Where does creativity come from?

The highest goal one can achieve is amazement. ~ Goethe

My first design experiments involved selecting snails along a narrow garden path. Lining them up in rows, I would talk kindly and invite them to take part in games. I would be their big sister, telling them stories and giving them names like Germaine and Margaret. Blended with rose petals and pebbles, they would become part of spiralling collages and patterns.  

Snails were the closest thing I had to a proper pet until we got our dog Timmy. After Timmy was "sent to live on a farm" we got a tortoise which went to sleep for the winter and never woke up. But the snails were always there and Pooka Snails, the large ones with protruding horns, were always my favourite. 

I began a half day at school at three and a half. In the afternoons I would sit on the path, school bag on my back, practicing my letters and reciting to those snails. Here were the foundations of my dream life; finding a quiet space for an inner world, connecting with nature, spending time mulling over the mysteries.

When you are looking at the random play and explorations of a very young child you are peeking into her soul, her love of what comes naturally. For some it will be climbing trees, for others kicking a ball, for the quiet few it will be escaping into imaginary worlds and talking to snails. 

Tiny dewy rainbows

Today I'm re-posting these tiny dewy rainbows from 2012.

Would you like to join me in a moment of reflection? While we both take a slow deep breath?

And while we continue to breathe, here are some explorations of contemplative photography practice

And while I was breathing deeply I won Silver in the Blog Awards for photography Yay!!!!

We are terrified, and we are brave #dayofthegirl

"We are terrified, and we are brave. "

Elizabeth Gilbert

Am I the photographer who writes? Am I the writer who takes pictures? Almost 5 years ago I began to blog. Writing would have to be part of it, but I would never, ever call myself a writer.....I would be a photo blogger.....

The first steps were so terrifying that I blogged anonymously. In 2012 I was invited to host the @Ireland twitter account and decided I would have to come out of my shell. Gradually I became comfortable with the tag "blogger," won a couple of awards for the photography and happily continued. 

From the age of about four I had filled lined copybooks with stories (about sad things mostly) illustrated with colouring pencil drawings. Brene Browne says that about 80% of adults have a shaming story from their past of which 50% are about their creativity. Well I too have mine, about "writing" but it happened much later during my teen-age years.

I had written a school essay about a young poet I had a crush on. (He grew up to be the real deal but that's neither here nor there.) I quoted what I thought was a wonderful line about Dylan Thomas in this essay, "as happy as the grass is green." To this day I'm not sure whether Dylan Thomas, my poet with the long hair or my 16 year old self actually said that??? Anyway when the essays were given back I was a sick with anticipation. I had gushed, I had strayed from the text we were given, I had shown something of my vulnerability. 

Our English Teacher used to stand on the podium, open each essay, bark a result and mutter a short comment. When she came to mine, she didn't open it or comment. She threw the copy book at me spitting one word, "Trite!" The strongest possible message that I needed to shut up the fledgeling voice which somehow through innocence had gotten loose. 

Later she took me aside and gave me a lecture about doing well in the exam and sticking to the tried and tested formulae. I don't think any of this was done out of meanness at all. It was done out of fear for my future. A girl needed to hide her feelings, know how to protect herself from silly notions and get enough of an education to be employable. 

You might think that the Art Teacher was a bit more encouraging as I ended up going to Art College? Strange thing is, I often saw other girls being undermined or "shamed" in similar ways about their art work. By the time I left school I felt both abandoned and free. There was a complete lack of support but there was also a lack of expectation.   

For some reason, I never fully gave up on that precious space where I mooched with paint, a camera or even words. Thanks to my English Teacher I moved into the visual world, and thanks to blogging there is now a space to reclaim my love of language too.

Best of both worlds; a brave photographer who writes AND a terrified writer who takes pictures.......

11th October was International Day of the Girl Child  #dayofthegirl which reminded me of how precious creativity can be to a young girl. 

You can preview my little book on the creative path here

For even more on creativity delve into the brilliant Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert 

And special thanks to the Woodland Girl

12 minutes in Bruxelles Nord

Up the wide stairs onto the platform of Bruxelles Nord Station. The clock said 7.43, the train would arrive and leave by 7.55.  

In the golden light filled space there were constant comings and goings. For twelve minutes I am pure presence. Absorbed in what I miss most about city living.

Straight lines, edgy shadows, bits and pieces of the lives of others. My last 12 minutes in the city of Bruxelles.


Visit the Gallery here to join in the full 12 minutes.



And then if you have another moment I would LOVE your vote in the Blog Awards for Best Photography Blog

Those dark elements : 4. 9. 2015

You are on your knees in a lavender patch, following the music of bees. In the distance a harvester is droning, and the evening sun highlights wings and petals.

You are obsessing about the need for a soft bed and a warm hearth as the autumn sets in; for a safe place to pause, for a warm welcome. And you can't imagine leaving all this, leaving your own home and setting out on foot, to walk for miles to who knows where?

And you can barely grasp how thousands of them are walking through fields full of lavender and don't have even a moment to watch every last flicker of this season's sunsets, or to photograph bees in the evening light.

And you find that "$50 will provide high thermal fleece blankets to help protect a family from the elements." And you can't help imagining those dark elements as the chill of a September breeze, rustles through the leaves.

Please donate to the urgent appeal for humanitarian relief in Syria here at the UN Refugee Agency  

In other news.....Foxglove Lane has been shortlisted for the Blog Awards 2015. Would love it if you could vote here It only takes a minute. Thank you!!

Grounded by light and shade : 24.8.15

These days I am using a fixed lens (no zooming) and resisting any kind of cropping or editing. This means that when capturing an image you have to be scrupulous about the composition. What you snap is what you get, an "in the moment" photo. 

It's good discipline for the eye, and does away with the need for post processing, photoshop and all the rest of it. 
On the other hand I'm also gathering too many photos at once and running out of space on every device, including my cluttered mind!! I came back from the last jaunt with 1,500 shots of Kerry, Dublin, Wicklow and Kilkenny. Overwhelming to sort, maybe one for the long dark evenings of the winter ahead. (Apologies for even mentioning it!) 

Home and hearth soothe the busy brain and bring us back down to earth. Detail, shadow and light will do that every time. The alchemy between eye, lens and light. 

What's all around you that soothes your busy brain? What small details would you capture from your own space? Try it today with your phone, camera, sketch pad or journal and find yourself instantly grounded! 

Browse today's featured gallery "Seek light" here

Seeing red

It's not something we see around here in the dead of winter. Red, the colour of vibrance, heat, attention. So any little pop of red here on the lane is precious and impossible to ignore.

I've gone through most of life not wanting to stand out or be too brash. The (so called) worst thing a girl can be, is a bit of a show off. And yet when I meet a young girl with a twinkling sense of her own mischief I love it. Don't you?

Look here how a bit of showing off cheers up the day, sparkles in the greyness of January and brings such happiness? And anyway for a photographer, one of the ground rules is always photograph RED!

A hint of frost

The sky changes by the minute. As I am writing this, the calm ice covered landscape I was loving this morning is being battered by a westerly gale and driving heavy rain. Unsettling and mind numbingly grey to boot.

I could complain, moan, slump. Every part of me wants to go horizontal, hide under the warm duvet, dream about Greece. The evening is setting in again and the heat will have to be cranked up another few notches.

Winter can sometimes be a matter of holding on for dear life until the light returns. A time of hibernation and low energy. So I write out the slump here and ride out the darkness in my head. A combination of gritting the teeth and letting go the effort. 

The news is bad here but worse in other places. The fragility of life and the lack of certainty seeps through every bit of the veneer. Uncontainable. 

The silvery foliage I snapped in the frosty early hours lights up the screen. I put on another pair of socks knowing that the only thing to do is get back to work.

An icy road trip

Our Celitc Tiger motorway from Waterford to Dublin, the M9, bypasses Thomastown, Kilkenny, Carlow and all the narrow villages we used to know so intimately. Unfortunately it's also now against the rules of the road to stop and photograph the landscape. 

This part of Ireland has it's own story; gentle rolling hills, the flat plains of the midlands, and lots of old trees. A journey through an inland maze of fields, all sky and agriculture.

So on this eerie early morning road trip, I shot these frosty trees and fog as the sun came up, just because I was a passenger and for once and I could..... 



PS 

Thank you so much to everyone who shopped here in the Foxglove Lane Studio over Christmas. While it was a very busy time it was also good to connect with so many of you who are becoming like old friends at this stage! Thank you from the bottom of my heart, it has been very encouraging.

I'm having a short SALE at the moment and while the hardback book is still available you can now get the download version of the book here  here reduced to 1.99 euros.  

In other news I have just begun to sell a new range of Limited Edition Fine Art Prints  Each one is a result of layering paintings, textures and photographs and is something I hope to explore much more in 2015. 

Here's to a fresh New Year! 

On having an inkling about 2015

The haze was low this morning, wafting across the fields like an amber blanket. The combination of dawn and lingering mist is one to savour for any photographer. So even though it's still a bit foggy, my word for 2015 is "inkling"

Inkling - a vague idea or notion, a slight understanding, hint, hunch, intimation....... 

Where to start? Not a clue. Maybe it means following hunches and hints? Listening to whispers, both intriguing and unsettling? 

So inkling it is. Add a T and you get tinkling, the sound of the distant bells that are starting to ring, the promise of miles and miles of dry land ahoy, a hint of celebration.

And this morning look! It was as misty and foggy as any New Year's Day could possibly be. The winds are picking up now, the rain is battering down but the two feet are dry.... 

So Happy New Year dear friends. Let's love life in 2015 and here's to the freedom to explore vague inklings, hunches, hints and intimations. There is another kind of opening to possibility in that....

Photography as meditation

He is bursting with confidence.

I am probably standing too close to his territory so there is an air show going on from the top of a pile of rubble to the rose tree in the farm yard. At one point he lands on the post in front of my nose. His face says.....YIKES and he takes off instantly.

Robins are tiny but unstoppable.

Sometimes here in my neighbours farm yard I perch the camera on the white washed wall and wait. She has just emptied a bucket of orange and banana peels on top of the compost heap. This is one of the local birds' favourite lunch spots.

Standing there slows the ticking brain. Puts things in perspective. Opens the heart to priorities. It's a kind of meditation. Another voice takes over, calming, soothing, slowing.

It's coming to the end of the year. What are the important questions now? What are the next steps?

As the Robin comes closer and I stand beneath his soft breath, those old hat questions fade away into the cold morning air.....




See more winter morning images here in the gallery