U is for Unity

In our Living Your Word of the Year group we are using a fortnightly (bi-weekly) A-Z challenge throughout the year to help us focus on our word and live it out.

Because of the way I have made my journal it's a case of going with the flow of what background the pages have when I turn to them.

Sadly, I was feeling totally devoid of any creative inspiration for these pages.  The quotes I had found were rather long so I decided against cutting them up into strips.

I added some washi tape and the word unity.

Both pages together.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Join Our Inspirational Facebook Group: Living Your Word of the Year

Join Mary Brack, Valerie Sjodin and I in our Facebook group where we are giving participants the opportunity to live out an A-Z of their own word throughout 2019.  Mary explains what we are doing in her blog post.  We don't like a lot of rules, so we will have suggestions and options to spark creativity, and to help in recording and exploring our word’s meaning in visual and fun ways. We will each blog about our experiences and our art.

 Living Your Word of the Year 2019

Hashtags on Instagram:  #livingyourword2019

Check out the other blogs:
Mary: www.foundonbrighton.com
Valerie: www.valeriesjodin.com/blog

To ensure you get updates from Valerie, Mary & I why not subscribe to our blogs.

Mental Health Awareness

This week has been Mental Health Awareness week with World Mental Health Day on Thursday.  The week started with a video: Every Mind Matters.

I have written about mental health and in particular my struggles with depression before - in a post Time to Talk Day and a follow up post More Talk.

This week I have felt better than I have felt for months.  The previous week in particular was a really down time. I am reluctant to share with people if I am in need because the ladies I trust to ‘have my back’ either have really busy lives or have problems they are dealing with. But by the Friday I was in the deepest hole ever and felt I was not only going to hit rock bottom but disappear into the sludge beneath the rock. Not that I told anyone that. I did however message four friends to ask for prayer. They sent me lovely messages of support.

On the way to church I was thinking about life in general and the verse ‘without vision the people perish’. I was wondering why I do art and textiles, why I bother to run the Jubilee Studio, what was the point of getting up in the morning etc.   During the preach, our guest speaker talked about living with a greater sense of our value, dignity and purpose.

During the meeting I was able to talk to people about the depression and lack of refreshing sleep - often getting up more tired than the night before.  People prayed with me. During the coffee time afterwards a friend gave me a card and a present.

What timing!  She hadn't known anything about my struggles.

If you are a Believer, don't doubt how important your prayers, chats and encouragement is.

If you are not a Believer, don't doubt how important your chats and encouragement are.

Either way, send cards, give gifts, smile, listen.

World Mental Health Day saw the release of this video.

Keep talking.  Keep listening.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice

Gum Arabic

This October I think I may be living part time at Littleheath Barn.  Between workshops, studio days and the Art Textile Group I seem to be there once or twice a week for the whole month.  So to start, I went to a Sue Brown workshop on Gum Arabic Transfer Printing.

I love tutors who are organised and Sue is extremely organised and led us expertly through her techniques.  We started by practising on paper.  Here I have printed the one on the right and laid down the next print ready to burnish.

 I added a further print of the moths.

I also tried printing directly into a sketchbook

Sue gave us some calico and a box of bits to rummage through to make two collages.

As you see we tacked them before printing on them.

Then I used the photocopies Sue provided to print on the fabrics.

 I'm not sure about the orange blots, but I could stitch to make them look like flowers.

 Here's my 'show and tell'.

I have to confess that I signed up for this workshop rather late, took Sue at her word about not needing to take anything with me, didn't feel particularly well and had no idea what the workshop was about before I got there, so I am pleased with the results I got.

I think using someone else's photocopies and fabrics meant I wasn't emotionally attached to anything and was able to play freely.  It was quite a nice feeling.

Sue is back next year at Littleheath or you can find her at the yard:ARTspace in Cheltenham.

Thanks for joining me today.
Bernice