Ubud Bali

Poem 20-4-2011

What a sweet cacophony  

Exotic mix of sounds

all melding intricately 

every sense alive

and tense with expectation

the earth awake and thriving

the land a heated mass of writhing

juicy people, working, walking,

talking, offering, laughing,skypeing

birds are bathing, dogs are sleeping,

butterflies playing and gecko's are dreaming

rain drops splashing ,colour jumping

Life so rich my heart is thumping

Bali

I arrived last night into this magical, lush rabbit warren called Santra Putra just 10 minutes walk from Ubud village.I'm getting acclimatised and finding my way through the maze of walkways, meeting new people and enjoying the wild, natural environment co existing with a very busy and at the same time laid back Balinese life. More later and photo's as well but for now I am going to get some rest.

Autumn Light

Autumn, in the Southern hemisphere, has finally arrived and the garden is breathing a sigh of relief and blossoms are popping up everywhere. Colour and light are changing, softening and somehow intensifying. Theres a cacophony of birdsong in the morning that would wake the dead. After the long, hot, dry summer the sweet smell of the earth and these first rains is a beautiful, heady elixir and pulls me outside to paint or draw.

Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity | Video on TED.com

Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity | Video on TED.com

Bali here I come

Yesterday I met with some of the women I will be sharing the Bali art retreat with. Preparation has begun in earnest and I am really looking forward to exploring a new place ( for me) and experiencing Balinese culture. Dawn has painted a picture (pun intended) of what we will be doing during the workshop and one of the things is the act of creating  a  temple/shrine based on our own personal gifts - this has stirred my creative juices and I am getting very excited. When I used to mosaic a few years ago I created a few shrines which are hanging in the garden with little ledges for tea candles to sit on. One of them I made for my mother when her own mother died and it hangs in her garden. I felt it was a way to connect because my grandmother is buried in England and so we had our own little ceremony here. I am wanting to not only paint temples and shrines but transfer some of those into pop-up 3D images also. This trip is bringing together 4 of my loves - travel,creating temples and shrines, mandala and pop-up art. I am so ready to experience the joy, nurturing and sacred spaces that make up the whole of this beautiful workshop. I feel, Dawn , through her knowledge and experience, which she so generously shares with us, is guiding me to a place I have been preparing for all my life.

I am so grateful.