Wednesday 28 February 2007

Arty stuff

Thought I would show you some of the books I've made recently...

This one...








and this one...












Hope you like them!

Tuesday 27 February 2007

Happy day

Thank you so much to Peggy for her lovely comments about the book I sent her. It was made as part of the 5x7art swap, and she received it today. Here is one of the beautiful photos she has taken



She has written about it here and here

I really enjoyed making the book. It began its life in the month I spent at Cove Park in the Scottish Highlands. I was given the opportunity to stay there for a month, and it's a fantastic place. I had a studio space and a lovely pod to live in, surrounded by grass and hills, water and sky. It was an amazing time.



So the idea was to create something that was inspired by walking through the grass. Some of the grass there was up to my waist, and every morning I would walk up from my pod to the studio through the grass and wild flowers and it's one one my clearest memories of the place.

But the book never really captured that whilst I was there. I suppose I was too close to the real thing. When my stay came to an end I carefully packed it all up into a box and came home. But a few months later it seems to have setttled, and when I signed up to the art swap I got the box full of messy bits of paper out and stareted to play...



I think it worked out better this time. I added some drawings of grasses on handmade grassy paper, and wrote some words about how the place made me feel. And then posted it off to America, to Peggy. And she seemed to like it, I'm glad it's found a good home.

Monday 26 February 2007

Decisions decisions

Someone who works in my office is going to live and work here...


Imagine! You can go and stay there if you like to walk, it's a Youth Hostle in Ennerdale, Cumbria. No cars, no telly, no phones... Its something she's always wanted to do, and now she is, in less than a month.

It makes me question my decisions in life. Which is the correct path to take? I started my job thinking it would last a month, and 6 months later i'm still here. The thing is it's ok, it pays the bills and the people are all really nice and I can do the job, the question is, is that enough? So now I have the choice to stay on a little bit longer, and I just don't know. You see I know I would only have to get another job soon enough if I left this one. But can you live your life like that? Taking the safe option?


There's things I want to be doing. Working on my art, sewng books, drawing the things growing around me, living my life I suppose. Opportunities I could (should?) be taking. Who knows, i'm sure one day it will all make sense...

Sunday 25 February 2007

Well here goes...

I just got in from a cold windy walk, and I'm sat at my dining room table looking at this...


My first daffodil of spring! Hurray for spring! (If you're wondering why its here and not in the ground it's because it snapped in the wind... you can't win em all) I'm really looking forward to spring now, it gets to about this time of year and I've just about forgotton that it CAN be light in the evenings and I don't have to always wear 3 t-shirts, a jumper, coat, hat & scarf if I want to leave the house!

The daffodil is in a bottle I found when pullng up some weeds. Years ago the place I was digging was an old mill damn, it's been full of brambles since the mill fell down a century ago, and the ground had just been turned over to make a paddock. This must heve unearthed the bottle, I'm amazed it wasn't crushed under all the diggers, but it survived, semi burried, for me to discover. It's a Codd bottle, it has a marble as a stopper which is then pushed out and held in the specially shaped neck so the pop can be drunk.


Apparently (according to my aunty who is an expert in these things...) they're quite rare; kids would smash the necks to get at the marbles. What makes it more special to me too is that it has the name of the place I grew up written on the bottom: James Simpson, Hebden Bridge.


I love to think about how it got to be where it was, who threw it there that 100 years ago? Someone who worked in the mill? What would they think now to the industrial smoke filled place they worked becoming a field full of flowers... I love that their rubbish is my treasure, and it makes me think, one day will someone find MY old rubbish and wonder the same thing...