A Happy New Year to you - what time is it already? Really, are we in the roaring twenties, cos I’m still writing the date as nineteenandsomething…. But seriously, here we are. A fresh and bright new start, if you want it to be so….
Sketchbook pages from a few years ago….
When I was a very young child I realised that time was not real - clock hands could be moved by human touch. Clocks stopped and started. The clock the teacher held was a great example of this. Mrs Buxton sat at the front of the class and we looked up from the carpet. She moved the red hands on the wooden clock she rested on her knee. Now what time is it? And now? Catherine, can you tell me what the time is? The school bell rings. Going home time, Miss.
Knowing that time can be manipulated, made to be a certain time, freed up the child’s imagination. I could slip here and there. It was fine to be in this moment and somewhere else, a different time and place simultaneously. I was the girl who dressed in a Victorian striped gown to have her photograph taken for the local newspaper, as part of the school’s 150th birthday celebrations (was it 150? I can’t honestly remember but I think possibly). Slate in hand, looking earnest, feeling more myself than I ever did in my usual bottle green uniform - I loved being that Victorian for a moment and so she still remains with me today.
If each moment in this world is quite possibly lived simultaneously but we humans experience it as one-moment-after-another, then anything might be possible. These past few years have made us more aware than ever of things being unpredictable. We need our back-up plans, our sideways steps, our quiet spaces, friendships, calm occupations, good sleeps and busy happy days. Things take time and yet time has became a little more mushy, indistinct. We take things in our stride but only so much.
A new year might feel awfully familiar. Here we are again and again and again. But this year, more than ever, we are collectively hoping for something like a sigh of relief.
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New Year’s Eve, just a few days ago, I was cleaning in the kitchen when I noticed a helicopter circling above, getting lower and lower. I wondered if it was the police looking for a missing person or suspect - these things do happen now and then. But it wasn’t a police helicopter, it was larger and something I had not seen before. Anxious about the birds, as they scattered, frantically, I was slightly cursing the big metal thing as the helicopter made another loop around and began to descend.
Next thing: I am rushing to the front of the house and I look out to see the helicopter appear to be landing on my neighbour’s roof! I can see people inside, dressed in orange hi-vis. I grab my key, phone and step outside the house. Of course it’s not landing on a tiny house roof but on the patch of land just beyond. The neighbourhood is awash with dry lives spinning across the street and road, the helicopter dispersing every twig and leaf - birds have fled. The pilot has somehow navigated his way between trees and found a spot to settle. It’s an air ambulance, landed in our little neighbourhood. This is not the back of beyond - but a suburban setting of many houses and roads.
Many of us neighbours have now assembled to see. There’s the exchange of happy new years. Three medics climb out and stride toward a waiting car.
I rush back home with a short video and photos to show my son. As an autistic person, he is often very absorbed in his own world and any sudden shift can be alarming to him. So I don’t pressure him to come and see the helicopter.
But when the helicopter eventually leaves and drifts upward right by our window as if it has come to look in at our tiny Christmas tree, I am almost begging him to look up from his noodle lunch. I can see everyone on board, the vast technology of it as it sails upward. My son looks out: oh yeah, there it is - a helicopter, a big one! Later he says to me: you had an exciting day today, didn’t you! I say yes, I did. Sorry I couldn’t get excited about the helicopter, he says, but I am glad you liked seeing it.
Later, I show the video and photos to my daughter ( who had been at work). How, why did they park there? She says, baffled. It was quite an extraordinary feat. And we don’t know why they came and who they treated. But the air ambulance service is something I have even bigger respect for.
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It’s not just time, but space….
Space is becoming more and more limited and I am going to have to make some decisions soon - on what to really focus on making over the months ahead. I have some idea, already, but have yet to finally decide. A pre-Christmas sort-out of my studio area has revealed a stock of things that are waiting to be used, for ideas to become more than.
I know that I want to make more sculptural, three dimensional things - in various media. This does not go well with lack of space. So whatever I do will need to be on a small scale. There’s some interesting challenges ahead - and I will relish the opportunity to make it work for me.
I am aiming to update my shop most Wednesdays, as I have done in the past. The time may change now and then, but will stay the same mostly because this is quite established now. I appreciate your support so very much, thank you.
Meanwhile, these weekly studio notes have a growing audience and I am so very grateful. I appreciate all your kind comments and feedback. Later this month I will be launching a new paying-subscriber version of these studio notes - to exist alongside these free weekly notes. I want to keep writing these Sunday notes and they will remain public and free to read. But I also want to offer more in-depth notes where I discuss my process in my detail - something I am asked about a lot. My hope is that at least some of you who read here (thank you) will be interested in knowing more. The paid subscriber notes will be sent about twice a month. More info soon.
sketchbook pages from a few years ago
In the meantime, thank you again for reading here. If you would like to support my time and sharing then please consider buying me a coffee.
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Happy New Year Cathy, I hope it’s a good one. This year is going to be very different for me. My mum died on the 15th of December, she had been increasingly frail and had multiple health issues. I have been caring for her for the past 4 years along with the wonderful carers that I couldn’t have done without. I hadn’t realised how much time and energy it took, I have ME and so don’t have a lot of energy to start with. I am looking forward to having time to create and explore this year, trying new things I wanted to do but couldn’t get around too, even reading was too overwhelming as was listening to music. Although I have a very sad start to the year I feel very positive and look forward to all that a new year brings, as I write this I am aware that slowly and surely the days are growing longer and that soon I hope to have a bit more energy to tackle my very neglected garden.
All the very best.
Happy New Year, Cathy! I, too, have pondered the concept of time and often wish that we humans could still live according to the seasons of the natural world. This morning the sun is shining brightly on our last-night-of-2021 gift of snowfall (our first of the season, the latest ever) and the temperature has zoomed up above zero from last night’s low of -10F (-23C). Still, with our modern ‘conveniences’ life is expected to continue as normal, work as usual. It concerns me that people are put at risk driving on icy roads, often in the dark, to get to work at an appointed time. Just three days ago a wildfire whipped by savage winds completely annihilated 1,000 homes in the course of a single afternoon only 12 miles from our property. Looking up at the enormous smoke plumes that darkened the sky for miles I felt a sense of time collapsing, that such an event could not possibly exist within such a short parameter of time. Is progress moving us forward? It feels like we need to slow down, reflect, reevaluate. Our obsession with time=money has compromised quality of life, created an imbalance. I, for one, am ready to reconsider my own sense of time and resources. I am very excited to hear that you are adding to your Substack content! I will certainly subscribe! Your art and your writing slow down time for me, or perhaps it is that I take the time to fully appreciate your offerings. Either way, to read more about your thoughtful process will be a gift in this new year. Sending you and your family wishes for a blessed 2022 filled with joy in all the little things! ❤️