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Blue Atmosphere – Helen Frankenthaler
Helen Frankenthaler created art for over 60 years becoming well known for her large scale abstract paintings: ethereal washes of colour created by thinning her paint with turpentine and pouring it over the canvas. An endless experimenter, she tried a little of everything including sculpting, printmaking and tapestry. Never stop trying something new! “There are no rules. That is how art is born, how breakthroughs happen. Go against the rules or ignore the rules. That is what invention is about.” Helen Frankenthaler
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Pen Y Fan and the Horseshoe Ridge
It’s no secret among my friends how much I adore Wales, I mean I tell them every chance I get. For a couple of years, I lived just outside of Cardiff with the Brecon Beacons practically on my doorstep and I frequently disappeared in a campervan to explore. Seven years on I decided to go back, to walk a route I’d done, in parts, before but never by myself. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it alone. So I did. The Premier Inn in Merthyr Tydfil (not the most exotic place in the world) was my pre-walk stopover and I enjoyed it! Any place that has…
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Regaining Balance
No matter what you are healing from the path is never a straight line and believing any different is contrary to reality: We ebb, flow, rise and fall through life. When things are good it’s important to recognise that and likewise when things start to go off-piste. Personally, I struggle to find a balance between pushing myself to move forwards and remembering the small things that keep me grounded, well-balanced and healthy. It’s a little ironic that the last post I wrote for this blog was about routine and the very things that I tend to neglect when I start to lose focus. I don’t think I’m alone in this.…
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Routine
Those who have met me IRL know that not only am I likely to trip over myself at any given moment, but I am also a walking contradiction. I want to live in a hot country, but hate hot weather. I’d very much like to learn to cook but have the patience of a small child so turn everything up high and burn it. In theory, I detest routine…In life, I thrive on it. Over the years I have learned that it is a required element for my general well-being or else things tend to go awry pretty swiftly. While I don’t want life to be boring, doing the same…
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Book Review: Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng
When it comes to reading I’m quite fussy; it takes quite a lot to keep me interested. I admit I have the attention span of a small, very easily distracted child… and I’m 32… and it’s only getting worse! I’d heard great things about Celeste Ng’s second novel, Little Fires Everywhere, even memorising the cover as it flashed past my eyes in an Instagram story one day thinking to myself that I should probably read it. The book had also popped up in Youtuber’s “favourites” videos and touted as one of the best reads of 2017. Late to the party as ever I gave in to the hype which would…
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Slow Days: Tipsy Tea Party in Wimborne
It’s Easter and to be honest I was kind at a loss of what to do this weekend. You know when you want to do something but you know it’s going to be horrendously busy where ever you pick?! My crocheting friend, Emma, reminded me that there was a little craft fair in Wimborne on Saturday with some great music! I grabbed a soy latte, danced a little and snuggled myself between Emma’s stall and Lottie who creates some beautiful floral arrangements. I even brought home a little jar of flowers to brighten my day and there may have been a little Easter treat in the form of two cups…
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Slow Living
I like my life. I built it this way: everything stripped back to the bare bones with only loved things allowed. I started here, in a tiny studio flat I once hated, with a cat that insisted that swinging from my arm by his teeth should be his sole method of transport, and the quietness living on my own afforded me. Sometimes it is a blessing to rebuild a life, getting to choose how, why and when you do things, and never having to explain it to a single soul. Slow living is intentional, living moment to moment, and that isn’t always easy to follow through on, especially when you’ve…
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Am I the Lobster in the Ballroom?
Following on from the last post I wrote about Liz Gilbert’s book, Big Magic, I’d like to share some thoughts on one of the parts of the book which really struck me. Towards the end of the book is a chapter on trust and in particular an anecdote about a costume party… Liz writes about a guy she once met at a party, who told her a rather wonderful story about his little brother… Little Brother, an aspiring painter, saved up all his money and went to France, to surround himself with beauty and inspiration. He lived on the cheap, painted every day, visited museums, traveled to picturesque locations, bravely…
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Reading List: Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
Liz and I have a somewhat odd relationship. We’ve never met and she has no idea who I am, yet I feel a familiarity about her. Perhaps because in all her writings as Elizabeth Gilbert, her voice seems so intrinsically “her” on the page that she could almost be sat across a table in a cafe, nursing a cup of something delightfully warm, imparting the kind of knowledge only your most trusted friend would supply. If an audio book could show its well-thumbed, dog eared pages, you’d either be alarmed at the state of them or in complete awe of the mental notes pencilled across the margins of my copy…
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4 Reasons you should know your Myers Briggs Personality Type
I do this thing, which I have adorably (cough cough) termed as “Pinterest Therapy”, where I pin everything within the wormhole of Pinterest, which resonates with me on various issues I’m dealing with at that moment, and eventually, over time, I don’t feel the need to pin on that topic anymore. (I find this a really useful practice btw and hands down my favourite time waster!) Who is INFJ? Is this the new Atticus, anonymous poet of the interwebs? I pinned it to one side and, thanks to the beauty of internet algorithms, suddenly all these other INFJ images kept floating about my feed and each and every one of…
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Being OK with a Calm Life
On the wall of my studio, is a small quote pinned by the place where I make my morning coffee and nowadays I often come to rest on these words. It’s okay to be happy with a calm life And, boy, I haven’t always believed that. There’s always been a battle to fight when it comes to reaching my potential. I always held myself to, what most thought was, an impossible standard. Perfection is unattainable, a bar set so high it is impossible to reach. The struggle and continuous push of yourself to be the best is draining and while it works for some, is not a guaranteed winning strategy…
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On Minimalism for the Soul
Life is full of stuff we don’t need, want or even realise is there until it falls out of a cupboard while you’re trying to remove a blockage from the u-bend of your bathroom sink. Ok. So it wasn’t just anything that (persistently) fell on me, it was one of those Wii boards we all had to have a few years back because it would make us a better, fitter person. Yes, I admit, I rarely used it. Is it sitting in a cupboard unused and unloved? No. It’s on the floor of my bathroom covered in gross u-bend water after it tried to viciously attack me! What I’m trying…
Well-being & Adventure
