There are shifts and changes at play

There are shifts and changes at play. A tattooed family gazes into the distance. Their whole stance creating a question. 

Yes, there are shifts and changes at play. Like what the future will bring for us all and for our vulnerable world? Like what makes sense for a contemplative photographer in these days of high alerts and lock downs? Like how to make use of every precious moment without adding to consumerism and overload? 

The question for the tattooed family was whether or not to take a risk on a fairground ride? How to figure out the moves required for jumping on and jumping off? 

And that's just exactly where I'm at too......

On gift giving 

 My little book "Seek light, embrace shade, live colour" is still for sale in the Blurb Bookshop.

If you would like to give a Foxglove Lane Gift Token I would be very happy to sort you out and fill the orders in 2016......just send me a mail through the contact page. 

Need more help? Visit the how to buy page

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. 

The freedom to imagine : 28.8.15

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
Albert Einstein

Sometimes he is Link, a character from The Legend of Zelda, other times he is Oisin (pronounced Ush-een). Sometimes I'm an outgoing professional, other times I'm a burrowing, childlike, introvert. While we are working together, or perhaps playing together would be more accurate, we are each living out our own sense of wonder. 

I'm not sure I fully understand this legend, but I know there is a nobility about Link, he is some one who overcomes great odds with little inclination to be a hero. Probably the kind of hero most of us would identify with. 

As we climb the hill to Dunhill Castle, Oisin notices a beautiful moth and captures it in a jar. Later he sends my spirit soaring, as he releases it again, into the cool breeze of the Anne Valley below.

We both understand that the world can be harsh and that you would need every weapon in your soul's armory to deal with it all some days. But like so many others, we also share the ability to suspend disbelief, to enter the zone of story and myth, to allow ourselves the freedom to imagine.

We were on location at Dunhill Castle, County Waterford. Thanks to Oisin Hennessy for the concept, role play and wardrobe. See more photos here

A word for 2014.....#Pilgrimage

Ever since I began to toy with the word Pilgrimage (journey to a sacred place), as my word for 2014, I've been having the sweetest dreams. Walking between the villages of the Cinque Terre in North West Italy linked by a cliff path. Re-visiting a cottage in Donegal, where we once drank wine and danced wildly into the New Year. Moving my studio from a corner of an upstairs room into the heart of this house. This word Pilgrimage invites so many possibilities.

There is no journey to a place of holy significance or a sacred shrine in my visualisation. Maybe it's more about a spiritual path into the next decade? A journey of the heart and soul.  Making a shrine of daily life. 

It as a Pilgrimage inwards. A pilgrimage into the third age. A pilgrimage through living the dream of being an artist here and now, no more waiting. 

But there is one shadow that won't let up, there is never enough time, is there? Each new year is swallowed whole by responsibility, survival and attending to detail. Why would 2014 be any different? I will have to find enough hours in the day to close my eyes and make the necessary space. Can I do it?

Dream up your own perfect word for 2014 and then allow yourself to play with it......it can create a deep yet beautiful disturbance!