I didn’t.
But I do now.
What do I know?
(Read on for Art and Soul Queen Sally’s Creative Christmas Message….)
I now know that Brian Eno is elegantly, eloquently wise. He recently rocked my paint-splattered world. He speaks with both divinity and great ordinariness of the value of creativity and the arts.
Fabric Swirl by Sally
just the ordinary beauty of clothes soaking in the bath
I recommend
Introducing…ta daaa….Val Andrews…
Val Andrews is a visual artist who writes about the creative process.
Orchid woman in green
Val Andrews © original art
Here is her story –
“For me, the art-making experience started in childhood, and soon became a great escape from the stress in my troubled family.
I would hide in my bedroom and draw convoluted patterns as a way of focusing on something other than what was happening in my home.
Over the years the patterns became
OK folks. I’m gonna get all formal on you. Well – a bit more – how to put it? Staid? than our usual chatty approach.
Can you cope?
I’m sharing with you a piece I wrote for the Australian and New Zealand Arts Therapy Association newsletter. I hope you gain something of value from reading it.
SAATflower
It’s all about the ecotone.
The what?
The ecotone. A place full of life, bubble and vibrancy.
Read on if you feel inclined…
Swoosh, trickle, sputsput, ebb, flow.
Where the Sand Meets the SeaWritten with gratitude for Lynn Kapitan’s ‘Arts Therapies in the Ecotone: Contact, Collaboration and Creative Entanglement’ ANZATA conference keynote address
Swoosh, trickle, sputsput, ebb, flow.
What happens where sand and sea meet? Do they decide they don’t like each other, only to end this encounter? Does the sand lose its sense of self as the sea rushes in? Does the sea sacrifice its watery essence? I’m no scientist, but it seems the constant contact leads to elemental connection, interdependence, change and aliveness. Sand and sea affect each other, yet
Ulli Hansen
Welcome to the world of the amazing technicolour Ulli Hansen,
who landed in Art and Soul at the turn of the millennium.
I called her the grooviest woman-in-her-sixties I knew.
Later, the grooviest woman-in-her-seventies.
Without
Awash
Sally Swain © original art
Aged care. Hand-washing paraphernalia and paper towel dispensers are everywhere.
Use the paper towel in art, I say.
I attend the inaugural Creative Ageing Conference. Afterwards, I am awash with ideas and tears.
Windows fling open to the wide open sky of amazing creative ageing projects around the globe.
I’m ripping my way through a magazine, literally, seeking yummy shapes and textures for a collage. I chance upon this quote:
Language is very linear; you have to say one word after the other in order to get somewhere. The good thing about art is that you can say several things at the same time, in many different languages… but it’s still comprehensible.
I love it. I have to make a new collage featuring these words. String loops itself onto the page too – very non-linear.
Artlanguage Sally Swain collage
I feel a niggling guilt about my maintenance of Things.
‘Things’ are not where my energy goes.
Creativity, care, creatively caring for people, inspiration, respect, art therapy, cultivating gentleness and kindfulness in the world. These are some of the places and spaces I prefer to focus on, given the chance.
The peeling paint wall outside my sweet rented workplayspace is one of those Things calling for attention.
Mostly I have a very un-grownup ostrich strategy of filtering it out. Mostly I don’t see…I don’t actively look….at such niggly naggy Things if I can help it.
One day
Friends, creators, Art and Soulies, you have Sarah Gibson’s Red Girl to thank for the existence of one-on-one Creativity Coaching sessions.
The amazing Sarah came to one of my groups back in 1998. Her partner had recently died. She kept asking if I would sit with her while she painted. I wasn’t sure. I’d been running groups for several years, but was unconfident, shaky, shy and couldn’t
Art and Soul Space 