saturday

my mess and me

Saturday =
lie in
reading brilliant book White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
trying to tidy house for everyone coming round for dinner
go into the town and everybody's arguing with each other.
try not to go into Waterstones they lure you in with that booky smell.
pop into Picnic for the best coffee in town
make carrot and orange soup
read Saturday supplements
read Vogue & Elle decoration
catch up with friends on facebook I love it and hate it not the friends the book face thing
wash wooden floors whilst listening to Public Enemy loud, poor jill next door
go and buy some beautiful Verbena to plant around my pond they are possibly my favourite flower ever
sit in the rain in the garden

Isn't it amazing that I can do all of these thing so I put off the inevitable studio tidy up.
3.30pm started some work in studio instead of tidying
4.32 writing blog

Too late to tidy it up now have to go and cook for eight people.

I have been saved for another day.

a night in with the doc

Just got a message from friends out in Cambodia to say one of the little children I worked with last year has died from the latter stages of Dengue Fever. It makes me so, so sad, but also MAD! Surely it's a basic human right to have clean water and even the most rudimentary health care for people all over the world!

Whilst I was out in Cambodia I was invited to share a few nights in the villages with the local people I stayed in a families house on the Tonale Sap lake, a shack on stilts. These people have so little but what they did they shared with such generosity and spirit. The shack consisted of one large living space, the only furniture, rattan mats to sleep on and a photo of the king up on the Wall who's eyes followed you round the room. We all ate together off of a a very big leaf everybody using their hands to eat, once again so glad to be vegetarian, can't be sure what was on the menu. I stuck to fruit and vegetables. I sat not only with all the family but also pigs chickens and a dog that would bite you as soon as look at you. Not having had my rabies jab I stayed well out of his way. After dinner people from the surrounding villages started to gather. I was not sure for what reason, then a fire was lit and the monks started to appear and chant, and what appeared to be the village elder. It turns out he was the village witch doctor who danced and span round and drank some potion from a cup. He span and span until he fell to the ground, he laid there for what seemed like an eternity, and then jumped up and chanted himself into a catatonic state. A little girl was bought forward in front of the witch doctor, he started to dance around her and then spat all over her. I found out this little girl had a problem with her eye and had been sent to the witch doctor to be cured. It was something in my life I thought I would never witness, it was mystical, enchanting, you felt intoxicated by the spell. There were times when I was petrified and maybe I still am a little. The fear of the unknown the spirits that they call upon. It is steeped in tradition, people out in remote villages are scared of the hospitals they see those as witch craft, so they continue to stay away an practise their witch craft. In the mean time though, children are dying because they are not receiving the correct medical care because the village people are scared of the unknown, the hospitals. Children die because of fear, so there is much outreach work been done to alleviate these fears. It will take some time for people to trust, but with brilliant healthcare projects that are out there and with love and care anything is possible.

A moment to stop and remember Dhar x

how to put it right if you've messed it up!

I found this little book today, it really made me laugh.
How do you put it right when you've messed it up?
I need a book like this for all areas of my life, forget the bloody sewing!

drugs for cats

They talk of the beast of Bodmin moor and strange sightings all over the country of large black cats. Well today he was with me and was sighted in my garden! I have been waiting for today since November, the first day of this year's real gardening. It felt wonderful to be out digging, planting, thinking, dreaming and fighting with this wild devil. All was quiet until I disturbed the cat mint,this being the class A drug of choice for Archie our cat. He came from nowhere like a bat out of hell as soon as i had started to cut back the dead stems from last years flowers. He was in drug heaven he reminded me of Johny Depp in the film From hell in the opening scene, where he is chasing the dragon, smoking his opium pipe. Johnny Depp and Archie had that same look about them. Stoned! That cat became quit delirious and then performed the most amazing ballet jumping from tree to tree with the occasional pirouette and chasing of tail. Once he had indulged, a bit more, he layed out on the top of the willow tree, in the sun and watched the birds.
What a life!

sleeping while your waking

start of a collage from drawings in Tunisia

So so so tired!
Have exhibitions to get ready for.
Commissions to finish.
Feel like I am walking in my sleep, whilst I am awake at the moment and then I found out I have been sleep walking. Is it ok to start sleep walking at the age of 37?
Note to oneself make sure you have clothes on if this sleepwalking continues.
Wishing I could sleep walk onto a plane, to a place with no phones, no technology just paint, paper, books and space to be.
The rat race is so consuming.

it's not easy mixing green!

"it's not easy bein' green."
Kermit the frog

Today has been a day of trying to find my perfect green. It's my perfect greeney kind of turquoise. The colour I have in my head is the colour of the walls in this photo that I took roaming around the backstreets in Tunisia. I saw it again this week when I popped into see a friend and there budgie had escaped from the cage and was dive bombing all and sundry, that budgie too was my perfect colour. I also saw it as a young child when I helped to strip off about 300 layers of paint and wallpaper at my great grandparents house. It's a kind of aged greeney / turquoise colour.
So my dilemma, you know the advert, "we can mix any colour" just bring us a sample, so here in lies my problem. I am 2000 miles away from that building in Tunisia, the budgie is somewhere flying around Berkshire and my grandparents house probably has another 300 layers of stuff on the walls.
In search of my perfect colour started me thinking of this wonderful book I read Colour by Victoria Finlay. It's a treasure trove of a journey in the quest to uncover the secrets of the paintbox.
In the green chapter it tells of a secret colour that only royalty could own in China, which was found only on a very special kind of porcelain. Some examples were found in a hidden shrine in 1987 undisturbed since the ninth century.
The author talks with much excitement in having the opportunity to see some of the porcelain and see some of this mysterious secret green, only to find out it looked like a dirty olive brown. How disappointing!
I do like the idea of having a secret colour though.

selling you soul ?

How much of your creative soul is it ok to sell?
This dilemma is clouding my creative thoughts and won't go away.
I had an opportunity to meet some of the most creative and exciting buyers we have in this country and they really liked my work, they loved the designs the stitching, they gave me some really good advice and then said to come back to them with some revised designs. So the dilemma is they were talking oatmeal colour as a base and this just makes me sad as I love white. So what's a girl to do.
So I made a new cushion this week that concentrates purely on the hand embroidery so the beauty of the stitches and design as they said speak for themselves, of which I agree, but i can't do oatmeal it's nearly boring beige.
I can't afford to sell such a chunk of my soul just yet I might need to keep some in reserve.
New design can be seen http://www.folksy.com/items/291189-cock-a-doodle-doooo-2?shop=yes