A Shed of One's Own

After my recent post about needing a place to paint, Creativity Ensconced, I took the plunge and spent all my savings on a rather fancy garden shed.  Of course I fell in love with a slightly unusual version with a Dutch barn roof. This gives extra storage space above and makes it feel a lot bigger and more airy, as well as being very attractive.


For me it is more than simply a space of my own; it is a commitment to my creativity, a way of honouring that deep need to connect with the inner worlds of my imagination, a refuge from day-to-day life.  The timing was perfect, the pieces of flat-packed 'shed' heavy in the rain arrived on Beltane, the time of burgeoning growth and the flowering of potential.  

It took a couple of weekends to build because we dug the base ourselves, which was exhausting, but once that was done the actual build took a warm sunny day. Then the extra bits such as fascia boards and corners, hooks to keep the doors open and electricity finished it off a couple of weekends later.

Still some things to do such as cutting out a second window and putting in some old carpet, but for now, here are some photos telling the story of it's coming to fruition...

From foundations...

...to floor...

...to walls...

...and walls...

...to roof...

...to felting...

...to fruition!

Regal Fox

I painted the picture at the bottom for an exhibition called 'Tribal' at the gallery I run. The idea came from a doodle...

Regal Fox © Amber Caspian, 2012

...trying to express how majestic I find Foxes.  Sitting in a patch of sun, with their thick winter coat just glowing like wildfire...

...and I'm interested in our past, our ancient English tribal culture. In asking questions, such as - what is my tribe and where are its native symbols? Have we really lost all the old songs and stories from this part of our land? 

Our beautiful English countryside

I realised that I believe these things are encapsulated in some of our indigenous animals - Fox, Hare, Deer, Crow - in the way they still roam free despite the destructive changes to our countryside...

 Spinning in the Holistic garden

...and I also looked for patterns and markings in local crafts that are still with us, if we choose to look...

Pargetting Patterns

...such as patchwork, weaving, and pargetting...so that my Fox could wear his own cloak of regal colours and patterns...

...and I surrounded him in gold, so he glows like a Russian icon and we can revere him in a patch of sun or by candlelight...

Rauðr Foa Rogg © Amber Caspian, 2012

...so I named him in, probably very bad, Old English to celebrate his old English story - Rauðr Foa Rogg, which means Red Fox Rug (shaggy tuft). And so was born my 'Animal Icons'...

Cat

One Year Old

I've been blogging for one whole year!! Time to take stock...

This was never about having lots of followers but I am very grateful for the 3 I have so far, thank you.  I am one of trillions but I have found many very interesting blogs that inspired me to do this. It took a while to get used to the idea of blogging, it felt exposing and a bit vain to start with... However it has turned out to be a very enjoyable and amazingly helpful experience.  

The aim was to gather together the things that interest and inspire me, become braver about sharing my paintings, poetry and ideas about creativity, and connect all the different threads of what make up me into something I can wear with surety.

Now I do feel that I have achieved this and begun to weave together the elements into something very positive.  I have even done things especially for it, which would not have been done otherwise.  Yet another avenue for creativity to wander down...

So here’s to the next year, filled with poetry, painting and promise J

Witches Fly-By

Today I opened my Etsy shop!  Where I am selling giclee prints of my artwork along with cards (to come soon).  Click here to see my wares....

Rocking Chair Witch (c) Amber Caspian

Fox

Fox  © Amber Caspian, 2012

Beltane Goddess

Creativity Ensconced

Dream House

Ensconced verb [with object and adverbial of place]

- establish or settle (someone) in a comfortable, safe place: Agnes ensconced herself in their bedroom

Origin: late 16th century (in the senses 'fortify' and 'shelter within or behind a fortification'; formerly also as insconce)

Creativity needs a room of its own, as Virginia Woolf wrote - a space in which to lay down paint and pen to paper, to let ideas flow through you into tangible form.  Only after long walks during which it gets to breathe and play.  Where it has been given the freedom to regenerate, to be wild, and to knock you off your feet; will it then need a quiet, clear, almost sacred space within which to take form.  That safe place in which to ensconce oneself in peace and blissful solitude and create.

Not so easily done in our busy lives of working and family and the demands of daily life.  Often it’s snatched moments at kitchen tables, packing away the tools of our trade before the kids come home from school. Or working late into the secret night when everyone is asleep, catching their dreams in the silence.

It’s not just about physical space either, but mental space.  I feel that the two go together anyway, my room gets messy when my head feels messed up.  Living in my parents’ home has many good things about it but I am now living within their lives and all that comes with it.  I am cramped into one room full of family stuff, which is also quite dark being north facing so the sunlight rarely penetrates the window.  I find I suddenly miss my old flat so much, despite the noisy neighbours.  

Filled with this light airy space, my own things around me, a big table with my art materials laid out ready; it proved irresistible - I couldn’t fight the yearning to paint for long.   As spring really takes off I long for those seemingly endless days of the weekends there, filled with walks and writing and painting.  So it has set me thinking about creating a new sacred space in which to work.  Probably a garden shed with a  wood burning stove, that would be just the thing.

However what I would really LOVE is to have a studio like one of these amazing places...

Pitchford Hall Tree House

Storybook House, Kitsap County

Beverly Hills Witch House

Hobbit House, Hawaii 

Horseplay

This week we opened a new exhibition at my gallery, called 'Horseplay - Equine Grace'.  I am not a horsey person in that I don't ride and am quite scared of them; however I find them so beautiful that they bring a lump to my throat.  I would love to see wild horses running together in that wonderful rolling wave, moving as one with manes flying.  For the moment I content myself with sitting in a gallery amidst gorgeous paintings of them.

'Fin' by Yolande Kenny

The show is mainly inspired around the work of Yolande Kenny who paints very personal and emotive horse portraits.  With the use of unusual viewpoints - looking up from close to the horse's head or being literally nose-to-nose, she captures their unique personalities intimately as seen through the eyes of their owner.  Whether painted in oil on linen or drawn in graphite Yolande's skill is in catching the power and gentle strength of these graceful creatures.

'Stance' by Yolande Kenny

I also included Gena Ivanov's colourful watercolours evoking the wild flowing nature of horses...

'Blue Horse' by Gena Ivanov

...along with Ramzieh Baj's more primal and fantastic painting inspired by the Nart Saga (heroic Circassian tales from the Caucasus)  and very controlled print of the famous Desert Orchid....

'Lady Setenaya and the Dragon' by Ramzieh Baj

'Horse in Profile' by Ramzieh Baj

...and Sophie Howard's bronze sculptures, which speak about the strong companionship between humans and horses.

'Sitting' by Sophie Howard

Blodeuwedd

When the burgeoning force of spring meets the ardent heat of summer, our dazzling maid comes into being, to fill the lusting void with the heady perfume of feminine wiles.  Bursting forth, her willowing figure is formed from nine types of blossom - meadowsweet, broom, cockle, bean, nettle, chestnut, primrose, oak and the hawthorn that grow wild across the unsuspecting land.  Woven together by trickster hands, life breathed into her by kingly whims, her birth is as wild woman and her beauty all the more treacherous.

So she, whose destiny is undreamt of marriage, is born a companion to he who cannot take human wife, nor die so easily as man.  For him a blossoming woman made from verdant nature into unnatural ardour, untamed, with her own mind and desires.   Thus the story unfurls its buds into emerging tragedy, for always is free will temptation filled. 

Child as she is of lascivious Beltane, her red heart soon beats deep for a vital young warrior, as youthful and as tempestuous as she.   A potent mix of ingredients, for lovers entwined tie themselves in bonds of foolish acts, driven mad with longing. Together they plot to steal the life of unwary unwanted husband. 

Pretty pleading discovers the secret of death and hunter wields the spear forged over thirteen moons to fell their prey, seeming dead.  But what mystery unfolds when shape-shifter appears: wounded Eagle flying high to the magical Tree of Life. 

How unjust a punishment then when fragrant Face of Flowers is transformed.  Her innate power born of spring days and summer dances, now stilled to abide only in the darkness of the long, silent hours.
  
Now beware all, that bitter owl who cries in the night...

An old story retold by Amber Spring 2011

Seeking Self and Finding Bare Bones II

'Before I die, I want to stand on an ice sheet and in an orange desert and see nothing but vast sky.'

 

I didn't dream of travel particularly; I was a home bird who liked being in England and at most longed to visit the ancient sites of the British Isles and Ireland. I was the last of my (three, younger) siblings to really travel in the true sense of the word. I couldn't wait to leave school and go to Art College so having a gap year was very far from my mind. Also I admit I was terrified of the idea! Despite leaving home to go to college, then moving to London soon after and virtually disappearing from the family landscape in my twenties, I needed my friends and soul family more than they ever knew.

Life moves in waves both destructive and creative. A gradual building up and gathering of people, places, somewhere to work, to call home and then things fall apart and disintegrate in your hands like dust only to pull back and move through to the next wave. Beneath it the sandy beach of your soul undulates and changes, old beliefs eroding and others revealed as treasures - curled shells upon the golden curve of Self.

It is only later in life that one acknowledges an undercurrent of restless energy, of courage and calling. Something reminds you of a story once read long ago where the heroine stood alone in a desert and understood profoundly her own being for the first time in her life. How profoundly that touched you and your young self, but what to do with it? Pocket it away until you have lived enough to need it...



Frozen Lake

Orange Desert

Welcome Spring

Vernal Goddess

Persephone - Goddess of the Underworld

Sometimes I find that a certain image, story or archetype stays with me for many years, a thread woven through time and place expressed inwardly and then appearing outside of oneself. Persephone is one such thread...

'Prosepine' by Rossetti

“Be to her, Persephone,
All the things I might not be;
Take her head upon your knee.
She that was so proud and wild,
Flippant, arrogant and free,
She that had no need of me,
Is a little lonely child
Lost in Hell,—Persephone,
Take her head upon your knee;
Say to her, “My dear, my dear,
It is not so dreadful here.”
  Edna St. Vincent Millay

Persephone is a subject that has interested me for a long time, as an image of womanhood and its apparent parallels between her myth and the stories of women the world over. That we are caught in between the light and the dark, that we are stolen from our mothers too early and taken into the depths of lusts we don't understand. That we are pulled between being ‘good’ girls our mothers would be proud of and the ‘bad’ girls (or more accurately ‘wild’ girls) they would be ashamed of, but secretly we both want to be.

She came to me powerfully during one of the most painful times of my life, when I seemed to be in between the worlds and channelling ideas one after another. I was watching a programme about mummies and there was one that was curled in this pose that was so like a young girl asleep and merely dreaming that it captivated me.

I painted Kore (Maiden) at the moment of silent slumber, when she is a spring flower and untouched, in a pose of quiet death.  She dreams of falling in love and the summer to come, all the while someone is plotting to take her away. The dried poppy heads blow soporific seeds into her eyes so she remains unconscious of her fate. But also alongside the poppies are brambles that speak of the dark side of mother love, that mother loves her but is envious. Is aware of how the child’s youth and freshness shows against her own ripened beauty. They are the briars that appear in fairy tales, where loving mothers die young and stepmothers are wicked. The cruel thorns that scratch young skin and spill the rich red blood of womanhood.

 ‘Kore’ By Amber Caspian, 2009

‘Kore... gently curled.  Small figure of quiet Death.  Settled within the age-old Prison of wild briar and sharp thorn. Dormant amidst Soporific poppies. Tell me, of what do you dream?’

From the versions I have read it appears that Persepine is always taken away unwillingly from a mother who doesn't want her to go by a lover she doesn't want. Yet for me I believe there is something in the idea that both mother and daughter are ready for the separation. The girl is yearning to become a woman and experience her sexual self in a way that she cannot within the realm of her mother. Mother is relieved to be able to rest and enter the dark time of hibernation and restoring even if only awhile. And all because Persephone ate those six pomegranate seeds...

A story about choice taken away now appears full of moments where a decision can be made – mother takes her eye off her daughter when she could have never let her go; the child lies alone and unprotected conjuring dreams of subjects she has no experience of; once taken she eats seeds that she knew would hold her to the new life where she is Queen of Souls, her own realm. Those seeds are nourishment, food for the Self and of a kind she will never find in her mother’s summer garden.

Arctic Art

My thoughts return to the Arctic often, even in summer, but it doesn't feel right to post about the cold lands when the wheel turns warmer. We've had a couple of weeks with spring in the air but now we're once again amidst wind, sleet and snow and so I thought I'd take the opportunity to get one more Arctic post in.

The Arctic has intrigued me for many years, ever since I was in my teens and started reading in earnest.  It inspired me even before I had set a snow boot upon ice.  I'm the child with a slither of ice in her heart, her eye, her soul.  Not in the way of frozen emotions but instead using ice as lens, a clear eye, an enhanced vision of myself and therefore the way I express that.

Once I knew I was definitely going to Sweden it was as if the floodgates opened.  I met the group I was going with in the October before we went, spending a weekend sitting in circle and sharing our journeys to this place.  Lots of connections of having been to 'Rivenstone' at the same time, mutual friends and acquaintances.

We did a visualization to meet our inner guides and took turns to sit in the yurt in the depths of night, keeping the fires burning and wolves at bay.  We wrote letters to ourselves to be received at an unknown date, our innocent curious selves meeting our knowing adventurous selves.

Here are some of the visual pieces I created before travelling to the Land of Snow and Ice…

'Arctic Hare and I' (c) Amber Caspian (Monoprints, Oil Painting & Drum Bag)

Seeking Self and Finding Bare Bones I

For years I have longed to travel, not having taken a gap year before college or starting work, it felt as though a rite of passage hadn't been taken.

In the past I had regarded myself as more of an armchair traveller, a seeker after inner truths journeying on the rhythm of the drum or the dream, rather than someone likely to do so physically. This changed as I changed and became a strong yearning for adventure.  I felt trapped in my job, despite enjoying many aspects of it, and I was tired of the 'safe' life that stretched before me.

One day I stumbled upon a book called 'Soulcraft' by Bill Plotkin that seemed to answer a number of questions.  Working in a shamanic way with nature, the ritual telling of one's story to the land, going deep, feeling the giant 'YES' to Self, to Life, to living without fear all spoke directly to me.  I loved the way that beautiful poems were used to connect to soul. It appeared that others were aware of the sharp edge of Fear against the soft flesh of Self, and the call that comes to shake the false image of oneself so that the truth you were born with could re-emerge.

Later while at 'Rivenstone' in Dartmoor I saw a presentation, given through letters, diaries and poems, by several women who had travelled to Arctic Sweden on a creative and spiritual retreat.  At the end I said with great intention - I want to do that! - and I signed up for information.  The following year I received a leaflet and realised I couldn't afford to go, so I put it aside with the knowledge that if I was meant to go I would.

So after many years of dreaming about doing a Soulcraft Quest I began to make plans to take a 3-month sabbatical and do the September Quest in Utah.  I even went out one evening with two of my American friends to talk about my trip and get some advice. However, the Universe works with us and to my utter surprise 2 weeks later the opportunity came early when redundancies were announced at work.  I put myself forward and was accepted.

The first thing I did was email the women about going to the Arctic; I was welcomed with open arms! It was perfect timing as they needed to book the flights within the next couple of weeks. Then I had a long conversation on Skype with a lady in America and signed up for the May Quest.  What an amazing gift, an enormous answering 'YES!' to everything that matters, all was meant to be and led to the most wonderful experiences of my life.

Creativity Enmeshed

Inspired by Nature

One of the things that have caused me to block creatively is envy, I am not proud to admit. Most of the time I absolutely love looking at others work, for my own interest and pleasure but also as an important part of my job as the curator and manager of an art gallery. However sometimes I find myself so awed by someone's work that I shut down and disconnect from my own creativity.


It is a complex thing being a creative person. I feel that it makes one vulnerable to being knocked sideways, being open as we are to the world as it feeds and sometimes steals our souls.


Personally I need to be connected to the rhythms of nature and the seasons, in conversation with friends and fellow artists, stimulated by books and art in all its forms to be fully connected to my own creative self. Therefore my eyes and heart are wide open as I seek both a visual and an emotional stimulus to what's around me in my quest for inspiration, sometimes too open.

This is why I think that certain harsh criticisms from teachers have caused a much greater wounding than perhaps they warranted. So too I believe, it is understandable and natural to admire an artist's work so much that you wish you could have done it yourself.

The key is to not get too enmeshed in that 'other', whoever or whatever it may be. To try and find a balance between protecting ones creative core and connecting with your own creative source. The only thing that really helps though is a deep understanding that You are uniquely who You are and that only You can create what You do.  So I remind myself to revel in that and enjoy others work for their uniqueness too.

Arctic - Silver Tea and Bear Stories

I have tried to write about my trip to Arctic Sweden on several occasions, but each time I find I have either no words that can even begin to describe this magical experience or so many that it becomes deafening. So to keep things simple I have gathered here some evocative words and pictures...

~ Stillness ~ Purity ~ Adventure ~ Empowering ~ Fairy Tale ~ Wild ~ Silence ~

~ Community ~ Aloneness ~ Silver Tea ~ Huskies ~ Wild Night Rides ~ Snow Angels ~ 

~ Ice Maidens ~ Frost Fairs ~ Sami Gatherings ~ Candlelit Snow Churches ~ 

~ Bear Men and Moon Wolves ~ Frozen Lakes ~ Dawn ~ Blue Hour ~ 

~ Crafts ~ Being Rescued ~ Walking ~ Skiing ~ Naked Saunas ~ Yoiking ~

~ Sunlight on Snow ~ Colours ~ Candles ~ Reindeer ~ Willow Bark Bread ~ 

~ Drumming ~ Hearth Goddess ~ Arctic Breakfast ~ Circular Rainbows ~  

~ Soul Singing ~ Canine Connections ~ Heart Hound ~ Isolation ~ Creating ~ 

~ Answering a Call ~ Arctic Sisters ~ Laughter ~ Knitting ~ Tears ~ Love ~ Icicles ~ 

~ Tipis ~ Companionship ~ Crisp Cold ~ Crystal Eyelashes ~ Lunar Madness ~ 

~ Antlers ~ Snow Drifts ~ Beauty ~ Northern Lights ~

~ Longing to Return to the Land of Snow and Ice ~