listening

on Taking time out, in order to change the view

| Caroline Homfray

Working as an artist means a lot of time spent not knowing. I get an idea, or I carry out some experiments, but often I don’t know where they’re going, and whether the result will be something I’m happy with. There’s a lot of taking the next steps forward and remembering to trust the process, usually working in isolation, without knowing if anything of worth will come out of it – or whether it will be of interest to anyone else. There are still times when it can all feel rather uncomfortable.

As an artist and a teacher, I’ve had to get used to not knowing – my own, and other people’s.

The most important part of my role as a teacher is to support others through their uncertainty, vulnerability, and fears. To do this it’s crucial that I support myself – by taking time regularly: time out, and to reflect, and to consider if I need to do anything differently. This has similarities with how I assess a piece of artwork as it’s coming along. I need to pause every now and then, step back from the active making, and look at it.

I get relaxed, -sit back on my chaise long (it’s the guest bed futon really, but dressed up with blankets and my special cushion), with my tea, and the piece propped up. I allow myself to pay attention, in a soft focus sort of way, to what’s going on – with the piece, and in myself. It’s a sort of attentive waiting, allowing the space to see what pops up in response – to find out what’s going on under the noisy surface of the cerebral mind.

I can reflect on formal elements: colour, composition, proportion, balance, harmony. It might become apparent what needs adding, altering or taking away. More than one relaxing and looking session might be needed to arrive at the insights needed to move forward. That could be solitary time, musing and journaling, or it could involve talking it through with another. I like a mixture. It’s about creating the right conditions for the insights to arrive.

When the moment is right and the ideas appear, I feel a little surge of energy to take the next step, because I’ve got some clarity and confidence about what that should be. Quite often not beyond that, but the next step is enough. If, eventually, I am happy with what has appeared on my paper, canvas or fabric, then there’s the next step of putting it out in the world and finding out what others think. Putting myself out there, which is often scary.

Being an artist or maker of any sort has valuable lessons for living: in dealing with uncertainty, finding authenticity, finding out out what one wants to envision. It also involves dealing with fears that might block, and finding the courage to be fully oneself. Finding ways to cope – and to thrive- for myself has gone hand in hand with finding ways to support my students in whatever it is they want to achieve. It’s not possible to talk about art and not talk about life. Creativity is not only for artists. Those ideas and strategies for creating a vision and removing the block towards it are useful whatever you’re wanting to move towards

Finding ways to cope – and to thrive- for myself has gone hand in hand with finding ways to support my students in whatever it is they want to acheive. It’s not possible to talk about art and not talk about life. Creativity is not only for artists. Those ideas and strategies for creating a vision and removing the block towards it are useful whatever you’re wanting to move towards.

As a result, I’m bringing my experiences to a new venture. Next April, my friend Laura and I will be running a retreat day designed to give space, away from the noise of everyday life. We’ve chosen to set our day in the tranquil surroundings of a beautiful retreat house in Surrey. There’ll be time to relax, and settle into the beautiful surroundings of the studio. We’ll take time to reflect: with each other, talking, listening and journalling. There will be space to dream, using paper and colours. You will leave with tools to help you make choices and move forwards with whatever you want to grow in your life, as Spring surges into growth.

It’s just £60 to attend for the day. See below for more details and to register for a place.

Register on Eventbrite

Travelling with potential

| Caroline Homfray

I was reminded yesterday of declaring some time ago that I really wanted to reach my potential, desperate for it. Recently I’ve been thinking more about this phrase. It suggests that potential is a thing out there to be reached, like a mountain peak, requiring struggle and effort fixed on a goal. I was asked, what will you do when you reach it? will you be happy?

Envisioning the future has long been hard for me; recurring bouts of depression have  eroded my ability to see forward. At times, the future I could concentrate on was the next few minutes. Yet I knew I still wanted to ‘reach my potential’. I don’t know what it is I’m trying to reach though. When asked what I want, usually all that’s there is a sort of desperation, and something of a void, like hunting in a large cave with a small torch.

Now though, I’m becoming aware of a burning desire to explore what I can do. Feeling a drive to put stuff out there – thoughts, music, art, listening, enabling – assess the result, then choose the next thing, like navigating through a new landscape, bit by bit, and it opening out before me. This isn’t a clear view to the mountain, where all that has to be decided is how to get there. It’s a continual checking of a map which is being made, asking questions, feeling my way along, looking outwards, seeing what could be done, doing, noting it, and then checking inwards to find out how that feels, does it sit well with me, does it flow?

Potential feels more like Dylan Thomas’s ‘green fuse that drives the flower’. There is a fuel, (a need? drive? desire?) and a process (observing, acting, assessing, recalculating, observing…). It isn’t anything I’m going to reach. It isn’t only about work. It’s a restless, searching force, it’s a process, it feels energising, it’s life.

 

Don’t be scared of your own needs

| Caroline Homfray

St Anne and the VirginI sat down with a good friend recently and we had a deep think about the difficulties of asking for help, whether it’s ok to lean on people or not, but how hard it is to engage with the world without the right structure or framework. We asked the question: What is support?  Here’s our list, please feel free to add or discuss.

  • Validation. someone saying: your experience is what it is, and worth something.
  • A sense of being understood
  • Empathy; that recognition of your experience leading to a feeling of shared understanding and acceptance of its difficulties.
  • been given the sense that it’s going to be okay, but when it feels like it isn’t, receiving empathy and comfort, feeling held.
  • Being witnessed. Being seen, you are here and your experience counts.
  • Receiving insights
  • Sharing skills, strategies. resources -a planning system, a book, a TED talk, a piece of poetry, some art or music, some listening.
  • Being listened to with trust and confidence I will get time to think through myself, my listener will not jump in with solutions unless I request it.
  • Receiving compassion. ‘to suffer with’ that sense of someone standing with you in your difficulty, not offering you sympathy from their position of greater ease
  • Trust that I can find my way
  • Willingness to openly discuss boundaries, to consider and negotiate them
  • Care to know what my areas of sensitivity and pain are, acknowledging them but letting me own them and manage them.
  • Being reminded by example to practise self-care and develop awareness of what is needed
  • Reciprocity. I want to be able to give these things, as well as receive them.

it isn’t good to feel you only receive these things, it creates a sense of inequality and feeling less than. it may be possible to offer and receive these things mutually, or maybe one will receive and give to different people. Acheiving a sense of balance about it, and knowing also that what can be given and what one needs  to receive will ebb and flow; sometimes one will be greater than the other. For me, a spell of depressions means I might need more but be less able to ask; I want to be able to start giving again as I recover.