I make no apologies ...

... for including this quote by Justine Ashbee:

"We are defined by a life of inquiry. If you allow your curiosity to stop then you risk stagnation. I think it's important to allow ourselves to fall passionately in love with something and have a rampant love affair with a medium, material, or style, and then later come to understand why, what happened, what you've learned and when it's time to let go of it."

Justin Ashbee draws lines!  But that's just one of her artistic and very creative pursuits. The lines are not just lines! Go here for more information, or do a search with her name. I came across her words this morning, but have known her drawings for some time and been inspired by them.

Yesterday I took another dozen or so of my paintings down to the cellar to join about 200 others. I don't paint any more. I think that part of my life is now over. I have a legacy of works - some are so good that I ask myself how I could possibly have painted them. But I know it's time to move on. For the last five years line drawing abstracts has been a constant companion, made more compatible because paper takes far less room than canvas.

We learn from everything we do. If we stop being active, we stop learning! That is Justine's message, and it's also mine.

I am about to give up chorus directing after 25 years. Since this included arranging or composing all the music for my various choruses and their various styles, it really means that I am giving up choral arranging as well.

I quitted the theatre in 1997 after realizing that I no longer wanted to be on the stage, although I always loved and still in theory love acting and singing. At that time, I also gave up public performance of my singing, though I had lived for it for many decades, starting at junior school age when I told everyone I was going to be an opera singer (7 years before I saw my first opera). The bare canvas was now to be my stage. I would populated it with expressionist and impressionist paintiing, but also with figurative work.

I no longer even play the piano as much, but that's because my hands are arthritic and no longer able to cope with the music I want to play. I find it hard to compromise. When I look at a music score I can hear it, so that compensates largely for not actually playing the notes.

I stopped attending art workshops. They are expensive and usually disappointing, not least because the artists simply can't teach. I could write a book about the awful workshops I have been to.

I have stopped giving any kind of music lesson, be it piano or singing, or coaching English language.

Long before all those events I had given up my marriage. Being single and alone is definitely preferable to being the victom of deceit, lies and humiliation.

So what has replaced or will replace past activities?

1) Writing novels, just for me! I'm currently writing the 9th in a series and trying to revise them as I go along. That isn't easy. My typing is not good and I don't see all the errors the first time round (or the second). I also added love interest to two of my main characters and had to go back over all previous books to get it all sorted out.
I also write poetry and have a poetry blog that is stagnating at the moment, but likely to be taken up again when the poetic muse kisses me.

Eyes DIN A3

"F" DIN A3

2) Drawing ever more lines on fairly large format paper (as big as my table will allow), but with plans to draw even bigger works when I've worked out where to do that. I am also colouring more drawings than I used to with gel pens (which do not bleed through paper) and waiting currently for an order from Amazon because they unfortunately empty or dry up fast.






3) I want to compose for instrumental ensembles, but I need to be free of my chorus first and rearrange the musical part of my mind. For that I need time and serenity, neither of which I can boast at this moment.

4) More travel experiences as long as I can deal with them healthwise. I travelled a lot as a singer before I was left a single parent!

5) I have a grandson. I don't see him much since the family lives too far away, but he is constantly in my thoughts, just as my chldren were and still are.

6) I now go to a higher quality fitness studio, paid for by savings on food I don't need and often throw away, and fewer clothing items that I can't wear out or don't need (so they go to charity shops, sometimes unworn - but that is not going to happen again!).

What I don't need are New Year resolutions. I'm making them all the time to accommodate the changes in myself as I move unwillingly into old age. Every age is a new age. We have to go with the flow and make compromises whether we like it or not.

Thanks for reading!