Dear Stacey (28 Nov 25),
Dear Stacey,
What a lovely day yesterday around my kitchen table talking about ALL THE THINGS. Art and life, parenting and inspirations, blocks and flow. I feel like something unlocked for me in the chatting and making. I hope it did for you too.
Your sketchbooks are so inspiring and I can’t stop thinking about them. I often wonder why we can’t see what the other person sees in our own work and why it feels insignificant in comparison to the other, but that’s it right, comparison is the thief of joy and all of our brains and eyes work differently. In each other’s work we see something that the other can’t see and it lights us up. That is what I miss about a shared studio space and bouncing ideas off one another. It feels so important to have this time as much as I value my solo making time and quiet thinking spaces.
Before you came up you said you didn’t want to steal away one of my work days, but this is all our work, all the conversations, the exchange, the different things to paint, the different light and landscape surrounding. Even for you the drive up and back was a moment in time you had to feed the creative practice and the soul. I returned to parenting after you left, picking up the kids from school and daycare and I raced around like a headless chook again! My watch told me my stress levels were too high and it wasn’t until I finally flopped into bed around midnight that my heart settled again and reflected on our time together.
It is lovely now to sit in the studio listening to GoldFord loud on the speakers, editing photos and writing to you. These letters feel important and grounding and I am so glad we finally committed to the percolating idea and made it real.
I had a little epiphany last night as I read about another artist’s work. Remember we were talking about my woven painting works that are more abstract and I couldn’t work out how to make them connect more with my still life paintings, that’s just it, they still are still lives but they are beyond that, they are an imaginary world, a place my mind takes me when I am looking at objects, it is form and colour and “vibe” (lol)! I am too old to worry about what they are, they just are, they are my work and I am going to keep making them and own that!
Ok I better get back to some painting. I am going to start back in my sketchbook and work up to the canvas for the day. It feels safer and fun. Freeing!
Love E x
