Life has a way of reminding you, at regular intervals, that you never really know what the next day will bring. August saw us feeling very settled in our new home and our lives here on the east coast of Scotland. We were finally starting to recover from the financial blow of relocating again and were starting to make plans for new projects, for the house and garden and for new ways to bring some simplicity into our lives. My new course was two days away from being released – the newsletter was written, the instagram reel was drafted and ready to go……..
So perhaps it was inevitable that we were due for one of those reminders.
That said, I would never have guessed that pneumonia would be the thing that unsettled everything!
Matt, my husband, became ill while working on the web pages for the new course. He said he didn’t feel well and a rash suddenly appeared on his arms, the doctor said it was probably just a viral thing. I told him that there was no rush, to get some rest, but two days later he collapsed when he got home from work and after several days of high fever he was finally diagnosed with pneumonia. Unfortunately, he worsened and ended up being whisked off to hospital the next day.
I’m very grateful that he was able to return home after five days of oxygen support and IV antibiotics, but we were warned that recovery from pneumonia is slow and it seems that this is definitely the case.
But somehow, despite everything changing overnight, and everything being very uncertain, we are both still feeling very optimistic and even though we might not be able to dive into those plans and projects right now, they are still made and being added to.
These little reminders can also be a catalyst, in life and creatively.
While travelling to and from the hospital each day, by bus (a 3 hour round trip), I worked on a simple piece to pass the time rather than just sitting with anxious thoughts. Made with the flax twine that I usually use for my core fibre and rarely even needing a needle, I worked without any thought to the end piece. It was just me and the twine working together instinctively, with each new round responding to the lines of the one before.
It was just what I needed, but more than being just what I needed at that moment, I realised that it was just what I had been needing for the past year. It followed a path that I had begun just before leaving Orkney, a path that I abandoned in the upheaval of relocation.
I had been intending to take a very different path with my creative practice for the rest of this year, one linking tapestry with basketry, but the free flowing organic lines felt right and the use of this humble material was so uncomplicated, that I could just respond to the coil and connect with the ever evolving lines.
So I began another piece.
I want this one to be freestanding, but that is the only planning that I have done.
Letting it grow and adapting to each new round is what is important here. I trust that I will know when it’s finished.
I have included round openings, amongst the coils – windows I suppose. I always have been rather obsessed with round windows!
They frame the coiling spirals on the other side of the piece, calling you to look through and see it from a different perspective.
And as each round is completed the whole landscape changes, because sometimes I take a detour and add to a previous section.
I like that. It reminds me of life – my life anyway. The life that I share with Matt and our family. Constantly evolving, responding to each day and what it brings, always open to looking at things from a new perspective.
Just a very quick note about Instagram, in case you are used to following along with my work in that space.
Instagram has been increasingly difficult for me. My constantly evolving life and work and the limits to how much time I can afford to spend making reels has really impacted my account, and I fear it has almost disappeared completely!
I am doggedly trying to respond and evolve to the changes there, as much as I am in all other areas of my life, but less successfully. So if you like seeing my posts, please do come and look for them. I always post a couple of times each week to my grid and more on stories.
Having felt rather like Marty Mcfly in Back to the Future, when he starts to disappear, I realised that perhaps I just wasn’t being shown some of the accounts that I have enjoyed following and haven’t seen around for a while. So I have begun making sure that I always tap the Instagram logo in the top left and select FOLLOWING, so that I see what I want to see, rather than being bombarded with suggestions. I’m hoping that I can begin to piece back together the feeling of community that I used to feel in that space. Hope to see you there!
