A clay day with Julia

 

We had a beautiful day on Saturday afternoon, I had come home from painting after a week off feeling all inspired and really needing to create more…Nev and I had a deal that if he had Julia for the morning and went to the school craft day to make wizard sticks and I painted at Spencer Street Studios, then after art I would have Julia at home while he watched the rugby.

So I wanted to get creative with Jubes and asked her what she wanted – clay!  So we bought a bag of clay and set about it.  I set us up and said I would take us through a meditational inspiration where we would start with the ball of clay in our hands and with our eyes closed we would explore it with our fingers and thumbs, noticing everything about it and that we should let go of any ideas of what we wanted to make and let the clay speak to us….. Julia had wanted to make a mermaid but in the end her first thing was a sunflower, angel, fountain, dish, person in chair, tortoise and still she wanted more! – I stuck with the one piece for the full 2 hours or so and loved every moment of it (jubes couldn’t understand why I was only doing 1 piece!)– we whispered together as i’d explained it is best to work in silence to let our creative inner voices speak to us but there was lovely soft unintrusive music playing in the back ground – everything was quite until everything totally opposite came through the door in the form of a human boxer puppy – leaping with joy over a historical rugby win to Aussie  - the phone calls followed, the doors left open and crash  went my silent retreat and space and focus – It made me realise how so important it is to have a quiet time and space, a sacred retreat within your own home, away from noise, chaos and potential sudden intrusions into the personal space (not so much of your house or room)  but of your mind.

My clay process was amazing and I am going to post it on Sarahs Brainchild – it was amazing how as she developed i just had more and more ideas as to where she could go – i haven’t been deep in process like that for ages, if ever!..maybe it was because it was in my own space and time and it was my own process.