Who am I?

 This year has been so very difficult and yet I am still finding some glimpses and light amongst the darkness.  As I mentioned before, art and creativity have become a central part to my life.  I am lucky in that I have the space to dedicate to this, as well as a small amount of talent and self confidence that pushes me to experiment and not give up.

My studio is the centre of the house - the place I go to paint, to draw, to muse on ideas and to potter.  It has also become the place where I am developing a sense of who I am.  I've realised that I've always used my surroundings to develop creatively, even as a teenager I would arrange my bedroom so that I had some nice pictures, a favourite card or piece of pottery.  In more recent years, my home has become an expression of who I am. 

My studio
I will always be in love with furniture, pottery and music of the 1930s and 1940s, and my house reflects that.  The first thing I bought for the house was an old gramophone!  In the same way, a house without books is barely a home to me.  I'm not snobbish about what those books are and have a very ecletic mix of books - from classics, to modern novels, biographies, history, books about musicians and artists, and an increasing collection of Agatha Christie novels.

Home
Having spent a lot of time reading about Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant, and having visited their wonderful home at Charleston in East Sussex as well as Virginia Woolf's home at Monks House, I like the idea of my home reflecting something about who I am and not just being a place to lay my head.
Monks House, Rodmell
I am perhaps musing on my home more because I was recently away on a much needed break in Devon.  It is such a wonderful spot and the River Dart is now officially the most beautiful river in the world.
The River Dart at Dartmouth

Getting away can often give us a new perspective.  I went away feeling confused and overwhelmed by life's changes, and now I'm back I'm determined to enjoy my life, appreciate what is wonderful about it, and accept how things are.  And I do think that creativity and art will help me in that.


The River Dart from Greenway

“I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow; 
but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.”
― Agatha Christie

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