New beginnings

Wishing everyone a very creative and peaceful 2026!

 

New Beginnings

Every day is a new beginning. Take a deep breath and start again. 
Hope you will all have a better 2021 than 2020!

This Moment

"This moment, like all moments, is an instant of pure possibility" (Tamara Levitt, DailyCalm)

New Beginnings

And so we start again! Hopefully with hope and joy and ready to embrace 2017. I'm not one for resolutions or for attaching too much importance to this day. After all, every day brings new beginnings. Some of them will be bad and others good but one thing is for certain. There will be surprises in store. I don't think many of us saw the events 2016 brought us, coming!

You may remember that I wrote on this blog back in October when we walked the nearby woods without a dog in tow after losing Rueben, that we were intent on making new memories in this place where I have walked everyone of the previous 4 dogs we have had. And today we did. That is already a very good start to this year

Flora still has moments when she seems to have a complete panic attack and just stands still but these are getting rarer and today in the woods she had a wonderful time, running, sniffing and trotting alongside us like she had done that all her life.

Focus

HAPPY NEW YEAR

A word of warning! This is going to be a long post so perhaps you want to get yourself a cup of tea. Or a glass of wine! It is New Year's Day after all. The start of many new things and I'm beginning by showing you my word for this year which will be: FOCUS.  After choosing COURAGE last year I was a bit more careful in selecting my word for 2016 so that I would not be tempting the universe to test me on the subject. I know it's superstitious, but still! Better to be safe than sorry. 

I choose FOCUS because I want to live even more mindful, paying attention not just to the special moments in the coming year but to all moments, however mundane they might be. Also to the moments that maybe would be better forgotten in the hope of finding something worthwhile even in them. I want to FOCUS on learning more (that's a perennial resolution!), enjoying working in my journals, making my art, stitching my quilts, walking the dog, reading books, enjoying the sunshine (hope there will be lots!), being in New York, working in the garden and posting this blog, as well as on anything else that comes along. I also want to FOCUS with my camera, more about that later. 

This 9 x 12" page was done on heavy duty watercolour paper and will probably be part of Life Book 2016 in due course. It's fairly sure we will be asked to choose our word for 2016 there. It's a collage made by tearing up parts of my gelli plate printed papers. I have a huge pile of these and most of them also use Stencilgirl stencils. Don't ask me which ones though, these pages were made ages ago. The only additional paper I used was the sparkly black wrapping paper.

After I was happy with the composition on the page I added the circles that were made using 3 different sizes of circle punches and more gelli plate printed papers. They were outlined with a black marker.  The page is also covered in sparkles to imitate the fireworks for a New Year. So much for how I made the page. 

Here is a detail of it with the word BLIP added to the mix. No digital wizardry was used, just a piece of folded masking tape to hold the extra circle I made with the word BLIP stamped on it, onto the page! The whole Blip site has been asked to feature the word BLIP on their blips. Here is the reason why:

as most of you will know I have been posting a daily photograph on the Blipfoto site for more than 5 years now. The only "rule" of the site is that the picture has to be posted to the day it was taken. I love the site and am an enthousiastic user, not just because it's fascinating to see how all those pictures add up to my life but also to see what I was doing on any given day for those 5 years. I love getting a glimpse into other blippers' lives on a daily basis too. I have met many wonderful people on the site and have gone on to meet many of them in person too. However the Blip site has been in trouble for more than a year now, financially speaking. .

The good news is that the Blip community itself has come up with a solution. We, the users, could buy and run the site. In order to do this we need to raise at least £180.000 by investing  ourselves and becoming shareholders of the Blipfuture Community Interest Company.Today we have been urged by Blipfuture (the name of the new Company to be) to spread the word far and wide and I'm doing it here on my blog.  I have pledged my bit and now the waiting and fingers crossing is on! Let's hope for a fabulous new beginning for Blipfoto in 2016!

I am also spreading the word on Blip itself today using the word Blip in my picture for the day. All Blippers have been asked to do this and you can see the resulting pictures all together here. 

Happy 2015

Very best wishes to everyone for this new, exciting year.

One of the things I'm very much looking forward to taking place in 2015 happens on Wednesday the 4th February when 100 artists and 100 patrons will be trying to raise $10.000 for the American Cancer Society. All organized by the American artist Virginia Spiegel who should we succeed (and I have no doubt we will!) will have fundraised an astounding quarter of a million dollars for this great cause over the years. The idea is that she has invited 100 artists to make a piece of art each with a retail value of at least $100. The first 100 patrons who donate $100 dollars to the Amarican Cancer Society via Fiberart For A Cause will each receive one of those pieces of art. Which one that is going to be will be determined by random number generation so it will be a surprise. Looking at the names of the contributing artists one thing is for sure: you will love the art. All the information can be found here or by pressing on The 100 button in the sidebar on the right.

 

I'm showing you glimpses of the piece of art I made here on this blog in anticipation of the big day. My piece called Up in the Air is 8 x 11" and comes with a hanging sleeve. My small A4 journal quilts retail at £125 so this one will go at considerably less for the fundraiser. As you can see it has been embellished lavishly and also incorporates gelli plate painted fabric. I am already looking forward so much to that Wednesday when I will also try and buy one of the other artists' pieces. So exciting! I will be continuing to share glimpses of my piece here over the coming weeks till the big day arrives. You can see a Pinterest board with images of the other art pieces made for this project here: http://uk.pinterest.com/d_boschert/the-100-fundraiser-to-fight-cancer/

Finally I do get asked why the American Cancer Society? Well, it doesn't matter where the research is done to find a cure for this horrible disease. Once found it will help save lives all over the world and that is what is important.

 

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The last day of 2014

My feelings about the end of one year and the start of another are much like those of Jean-Paul Sartre who said: "There is only one day left, always starting over. It's given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk". And what a dawn it was this morning. A curtain of light was projected up into the sky and a hint of gold touched the clouds. It is hardly surprising that sacrifices were made in the past in order to persuade the gods to give humanity a new day. Nowadays we understand much more about why those days dawn but in a way that also makes it much more daunting. Only one small thing needs to go wrong in our universe and we will all cease to exist. And no sacrifice will save us.

I tend not to worry about things I cannot control so simply enjoyed the light show this morning in the certain knowledge that it was much more beautiful than any fireworks to come this evening.

Nevertheless the coming of a New Year is a good time to clear the decks as I showed you recently and in the process of clearing my desk I discovered a project that was finished in April this year, put on that desk to blog and then got lost in the general chaos. So what better time to blog it and then stow it away than on the last day of 2014.

It was part of an online course called Snap and Share by Roben-Marie Smith and is project no. 4 in that course called Journal and Photo Portfolio. It is still available if you are interested and if so perhaps a good idea to click that Buy button today before the new EU VAT rules come into effect tomorrow. I have indulged in quite a few online courses myself which I won't all take at once but since they will be available for all time once bought I now have them without having to pay the additional 20% VAT. And yes, officially places based outside the EU must charge it too although it will be interesting to see just how the EU and our tax authorities plan to enforce this.

Roben-Marie's classes are among those that once acquired can be done for all time and it's now so long ago that I did the Snap and Share one that I might well have another look at it. As it is her class there will be no explanation from me, but just a show of what the finished article looks like. The first one is the front of the closed portfolio and above is a glimpse of the inside.

Above is what you see when all 4 sides have been opened out and you can see part of the vintage page enclosing some sketchbook pages as well as the embellished envelope enclosing some of my own pictures.

These pictures of my artwork were printed off by Printagram on 4 x 4" squares. Love this size and finding this project reminded me to have some more done very soon!

And here is the back!

 

Now I can tidy this project away finally and leave my desk ready to tackle whatever will come it's way in 2015. I am going to do The Documented Life Project 2015 (DLP15), Life Book 15, and well as the next round of 21 Secrets (starting in April), while still working on projects from the Autumn 2014 21 Secrets. And a few other smaller classes. I also hope to make some quilts if I can squeeze them in! Only joking! Quilts remain the priority and I'm pleased to report that I managed to finish the one I was working on before the year is over! It's on the theme of migration which I wrote about yesterday. No picture until it goes to it's first public outing but for once I'm very content with it. It worked out better than my wildest dreams could have imagined. Sometimes art works like that and it leaves you in awe of what came out of your own hands. Wish it was always so but sadly not! So when it happens it's a cause of great happiness.

 

I wish for myself that it will happen a lot in 2015 and for all of you my wish is that all your own wishes for the coming year may come true!

 

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2014 is here

What can be said in New Year rhymes

that's not been said a thousand times?

The new years come, the old years go,

we know, we dream, we dream we know.

We rise up laughing with the light, 

we lie down weeping with the night.

We hug the world until it stings,

we curse it then and sigh for wings.

We live, we love, we woo, we wed

We wreathe our prides, we sheet our dead.

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,

and that's the burden of a year.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Hourglass of Time

Where better to contemplate the end of one year and the beginning of another than in a graveyard? I went to my local one in West Linton this morning to capture some pictures of hourglasses, such as the winged one above.

In a way I'm not one to consider this last day of 2013 as much different from any other day. The first day of the year was arbitrarily decided by other mere mortals many centuries ago and they could have chosen any which day of the equally randomly determined year. We are on the eve of a new moment at all times. Every little second we live is unique in itself and the like of it won't come again. And every breath we take signals another, never before experienced, event in our lives.

On the other hand I have always been, and will probably remain, fascinated by time and the way it tends to run our lives. So I looked up some quotations about the hourglass:

“The sand in the hourglass runs from one compartment to the other, marking the passage of moments with something constant and tangible.
If you watch the flowing sand, you might see time itself riding the granules.
Contrary to popular opinion, time is not an old white-haired man, but a laughing child.
And time sings.”  Vera Nazarian

The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life the clearer we should see through it. (Niccolo Machiavelli)

I'm not sure Machiavelli got this one completely right, but at least he inserted the word "should"!

Nietzsche come closest to how I feel about time:

"What if a demon was to creep after you one night, after your loneliest loneliness, and say: This life which you live, must be lived by you once again and innumerable times more; and every pain and joy and thought and sigh must come again to you, all in the same sequence. The eternal hourglass will again and again be turned, and you with it, dust of the dust! Would you throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse that demon? Or would you answer: Never have I heard anything more divine."

I know what my answer would be! Do you?

The quote also reminds me of a book by Simone de Beauvoir called Tout les hommes sont mortels (All men are mortal), published in 1946. It tells the story of Raimon Fosca, a man cursed to live forever. If ever you desire to do the same this is a chilling tale of the consequences. I first read this book many years ago when I was too young to truly appreciate its darkness but like all her books it is worth re-reading again and again.

There, despite all good resolutions, I'm getting morbid! So let me leave you and 2013 with one last quotation by Thomas Mann (another of my favourite writers):

"Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunderstorm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols"

And I won't even be doing those things, in order not to scare the dogs!

Happy Hogmanay!

A happy and artful 2011 to everyone

Another fresh New Year is here

Another year to live!

To banish worry, doubt and fear,

To love and laugh and give!

This bright new year is given me

To live each day with zest.

To daily grow and try to be

my highest and my best!

I have the opportunity once more

to right some wrongs,

To pray for peace, to plant a tree,

and sing more joyful songs!

(William Arthur Ward)