I’ve awoken to a beautiful summer morning. My sweetheart has headed off to yoga. I have a few free hours before I need to head to my shop. The French doors are open to my patio.  I resist the urge to check my emails and instead wander out to our garden with hot chai in hand. What to do? Self directed yoga on the deck? Tinker in the garden? Paint?

I love my garden. It is so full of color, texture and life! I even create vignettes in my garden. 

 

I should really tidy up the house…or write a much overdue blog post…that’s it! The thing about blogging is I really need to be in the right frame of my for blog writing hence the gap in posts. It’s not writers block or lack of inspiration. In fact it’s too much inspiration. Between nature walks, treasure hunting, creating vignettes at the shop with all my finds, painting, styling/shooting interiors etc I find my desire for creative expression via a computer diminished! I struggle with the technology when nature is calling….

I think it comes down to texture! There is no tactile pleasure working on a laptop!!! 

At the shop I fold linen and place bird’s nests. I tie coarse twine and smooth satin ribbon. I add paint and smooth off chippy paint. I sand, scrape, scratch, splat & polish.

On nature walks I pick up downy bits of moss, crinkly bundles of lichen, frosty bits of beach glass, gnarly branches, old twisty rope.

The tactile pleasure and experience of touching, holding, feeling shaping is so important. Texture delights the eye as light catches on the edges of things, and recesses fall into the shadows. We speak of the texture of life…does love have a texture? I think so. Can we find love woven into the bow of a ribbon tied by thoughtful hands?

Love in the nest made by a bird? Was love present over hundreds of years when the lichen formed on a tree? In the potter’s hands, the painter’s brush, the gardener’s trowel?

I think so. In my words and my two dimensional images I try to bring this texture alive so that other’s can feel the depth of things. Love resonates in things that grow. Life resonates in objects loved, touched. Linen comes from flax hewn by hands. Then spun, woven. Sewn,worn. Laundered, folded. This is the texture of life. Lichen. Linen. Love.

So how can I make blogging a tactile experience? This is how….