Persistence and Balance

When we came home from a holiday in Cornwall something clicked. Having spent time camping by the dunes, paddling at St Michaels mount with mackerel skimming our toes, our perspective changed. Why are we waiting all year to be in a place that we love? Our house at that time was a special home, but not in the best place. Designed by Lorrie Abbott in the 1960’s and unique, it fitted our lifestyle and ethos in part. But the environment around us was oppressive and limiting. We made a decision to move closer to the sea, away from suburbia. At the same time we also began to try for our first child, two big new adventures to navigate. Both with difficulties in our paths ahead. Planning to pull up our roots was the only plan. Nothing else firmly mapped out.

Having children has never felt limiting, it has made some things more complex and others more important. There are challenges and joys. It has filled our lives with new adventures and some turbulence. When our first child arrived I started to create art again, finding ways to make work despite other pressures on my time. Crafting jewellery and small sculptures inspired by lobster pots and nets from a visit to Whitstable. I would work in small pockets of time, sometimes with my baby asleep strapped to me in a sling. I booked my first stall at an art and craft fair at Farnham Maltings. I sold my work to supportive enthusiastic people and made enough to buy a ring cast from the surface of a pebble from the jeweller next to me. We chatted about being creative, managing working from home with children and how to make things work. I still wear the ring every day, it reminds me of leaping forward, and most times just to keep moving forward.

Since that point I worked persistently. Making time work, finding space for my practice. I put my work forward and exhibited, starting a cycle of creating towards events. Having a purpose to create and share. The times my life shifts out of balance are all to do with the tide of events. I have learned to keep my head above the swell and keep my creative practice as an anchor.