Oh I hope you don't think I'm blasting my own trumpet but Debs wrote such a lovely article on the FILLINGDON FINE ART website . If you feel you can possibly read any more about me follow this link. I forgive you if you've had enough :-)

Having been inspired by Billy Collins and an artist who loves hats I couldn't resist blogging about it. The artist is John Caple.

I was immediately captivated by his mysterious paintings. There's a stillness about them that appeals to me.

Mary Miers wrote a charming article about him here. She interviewed him in his sitting room, darkened by half-pulled curtains and lit by candles. This and the fact that he paints at night in the lamplight made me think of the Billy Collins poem about Goya who fashioned a hat with candles around the brim to wear when painting at night.

Photo from the 1999 film Goya en Burdeos

CANDLE HAT by Billy Collins

In most self-portraits it is the face that dominates:
Cezanne is a pair of eyes swimming in brushstrokes,
Van Gogh stares out of a halo of swirling darkness,
Rembrant looks relieved as if he were taking a breather
from painting The Blinding of Sampson.

But in this one Goya stands well back from the mirror
and is seen posed in the clutter of his studio
addressing a canvas tilted back on a tall easel.

He appears to be smiling out at us as if he knew
we would be amused by the extraordinary hat on his head
which is fitted around the brim with candle holders,
a device that allowed him to work at night.

You can only wonder what it would be like
to be wearing such a chandelier on your head
as if you were a walking dining room or concert hall.

But once you see this hat there is no need to read
any biography of Goya or to memorize his dates.

To understand Goya you only have to imagine him
lighting the candles one by one, then placing
the hat on his head, ready for a night of work.

Imagine him surprising his wife with his new invention,
he laughing like a birthday cake when she saw the glow.

Imagine him flickering through the rooms of his house
with all the shadows flying across the walls.

Imagine a lost traveler knocking on his door
one dark night in the hill country of Spain.
"Come in," he would say, "I was painting myself",
as he stood in the doorway holding up the wand of a brush,
illuminated in the blaze of his famous candle hat.

Oh my hat ~ An expression of extreme emotion, used by those who retain the presence of mind to avoid causing offence by saying "Oh my God". - Urban Dictionary

The name STRANDLOPER is an Afrikaans word meaning "beach walker". It is a term for San-derived people who lived by hunting and gathering along the sea shores of Southern Africa from prehistoric times until the second millennium AD. The term has been extended to refer to present day beach combers.

While we were on holiday in the eastern cape we came across many middens. One of them was particularly old and high. It formed a bank covered with grass but a landslide had ripped the bank open to reveal layer upon layer of shells at eye level. I did a little research and came across this post about Strandloper middens.

"... these piles of shells are often thousands of years old, and represent the last signs left by the Strandloper people, who belonged to the larger communities of either San or the Khoikhoi.... "

"The women would find some place in the dunes that was protected from the wind, and transform it into the family kitchen. They would shuck the shells and often prepare the food here as well. Pottery shards found at the midden sites indicate items of Stone Age crockery." - Chris Marais

At home after our holiday I was inspired to create my own version of a Strandloper based on blissful days spent gathering pebbles and driftwood.

Lucian Freud with fox cub. Photograph by David Dawson, Freud's studio assistant. See more here.

Having just celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary I decided to dedicate a post to my dear husband who I fondly referred to as M.A. Fox, throughout our courting days. There is a story behind his nickname.... of course.

Fox Hunt by Ken Roko. See Etsy Shop, here.

One of the poems we had to learn at school was John Masefield's Reynard's Last Run, a poem about fox hunting which I found upsetting. When M, a complete stranger, sat down next to my desk during the first week of my first job (I was 18 and he was 28) he was not to know that I disliked the poem. He proceeded to recite one of the many verses of Reynard the Fox to me. If it hadn't been for his spectacular heart-fluttering grin and the fact that I was intrigued by this stranger's unusual pick-up line I would have turned away in embarrassment. The office secretary had warned me that a "playboy" had seen me waiting for my interview a month earlier and that he would be back to meet me when I started work. I worked in Town Planning on the 12th floor and he worked in staff section on the 3rd. He waited a few days for me to settle in before introducing himself and returned daily to recite a few more lines from the poem as a prelude to conversation.

On a day I wore a blue dress....

"In the bottom below a brook went by.
Blue, in a patch, like a streak of sky."

.... though he assures me that it was the red dress that captured his heart.... and he was hugely impressed that I was familiar with his favourite poem.

Rien Poortvliet (Remember the book Gnomes?)

Many of these quotes have become part of our lives. What I didn't realize then was the poem had 339 verses. At school we had studied a portion of the poem which ended on a question mark. Had the fox reached safety? It was highly unlikely but I was relieved to discover that the fox had in fact survived and as the years have gone by we have read and re-read all 339 verses and many of the lines have become my favourites too.

Walrus ivory Fox. Punuk or Thule, Princeton University Art Museum

The air blew rank with the taint of fox:
The yews gave way to a greener space
Of great stones strewn in a grassy place.
And there was his earth at a great grey shoulder
Sunk in the ground, of a granite boulder
A dry deep burrow with rocky roof,
Proof against crowbars, terrier-proof,
Life to the dying, rest for bones.
The earth was stopped; it was filled with stones.
Then, for a moment, his courage failed.
His eyes looked up as his body quailed,
Then the coming of death, which all things dread,
Made him run for the wood ahead.

- Reynard the Fox by John Masefield.
See whole poem and info here

Textile sculpture by Elisabeth Higgens O'Connor . Click here for website

Robert Janz. See more here

Martha Dimitropoulou (pine needles)

Red Fox by Renee Harris (embroidery, fabric, rice paper). Click for website

Fox Scarf by Sarena Huizinga. Click here.

Nighttime Garden Fox, hooked rug by Dulcy Stewart. Click here.

A Skulk of Foxes by Lawrence Cox. Click

Erica Salcedo. Website here and blog here

Emily Gherard. Click here to see website.

This post has been in the works for over a month but I'm in the midst of helping my daughter to plan her wedding so I haven't quite brought the post together yet. I've decided to share the images anyway before taking a break until the second half of September.

Armin Mersmann. See more here

These are the colours I've been wallowing in .....

Photo by Armin Mersmann.

Shades of lichen

Leon Zack

Christian Hertzel

David Nash

Lawrence Carroll

Jennifer Lee

Eunice Kim

I love to walk in nature and I especially love to walk alone. In South Africa .... or where I live anyway .... there are not many places one can do so safely. At the wild coast I walk alone for miles and as long as I keep the fishermen in sight (even just a dot on the horizon), I feel safe. It's a time that I unwind completely with not a worry in the world.

"It's when I'm walking that I come closest to an affection for myself." - Shawna Lemay

During the build up to my daughter's wedding we promised ourselves a healthy walking holiday at the wild coast once everything quietened down. Unfortunately that never happened because our fox terrier was badly savaged by our bull terrier. Her pelt was almost ripped right off her body resulting in an air pocket between flesh and fur. It's been over a month that her little body has been battling against the infection she developed under her skin but today I can finally say she has turned a corner in her recovery.

During this time of watching over her, whilst she fought for her life, my thoughts have taken me to our favourite beach walks for solace.

I found a few quotes on Shawna Lemay's blog that sum up why I find these walks such a balm to my spirit ......

"There is an element of repetition in the act of walking where you can forget. And there is a tiredness. A peacefulness. I think that when you are really alone you have a fragility. The feelings are more intense. You have more of a feeling of the eternity of things." - Frederic Gros

"And walking with a camera is yet another kind of walking. One's looking becomes more delicate, sharper, refined. One loses oneself in the walking, and then is lost again, while one focuses in on the leaf, twig, or dried seed pod that has attracted one's attention." - Shawna Lemay

I loved this post on Shawna's blog.

One can walk for days on a wild coast beach and never see a soul other than cattle and goats and perhaps the occasional herdsman with his dog.

For me, it's a walking meditation
kicking up water in the shallows for miles
dreaming of the totems I will carve
incorporating the pebbles and driftwood I've gathered

Catching fish for lunch every day makes one feel healthier

"To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter.... to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life." - John Burroughs

"The kind of dog you have will change the perfume of your walking. The degree to which your dog stops to sniff and mark territory, the pace you keep ...... " - Shawna Lemay

"Walking is important to my practice, a way to begin. It opens the route between the external world and the inner world of the studio. On my ritual paths, I take notice of changes that occur -- daily and seasonally -- recording what attracts my attention, 'navigating' my way through time." - Kim Kopp

"Walking..... is how the body measures itself against the earth" - Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust: A history of walking.

The "Richly Wrapped" exhibition is on at Fillingdon Art Gallery, High Wycombe, UK until the 13th December. I received an email from Debs Digby to say that Oshun, the last of my totems sold this week.

"Oshun" is a Yoruban Goddess, who encompasses a great variety of things, including love, sensuality, sexuality, fertility, abundance and diplomacy. She is widely loved as she heals the sick and has an amazing strength within her to bring people together as one. Oshun has a warrior aspect especially when protecting women and children. She is also known as 'Laketi', 'she who has ears', because of how quickly and effectively she answers prayers.

To read the rest of the article follow this link

Small story door by Robyn Gordon, available at Fillingdon Fine Art

Wishing you all a
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
and to those who don't celebrate Christmas
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Paintings by Josette Urso

"It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'til his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little something more." - Dr Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

"Strandloper III" by Robyn Gordon

The daffodils are out just in time for the opening of the "Primary Palette"exhibition at Fillingdon Fine Art. I'm delighted to have 3 of my pieces included in this exhibition.

The meaning of strandloper ....

1. a member of a Koisan people who lived on the southern shores of southern Africa from prehistoric times until the second millennium AD.

2. a person who collects items on the shore; a beachcomber.

warmly invites you to
"Primary Palette"
an exhibition of original
paintings, sculpture, ceramics, jewellery and craft
from Saturday 11th - Saturday 25th April 2015
daily 10am- 4pm
at Fillingdon Farm, Piddington, High Wycombe,
Bucks, HP14 3BL, UK
Other times by appointment

www.fillingdon.com

This exhibition features work in the three primary colours of red, blue and yellow by new and regular artists from Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa; across the media of oils, pastels, bronze, stone, porcelain, silver, shell and many others. Monochromatic balance is added with a new collection of drawings by master draftsman Arthur Azevedo. As always there is a wide variety on display to appeal to all tastes and pockets, and each unique, handmade piece has been personally selected to ensure the ultimate in quality and originality. Entry is free and refreshments are on offer. A donation is appreciated for our chosen charity Farm Africa (reg. charity number 326901). The work is available to view on our website, which is constantly being updated. We look forward to welcoming you, and please feel free to tell like-minded friends!

For directions and a map visit our Contact Us page

Andrew Wyeth

POEM FOR SOMEONE WHO IS JUGGLING HER LIFE by Rose Cook

This is a poem for someone
who is juggling her life.
Be still sometimes.
Be still sometimes.

It needs repeating
over and over
to catch her attention
over and over
because someone juggling her life
finds it difficult to hear.

Be still sometimes.
Be still sometimes.
Let it all fall sometimes.

I found the poem at Shawna Lemay's blog, Calm Things. If you are needing a little quiet time, wander over and feel the calm enveloping you as you read each post.

Her room by Andrew Wyeth

Solo by Natalie Urazmetova

Calm by Neva Gagliano

Afternoon, Tasman Sea, New Zealand by Chip Hooper

Early morning mist flowing down a valley on the South Downs near Brighton by Finn Hopson

Photo by wariatka at deviantart

Fall Leaves in a Row by Shawna Lemay. See blog here.

It seems that I've been busy
Not really...
A lot on my mind
while I carve and tweak
small carvings for a special order

I've been keeping a secret ....

but now I can share it with you....

It is a cold dark night
The heavens open
and much to my daughter's consternation
we follow the children onto the veranda
Why are we outside in a blizzard?
J has found a bird nest with babies in it
Come and look
My daughter puts on her happy face
and goes out into the rain
The nest is in a ticky creeper at eye level
She peers into the nest
Her face registers shock
My future son in law
drops to his knee
She says yes

Tracey Deep is a floral sculptor inspired by nature. See more here

There is nothing quite like
the feeling of calm that envelopes one
when out gathering
I love returning from a walk
laden with bouquets of drift wood
I'm drawn to driftwood colours
soft greys, warm woodiness, sun bleached naturals.
Wood, tossed about in the sea
the edges rubbed smooth by sand and water.

North Carolina artist Patrick Dougherty create's freeform sculptures woven together out of branches. See website here.

As a boy, Patrick Dougherty gathered twigs. He began "drawing" with sticks and later he used saplings and tree cuttings found along hydro lines to create his magnificent sculptures.

Patrick Dougherty gathering branches. Website here.

"It seems like humans have to continuously struggle with ideas about nature and redefining our relationship with the natural world. Domesticated gardens versus the wilderness are part of a worldwide discussion and part of my (our) inner conflict. Certainly gardens are a kind of rendition of the unfettered wilds. Shrubs, trees, flowers and grass become commodities and are forced into human geometry. I try to free the surfaces of my work using sticks as a drawing material, work them in such a way they look like they are escaping those chains of being planted in a row. I imagine that the wilderness lurks inside my forms and that it is an irrepressible urge." - Patrick Dougherty

I enjoyed John Grande's interview with Patrick.

Large scale temporary sculptures from materials gathered in the nearby landscape by Patrick Dougherty

"It seems that people like gardens and grass, but they desperately desire a connection to wilderness" - Patrick Dougherty

"Tree Fall" by Andy Goldsworthy. The ceiling and suspended tree branch have been covered in clay. Goldsworthy has succeeded in creating a "Hobbit hole". Read about this new installation here.

Andy Goldsworthy with his installation, Tree Fall

"I enjoy the freedom of just using my hands and "found" tools -- a sharp stone, the quill of a feather, thorns. I take the opportunities each day offers: if it is snowing, I work with snow, at leaf-fall it will be with leaves; a blown-over tree becomes a source of twigs and branches. I stop at a place or pick up a material because I feel that there is something to be discovered. Here is where I can learn." - Andy Goldsworthy

Islamic/Meso America by Loren Eiferman. Website here

"The wood, for me, is now a line in space created by hundreds of smaller pieces of wood jointed together to create one sculpture. To create my work, I usually begin with a drawing, an intention of what direction I want my sculpture to go in. I start out each day with a walk in the woods and gather sticks that have fallen to the ground." - Loren Eiferman

Black Hole by Loren Eiferman. Website here.

Loren Eiferman. Website here

Roger Ackling "draws" on found wood with a ray of sunlight through a magnifying glass.
I know! Amazing!

Found wood assemblage by Roger Ackling. See more here.

Assemblage by Roger Ackling

Flying machine by Wim Del Arte. Blog here.

Wim Del Arte spends many a day out walking along the banks of La Palma, gathering drift wood and found objects. He then creates the most amazing array of art with his lucky finds. The flying machine is assembled from driftwood, aluminium, copper, rusted metal, bits of twisted plastic and spark plugs found on the beach of Tazacourt.

"Collectors are happy people" - Goethe

Story Door and Niche carving by Robyn Gordon. Website here

THANK YOU to all my faithful followers who have supported me here over the years and for all the inquiring emails and messages wondering if all is well. All is well! Life has got busier however and I've tried to find an easier way to blog that doesn't take up quite so much of time. For that reason, I've decided to reinvent Art Propelled on Face Book (here). I will post my art compilations as well as my own work there if you are interested. Some people don't like Face Book but for the time being it is all I can manage. I do hope I will meet up with you there because I do miss you all.

Art Compilation including work by Alexey Terenin, Paul Balmer, Cathy Brennon, Deborah Bell and Annie Coe

"Creativity is the way I share my soul with the world" - Brene Brown

A lot has happened in the year I have taken off from my blog. The busier I became with commissions and life, the more I found I had less time to compile blog posts. As mentioned in a previous post I decided to simplify by posting on Face Book instead but I have missed Art Propelled! For years it was my little sanctuary where I have made wonderful friends, many of whom are not on Face Book.

I have decided to continue my compilations on Face Book but I would like to post here on Art Propelled a few times a month as well.

Commissions bogged me down last year. I have given a lot of thought to how they affect my work production. Through no fault but my own I took on too many commissions and didn't leave enough time in between to create new work which meant I was feeling stale and lost interest. For the first time in a long while I gave myself a month to create something new.

This piece, "Ancestral Voices" has revived my love for creating art. I began waking in the mornings feeling excited to get out to my work bench to start carving. I purchased a new work bench made of fragrant cedar wood. The moment I set up work for the day the scent of the cedar seems to trigger my creative flow. For years I have worked outside in the courtyard where the heat just about flattened me so I made another change and moved my work area onto the veranda. Though I still do the messy work out in the courtyard I do most of my carving in the shade of the veranda. It has made a huge difference!

A very beautiful quote I kept with me while carving this piece....

"I am listening to a deeper way. Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. Be still, they say. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands." - Linda Hogan

In 2014 Roxanne Evans Stout invited me to create a new sculpture for her book, Storytelling with Collage . The book is out! And what a beautiful book it is!

This is the piece I created for the book. It is made of fragments from my early totems, previously banished to the back of a dark cupboard. There were parts of the old totems that I loved, so I cut these parts off to use in the assemblage.

"Spirit House" was inspired by the Sepik spirit houses in Papua New Guinea, as well as the "house of the hogan" in Mali. A hogan is a Dogon spiritual leader whose house serves as a conduit for spirits to drift through while communicating with him. I was amused by the idea of a mobile spirit house that could fly or sail.... or drive over a bumpy road in Africa.

I'm not sure what the next post will be about but it certainly wont be about me!

"I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art" - Anais Nin

mrandmrscharlie on Instagram

Stephanie Dalton's new painting inspired me today. It reminds me of riverine krantzes, pebble beaches, driftwood and rock pools.

Stephanie Dalton. Click to go to Stephanie's website

I enjoyed Stephanie's artist statement ..... and wish I had written it myself.

"It is the quieter side of the world that inspires my abstract works, the feelings that arise through a connection with the natural world. Colorful patterns in stone, aged patinas on walls, and fragmented light on the horizon are some natural touchstones for me." - Stephanie Dalton

Small wild basket by Robyn Gordon

My own work is often inspired by my connection with nature. Long walks and foraging on beaches set the mood for beginning new carvings. Once I was inspired by clumps of sea reeds that were washed up on the beach after heavy storms and decided there and then to sit down and create my first wild basket for the few small treasures I had found. It is a very rudimentary basket but for the time I spent creating it I was totally absorbed.

"Beach Walk" a work in progress by Robyn Gordon

Beach walks have inspired many of my carvings.

A piece from the River to Wood series by Hannah Lamb

I'm intrigued with how artists interpret what they have seen and how they bring meaningful moments into their artwork.

Hannah Lamb's " creative practice focuses on walking and making as methods of reconnecting with the world immediately around us. Personal, emotional responses to environment and surface are recorded through stitch, print, photography and construction, piecing together fragments of place and time."

Hannah's River to Wood series explores the landscape of the River Aire.

"Short journeys, walking from home to Hirst Wood, collecting marks, prints and found materials." - Hannah Lamb

Talking about wild baskets and inspiration, I found some delightful images on mrandmrscharlie's Instagram blog.

"The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web." - Pablo Picasso

Old papers and Japanese Wood by inspiration.h.o.m.e on Istagram. Love this one!

We have returned from three glorious weeks at the Wild Coast, feeling replenished and at peace with the world.

Most days were soft and meditative, filled with winter sunshine and the hushed unfolding of waves on the sand.

I learned a new word from Mo yesterday.
Apricity:The word apricity represents a simple and familiar yet a very specific phenomenon - the sun's warmth on a cold winter's day. (Click on the word to read further)

It seems appropriate to introduce the word here since, the world and his wife..... dog.....goat and cow, within a kilometer's radius, seemed to wander down to the beach to stand in the sun, .....relishing apricity on a winter's day.

I walked around this bull several times, clicking my camera and he remained unperturbed. Just a twitch of tail and ear.

I can't imagine our holidays without the resident dogs. They add much joy and tail wagging to our days.

The sea poems of Pablo Neruda also seem appropriate here. Follow the link if you wish to read a few more.

The Sea by Pablo Neruda

I need the sea because it teaches me.
I don't know if I learn music or awareness,
if it's a single wave or it's existence,
or only it's harsh voice or it's shining
suggestion of fishes and ships.
The fact is that until I fall asleep,
in some magnetic way I move in
the university of the waves.

It's not simply the shells crunched
as if some shivering planet
were giving signs of it's gradual death;
no, I reconstruct the day out of a fragment,
the stalactite from the silver of salt,
and the great god out of a spoonful.

What it taught me before, I keep. It's air
ceaseless wind, water and sand.

It seems a small thing for a young man,
to have come here to live with his own fire,
nevertheless, the pulse that rose
and fell in it's abyss,
the crackling of the blue cold,
the gradual wearing away of the star,
the soft unfolding of the wave
squandering snow with it's foam,
the quiet power out there, sure
as a stone shrine in the depths,
replaced my world in which were growing
stubborn sorrow, gathering oblivion,
and my life changed suddenly:
as I became part of it's movement.

Need I say, this weathered plank and broken shell returned home with me

"Among the things the sea throws up,
let us hunt for the most petrified,
violet claws of crabs,
little skulls of dead fish,
smooth syllables of wood,
small countries of mother-of-pearl;
let us look for what the sea undid
insistently, carelessly,
what it broke up and abandoned,
and left behind us."

- Forget about Me by Pablo Neruda

More chiton shells to add to my collection

Limpets doing what limpets do.

An ox drawn sled (made out of branches) carries fire wood home

Cows in the mist

Fish for supper.

A misty end to the day

The SILVER SUMMER show begins tomorrow at FILLINGDON FINE ART in PIDDINGTON, UK. Details here. I have a few pieces on the show, including the tall story panel below.

"Stop measuring days by degree of productivity and start experiencing them by degrees of presence." - Alan Watts

Deena Haynes. Click

"Stillness is not about focusing on nothingness; it's about creating a clearing. It's opening up an emotionally clutter-free space and allowing ourselves to feel and think and dream and question..." - Brene Brown

The sense of peace we achieved on holiday is already seeping away. My chiropractor who has to deal with my tense shoulders suggested I find something that instills peace closer to home since we can't go racing off to the Wild Coast (a 7 hours journey away), every time I feel tense. I'm taking the advise of Brene Brown and trying to create a clearing within the busyness of life.

Jessica Rimondi. Click

Recently I discovered the work of Mary Anne Aytoun-Ellis, an artist who is inspired by nature and the surrounding countryside of the Sussex Downs.

Mary Anne Aytoun-Ellis. Website here

"The artists deep affection for place and rural history is the antithesis of sentimental pastoral, as she seeks to understand all that is complex and valuable in our landscape heritage. Giving as much or more attention to the detail of a sycamore leaf as she does to a classic sweep of downs or a tempestuous sky, Aytoun-Ellis shows us how to look at landscape and nature with compassion, fairness and honesty. These are vital ways of thinking about our countryside as it continues to be threatened by creeping urbanization." - Clare Best #

Mary Anne Aytoun-Ellis Click

Mary Anne Aytoun-Ellis

"Every soul innately yearns for stillness, for space, a garden where we can till, sow, reap, and rest, and by doing so come to a deeper sense of self and our place in the universe. Silence is not an absence but a presence. Not an emptiness but repletion. A filling up." - Anne C LeClaire

I enjoyed Anne LeClaire's book, Listening Below The Noise: The Transformative Power of Silence. It "offers readers the possibility of finding grace and peace in the natural world". Find it on Amazon here

The beautiful art of Jeanie Tomanek. Website

"Silence is something more than just a pause; it is that enchanted place where space is cleared and time is stayed and the horizon itself expands. In silence, we often say, we can hear ourselves think; but what is truer to say is that in silence we can hear ourselves not think, and so sink below our selves into a place far deeper than mere thought allows..." - Pico Iyer

I have started reading The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere by Pico Iyer. Find it on Amazon here

"Accept what comes from silence. Make the best you can of it. Of the little words that come out of the silence, like prayers prayed back to the one who prays, make a poem that does not disturb the silence from which it came." - Wendell Berry

The imposing Mennesket ved Havet (Men at Sea), Denmark. Photo by Marco Franchino. Click

"Be secluded in your secret heart-house, that bowl of silence..." - Rumi

A collection of West African Islamic Teaching Tablets used by students in West Africa. Click

"I collect these objects to learn from them. In some moments these things are going to teach me something. For me, this is like a library. These are my books." - Jose Bedia, Art News

Though I don't own these beautiful artifacts
I can gaze at the images,
feeling the history and stories within them
.... feeling some satisfaction that they exist somewhere
and hoping that they are being preserved
so that others can share in the wonder.

Ancient Indian Manuscript. Click here

"I may have some pieces that are considered important, but most of the objects are things that evoke a feeling of visual pleasure. I think that part of the pleasure of collecting is to go out and find that great object and then introduce it into your environment." - James Marinaccio in Art and Antiques

This ancient book is part of a collection of 70 tiny books, their lead pages bound with wire. They could unlock some of the secrets of the earliest days of Christianity. Found in a cave in Jordan. Click here

Sea Excavated Artifact

Some of these tactile pieces invite holding but alas I can only look.

Ivory Inuit Amulets. click

Arrowhead, Tanzania click

Antique Afghani bone Spindle Whorls. click

Bamana Granary Door, Mali Click

"Certain objects are difficult to tame yet it is their very strangeness that perpetuates my curiosity and their appeal in my eyes." - Unknown Collector in Tribal Art

Wooden Atie Boat from the Ivory Coast click

"In age, variety and beauty, art from Africa is second to none. Africa had traditions of abstract art, performance art, installation art and conceptual art centuries before the West ever dreamed up the names." - Holland Cotter, The New York Times

Newly completed Healing Goddess (next to Nigerian helmet mask) by Robyn Gordon

"Our work as artists is courageous and scary. There is no brief that comes along with it, no problem solving that's given as a task....An artist's work is almost entirely inquiry based and self-regulated. It is a fragile process of teaching oneself to work alone, and focusing on how to hone your quirky creative obsessions so that they eventually become so oddly specific that they can only be our own." - Teresita Fernandez

Since I've just completed carving my healing goddess I thought I would share with those interested about what initially inspired me to carve her. The new carving is a late addition to a series of Healing Goddesses I carved several years ago.

From an old series several years ago.

A primitive Songye figure or Nkisi (from the Democratic Republic of the Congo) started my thought process about doing a series.

Image courtesy of Boris Kegel-Konietzko

I thought he was rather ugly at first though some would disagree because he has a raw, primitive energy and charm and in any case he was not created to be a work of art but an Nkisi. An Nkisi is a power figure that is believed to have protective powers for the owner and his family.

Wrapped around the large figure are a number of smaller figures which could be handed out to those who needed protection from evil or misfortune. When the need for protection had disappeared the small figures would then be returned to the bigger figure.

I fell in love with this Songye Ceremonial vessel. It is a gourd with an inner basket (containing potatoes, I think) and several miniature power figures attached to the outside.

I think the vessel has a feel-good quality about it as opposed to the slightly uneasy feeling I get from the Nkisi.

Nestled amidst the wood shavings on my worktable .... a favourite place to photograph my carvings.

It was important to me that my Healing Goddesses exuded a feel good energy and I can only hope that I've achieved that. It was certainly therapeutic to carve them.

These fragments of a tile were once part of a highly decorated floor at Chertsey Abbey, Surrey. Pavements of decorated ceramic tiles were a medieval innovation. They were used to add richness and splendour to great churches initially but they were subsequently used in secular contexts, including castles and royal residences. Click

In the early years of my marriage I always threw broken china away because I wanted everything to be perfect. Over the years I've grown to love cracked and broken things. My marriage is in tact (in case you wondered:-) and I have drawers and bowls full of fragments from china, glass, wood, shells and other natural gatherings.

Ancient Shards by Christina Wiese. See website here

Christina Wiese

I love this poem about broken things by Alice Walker.

I will keep broken
things:
the big clay pot
with raised iguanas
chasing their
tails; two
of their wise
heads sheared off;
I will keep broken things:
the old slave market basket brought to my door by Mississippi a jagged
hole gouged
in it's sturdy dark
oak side.

I will keep broken things:
The memory of
those long delicious night swims with you;

I will keep broken things:

In my house
there remains an honored shelf
on which i will keep broken things.

Their beauty is
they need not ever be "fixed."

I will keep your wild
free laughter though it is now missing its
reassuring and
graceful hinge.
I will keep broken things:

Thank you
So much!

I will keep broken things.
I will keep you:
pilgrim of sorrow.
I will keep myself.

- Alice Walker, "I will keep broken things"

Fragments, Monestry of Hadda, Afghanistan, 4th century. Click

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with a mixture of lacquer and powdered gold or silver. The philosophy behind this reparation is that things should not be discarded just because they are broken. There is beauty in broken, cracked and chipped objects.

Exquisite chipped bowl. Click for more here

Weathered and broken Woman's Grave Marker, Philippines. Click

Egyptian Woven Fragment: 13th - 14th century. medium: Linen, silk, metal wrapped thread. Click

Mary Ann Lehrer Plansky stitches exquisite fragments inspired by ancient cloths, the antiquities of forgotten tribes, archaeological artifacts and ruins. My heart races when I read the stories behind her pieces. Do yourself a favour and visit Mary Ann's blog here.

Mary Anne Lehrer Plansky's beautiful work. Click

Sand & Bone by Mary Ann Lehrer Plansky. Click

Jan Goodey has created an intriguing ceramic series, "The Museum of Conjecture."

"The Museum of Conjecture" by Jan Goodey .

" ....every broken thing is an opportunity for reinvention and reinterpretation. Putting the pieces together in a new way, or for a new purpose or by adding new or different parts encourages a "Science of Incomplete" to emerge." - Jan Goodey

Shards. Vessel series by Jan Goodey

MORE FROM FILLINGDON

OH MY HAT!

STRANDLOPER

FOX

SHADES OF LICHEN

WALKING

STORY DOOR AT FILLINGDON

OH CHRISTMAS TREE

NEW WORK at FILLINGDON FINE ART

warmly invites you to
"Primary Palette"
an exhibition of original
paintings, sculpture, ceramics, jewellery and craft
from Saturday 11th - Saturday 25th April 2015
daily 10am- 4pm
at Fillingdon Farm, Piddington, High Wycombe,
Bucks, HP14 3BL, UK
Other times by appointment

www.fillingdon.com

STILLNESS FOR JUGGLERS

A SHORT STORY

THE WOOD GATHERERS

ART PROPELLED REINVENTED

A SMIDGEN OF MY SOUL

NATURAL TOUCHSTONES

THE SOFT UNFOLDING OF WAVES

CREATING A CLEARING

VISUAL PLEASURE

HEALING GODDESS

I WILL KEEP BROKEN THINGS

warmly invites you to "Primary Palette"an exhibition of originalpaintings, sculpture, ceramics, jewellery and craftfrom Saturday 11th - Saturday 25th April 2015daily 10am- 4pmat Fillingdon Farm, Piddington, High Wycombe, Bucks, HP14 3BL, UKOther times by appointment

warmly invites you to
"Primary Palette"
an exhibition of original
paintings, sculpture, ceramics, jewellery and craft
from Saturday 11th - Saturday 25th April 2015
daily 10am- 4pm
at Fillingdon Farm, Piddington, High Wycombe,
Bucks, HP14 3BL, UK
Other times by appointment