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| 'Catching Butterflies' by Colleen Parker HERE: |
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| The Dyng Year, Albert Klingner |
We are well into the New Year, and although I do not like to commit to resolutions I think it is not a bad thing to just try harder to finish those things which mean something to us and enhance our lives, and possibly the life of someone else too.
People often ask me why that I write. I think most people who do so would agree with me that it fills some need. I simply must.
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| HERE: |
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| Butterfly gloves by Tiny Owl Knits HERE: |
I almost always have thoughts floating round my head and must capture them and put them to paper or page before they fly away. I dislike things being forgotten whether that be people, places or words and images.
The past is full of wisdom and the older that we get we become full too. Where does it all go when we die? It is the ordinary folk who are often forgotten, and with them volumes of stories. So I think I write to share those stories.
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| from the things we say |
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| The Storyteller, Albert Anker (1850-1899) |
When I was little I was often sat enthralled by the old storytellers in my family, little did I think that one day it would fall to me to tell their tale along with those of many others, and my own.
I usually begin each new year looking backwards at the old one. Just briefly. I am not very good at goodbyes and I like to linger for a little while before moving on.
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| Joan Crawford in an art deco revolving door |
The past to me is not a door which you shut firmly behind you. For me it is a revolving door which goes both ways. Always.
Like most of you, last year I said farewell to many familiar people and places. My world is less certain without the guideposts they provided and it will take more time for me to find my balance again. Over the next few weeks I want to try, very hard, to do them justice in putting a little of their stories to the page and sharing this with you so that hopefully, somewhere, sometime, someone will find them again.
Of course this year began with the death of two best beloved storytellers, David Bowie, and Alan Rickman. The loss is felt greatly by many, myself included, but then there are all of the little people who told stories quietly in smaller worlds and yet released them just as well.
Lost things often do become found and in so doing they are new again. If things such as us are remembered I believe we never completely die. Only a part of us does.
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| Lizzie Riches more HERE: |
I posted last Spring about paper mache eggs and boxes (which I collect) and ended the post with a lovey painting that has haunted me for sometime. I asked readers to leave me a comment should anyone know whose artistic hand had created this piece. The original post is HERE:
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| Woman by the fire Lionel Percy Smythe |
And, someone did. Thank you very much to Paresh Dholakia! It was especially interesting for me to have the name of this artist, Lionel Percy Smythe, because this time last year his work touched me quite deeply when I accidently came across it on a gallery catalogue. I posted a bit about him, and the story of the painting in the catalogue,
HERE:
I had not guessed at all that this too was by his hand and without the kindness of strangers I may have never known.
I have always depended on the kindness of strangers, is a line from Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)
