Some of you know that I made a personal promise to blog every other week and to send newsletters every other week. When I started the pattern in October 2023, most of you expected that it was all related to the exhibitions. That was never in my mind.

Years before I moved my office desk into my studio, when I had a studio, I used set times to go into it no matter what. Sometimes I had no idea what I would create, but something always happened even if it was just sorting. Being there itself became like a spiritual discipline, like a daily prayer cycle. Whatever my mood, I did it. Time and time again, there were revelations from the artwork, from the thinking, from the praying. When I moved my desk in, the project management informed my artwork and the creativity informed my project management. But the disciplined time became fuzzy and I missed it.

When I started to write weekly to keep you up to date by blog or newsletter, I was delighted to discover that the spiritual discipline had returned. Each week I need to reflect and make sense of things enough to explain them or to clear my mind. Sometimes a personal conversation turns out to be an idea I think others would be helped to know. Like my last post, it could be a personal anger which it may help you to share. Often I have no idea until I start writing, other times I have a plan.

Now, as so much in our life is literally upside down, I’m grateful for this grounding thing. It’s a later post this week because plans are almost impossible when so many things have still to be settled. We’re spotting artwork and earth-care in wonderful surprising places, and they're cheek by jowl next to neglect and graffiti. Trees are plantiful, birdsong amazing. Public transport is fabulous until we realise how dependent we are on borrowing a family car to bring home a week’s groceries or household things we couldn’t ship and need to replace. We’re learning new names for familiar things, new places to access familiar services.

You have probably heard me say that change and death are the only things guaranteed in our lives. I should have remembered our move to our boat in 2007 to recall that a huge amount of change in a short time with no option of going back is stressful. Here we are. Stressed and at the same time, marrow and heart deeply confident that this is the right move for us. I’m grateful for the discipline of this reflective process to be reminded of all the good. It cuts through all the change to life's core.

We are deeply grateful for the care from others and the preparation made by our family. The grandchildren gave us their playroom for a month! As we wait in a settled home for our container I am grateful for the connectedness from this kind of discipline. Not everything is new. I am grateful for love and welcome. I look forward to what my new studio turns out (when my art materials arrive 🙃).