has taken a backseat for now). A week of good weather, in early spring, got me out tidying the garden and inspired me to revisit a veggie patch, it seemed like something positive I could channel my need to make something into. Empty preserving jars began to gather on shelves waiting to be filled, seed trays and old egg cartons with seedlings have been vying for sun on every windowsill. It’s slightly chaotic looking but I like it… In my home, every ledge is a potential altar to life.
An immaculately presented home has appealed at times for the imagined calm it might bring, but has never realistically been on the cards for me, partly because I find homes that tell the story of it's inhabitants through physical clues more interesting, partly because I was drawn to the Brambley Hedge asthetic from an early age… but also, I don’t have the dedication to housework it would require to achieve it… The truth is; housework never ends, so it seems like a pointless goal to try and finish it! There are after all, more enjoyable ways to spend time and if there’s a choice, between cleaning something or making something (like sauerkraut), the latter seems to be more rewarding.
“Housework never ends so don’t try to finish it”
Rhonda Hetzel; Down to Earth - a guide to simple living
My soil has arrived!… the vegetable beds are ready to receive my seedlings…although I suspect, I will be in an ongoing battle with the plentiful slugs, to defend my tender green lettuce leaves. The hope is I may get some food out of it…but regardless of outcome, it feels nourishing…growing things feels like planting hope for the future.
If life only leaves room for little projects, they might seem insignificant, but I promise you they aren’t. Even small ones have the power to shift a mood more positive, alleviate frustration, release judgement on self perceived failings and give a sense of accomplishment when other creative aspirations currently seem unreachable. It also feels hopeful to create or grow something when the daily doom-scroll or radio reports can leave you feeling hopeless; it’s a step away from the things I cannot effect change on, to my immediate environment, which I can.
Peace Is This Moment Without Judgment
Do you think peace requires an end to war?
Or tigers eating only vegetables?
Does peace require an absence from
your boss, your spouse, yourself?...
Do you think peace will come some other place than here?
Some other time than Now?
In some other heart than yours?Peace is this moment without judgment.
That is all. This moment in the Heart-space
where everything that is is welcome.
Peace is this moment without thinking
that it should be some other way,
that you should feel some other thing,
that your life should unfold according to your plans.Peace is this moment without judgment,
this moment in the Heart-space where
everything that is is welcome.© Dorothy Hunt
Thank you so much for reading
Hx
The lamb on the bus 😂. You know, I reckon Daniel and you came to our cottage in Victory, for dinner before you left NZ? We've been here 13-14 years now. Would that be about right?
I love this because you haven’t limited your creativity to one thing. I find that encouraging because I too go through different periods when I change from painting to sewing to creating a new home. Recently i have been studying with no time for creativity and I can’t wait to get back to it.
I’m envious of your time in New Zealand which is the one country I would move to if I didn’t have daughters in the U.K. Still, I do get to go there pretty often which I realise is a privilege.