Change, acceptance and new creative opportunities

Big decisions followed by acceptance allow me to move forward. Again.

Maybe I will start working on my photo album cover again too…

After too many physical/mental challenges to create the video presentation for Cork Puppetry Festival, attend (briefly) 2 zoom meetings (Cork, and Chile), and being encouraged to be more part of the community here, I had to concede that I need to be much more in tune, respected, and clear in what I can and can no longer do. Unfortunately a lot less…

I will have to listen much better to what my body needs. And put expectations aside. My own, and from others.

Creatively I have made the decision that I will no longer do any online events. The physical collapses were just too scary to justify any further involvement in them.

However it was utterly beautiful and a huge honour to share my work, my stories, and to communicate with some amazing people over the years. 

I do realise that anyone who wants to hear, read, see my work, there is enough material out there. Over time I intend to create a list of links to talks, podcast, videos etc. and share it on my blog. (For now, there is lots on my website and blog, including links to videos and podcasts) Maybe I’ll extend last week’s video, but certainly not yet!

As always, when decision are made, and I fully accept them, in this case to withdraw from public online engagements, a beautiful opportunity arose.

In stead of giving I will be receiving. The universe as always heard me, and supported me.

Request for Assistance

Months ago I put a request in for Personal Assistance (PA) through Disability Services, in order to be able to explore life a little more outside my room, as well as receive support creatively. The application is in…. And as before, that is where it stayed. (Probably when it is granted, it is too late to be able to explore the world outside my room…)

Anyway. To find a way ‘out’ in the meantime, I put out a call in a private group of artist - and in a subsequent beautiful turn of  events I have very gratefully accepted one to one support through Waterford Healing Arts Trust. (WHAT)

My first contacts with WHAT was the invitation to give a talk in 2004

From next Thursday I will be collaborating with artist Caroline Schofield to see what and where and how my current abilities fit to continue to use my creative mind. As we talked on the phone yesterday we both acknowledged that this isn’t just me getting support, but it is very much a process for both of us. Hence using the word collaboration. 

I think this contact will also help me to start working on the embroidered tree again (See first image and here ) and other unfinished projects.

I now need to be horizontal a great deal of the time. Communicating is now only possible if I lay flat. This will also be the case for creative work. I imagine.

Initially there will be three sessions with Caroline. No idea what will happen, but after a phone call yesterday with the artist the Tree, and my Tree House will be central to our collaboration.

It has been a tough learning process. Again!

Time to rest, rest, rest, and then play.

Be well and much love.

Further reading: 

• Cork Puppetry Festival transcript: http://corinaduyn.blogspot.com/2021/07/presentation-at-cork-puppetry-festival.html
• Moving into long term care: http://corinaduyn.blogspot.com/2021/05/my-tree-house-moving-into-long-term-care.html
• Interestingly, I announced my retirement back in March: http://corinaduyn.blogspot.com/2021/03/early-retirement.html
• In October I had already told myself that ‘Invisible Octopus’ was my last work to explore ME http://corinaduyn.blogspot.com/2020/09/invisible-octopus-demands-of-creative.html Little did I know how much my life would change months later.

It takes time, and trust, to accept change

To follow on from the last post of letting go of my studio,  I have to say that ‘it’ all makes sense in the end. (It always does...)

Work in progress on scrapbook-cover
From the comfort of my day-bed in my ‘new’ (studio) room

But first of all: Thank you for those of you who reached out and shared their thoughts on the continued changes illness demands. Also interesting to hear and read how, yes, these changes are incredibly hard, but that it is my strength to not shy away from them. That I don’t ‘freeze’. That I go along with these changes.

True. And thank you. But boy are these changes hard on the soul.

Long time ago

I have to admit that my OT (Occupational Therapist) suggested in early 2018 that maybe I should bring my studio indoors. She was not the only one who suggested this. But at that time I just couldn’t imagine how this could be done. There was so much stuff in my studio. How on earth could I bring this in and not totally clutter up my lovely home. I wasn’t ready.

As you read, I did make many changes over the years. Maybe that is what I needed to do. One tiny (or big) step at the time. Nuggets of change. Trying to go with the flow- although I ‘swam against the tide’ as much as I possible could. 

Yes - I remain stubborn.

So now - March 2021.

I have to admit that the move to bring the very much reduced selection of art and craft materials indoors was right. During the sorting out it was paper and some fabric which got my attention. I did save some paints too, but not sure yet why. When it came to the box of puppet eyes and hair for some reason there was “No Way!” I could let these go. The reason? I haven’t the foggiest idea!

What makes me admit that the move of having a (reduced) studio in my room where the ‘day-bed’ is was right thing to do, is the fact that I can do a tiny bit of something creative most days. While comfy on this bed.

Photo album-scrapbook

Over the past while I have started to sort photos (again). And I like cutting paper. These two activities combined made me cut up photos. Both I can do while in bed, on recliner or on my day-bed. 

I am hoping over the coming year (leading up to my 60th) to make collages from these photo cuttings. I decided to do this on A3 heavy good quality watercolour paper. In landscape format as they fit perfectly on my over-bed and over-chair tables. (One has to remain practical). 

After a lot of thinking and planning, I came up with the idea to adapt an Lever-arch folder to hold the sheets. With help from friend Pascale this was created two weeks ago. And how lovely it was to have a creative person here to help me, versus just carers coming in. (No offence to carers!) A bit of normality. (Keeping Covid restrictions and precautions in place of course.)

My brains, combined with her brains and ability, the basis for the cover was made. The possible covering for this has already seen many a change: from red leather to handmade paper, to fabric, to adding a photo, to adding the wooden tree from the shadow puppetry time, to embroidery...

Positives 

This process of thinking is so incredibly useful to divert the draining energy around ongoing care issues and decline in health. As always I find it so powerful to be able to focus the mind to something positive and constructive. It still takes energy, but is more balanced in a way.

Having access to some fabric, scissors, treads, paper, etc etc in my ‘day-bed-room’, dare I call it my new ‘studio’?, makes it possible to do just a little bit of trying out at various times during the day. This would Not have happened if my material was still in the real studio. There! My OT and others were right all along. I just needed time to get there...

So, watch this space to see what will come of this photo-album-scrapbook-cover, and inners.

Bonus

What is also very beautiful is that my idea to do this project has inspired two other creatives along the way. One fellow creative whom I had initially asked to make the cover for me and my friend Pascale. The significance for me is that I truly thought my creative mind had ‘died’. That I had reached the point of being unable to access it. It hasn’t. And am very grateful for that.

Puppet Power

Yesterday I had a visit from a creative friend.

She brought her doll she has been working on for a number of years, in the hope I could guide her on the next step to bring it into being.

After lunch we made it into my studio.

view from my studio

I took up position on my 'home-made-recliner-window-seat' while Pascale sat at the work table. 

the window seat- made from an old shelf unit.

It was lovely just to BE in my studio and looking out at the birds in my garden.

And to just chat about creative ideas. Where to go from here.

I did not feel the need to do any work. I did not really have the energy.

What I DID do, was to take a new Pasta maker  (see below) out of the box, to see if it really would work to make thin sheets of clay for future projects.

It did!

And when I put the thin sheet of clay in the 'spagetty' part of the machine, it made this wonderful "hair", which I deposited onto a head I had made a few years ago.

Who knows, 'it' might be made into a puppet one day, now it is sporting a new hair-do.

Hair!
Playing with a pasta maker

The teaching of making puppets, and the healing aspect of this, is one of the things I would like to focus on in the near future. Preferable teaching in my studio (but open to other suggestions), so I have all materials at hand, I don't have to pack boxes, or think too far ahead in terms of what I need to bring.

This idea follows on from the "Life Outside the Box" Puppetry Project. An inclusive Art Project I facilitated with fellow members of the Irish Wheelchair Association. 

The project was much more than just having a bit of fun. It brought many of the makers out of their comfort zone, in a good way. We explored our personal boundaries and that of society. Through the puppets, we as people living with disabilities, became parts of society in an unexpected way. 

Our project explored boundaries imposed by society. And as a result, the end product- a set of puppets and a film, were seen by many: in exhibitions, at a disability film festival in Canada, in the local cinema, in many news paper articles, and on national television. See the film we made, and the project in more detail on this Puppet Blog. It brought a discussion about. Beautiful.

Also as a result of this project I have been invited to give a paper at the upcoming The Broken Puppet: A symposium on puppetry, disability and health. 

I hope to build on this puppet-power, by working with other groups of people.

Preferably in my studio- a group up to 4 people is maximum.

If interested- please let me know.

Or is you are reading this and would like to explore if I can teach in another location, and with a larger group of people, and can provide the necessary support, I gladly hear from you.

But for today, the limelight is on Pascale's doll in progress... who in a way solidified my thoughts on doing puppet workshops. Thank you!

Visiting doll 

surgery

Belly- Button!

... home again, and sitting much more upright
with more confidence and pride.

for illustration only, this is the
pasta maker I mention-
a brilliant tool for the studio

The root of sorrow is craving, but there is always hope to see the bigger picture

The root of sorrow is craving.

Antony de Mello - Awareness 

potbound Aloe Vera

Three weeks of recovery from the 'hospital-Holland-marathon', and I seem to be finally completing the road to re-connect with the person that I thought was me.  Both the hospital and travel had a rather big impact on my mind. On my beliefs. On my physical, but also mental well being.
I became aware of a sense of loss. I realize that the sorrow, the sense of loss, were based on what I perceive I do not have.

"Ghosts of lives you might have lived ... If not becoming ill ..."

Hilary Mantell. Learning to talk.

I wanted to be like my siblings, who are walking, cycling, working, able to stay up late and rely on their working brain, be sociable, and not having to go to bed at the same time as the 4-years-olds... I became much more aware of my life with illness.  Of course they have their challenges too. Everybody has. I just needed a little time to make sense of it all again. To put 'everything' back into perspective. I needed to hope again. And to see the bigger picture.

"Waiting with a resilience of spirit, in the certain knowledge that, 

if we wait long enough and if we are true to ourselves 

then things will make sense, is waiting in hope."

Sister Stanislaus Kennedy. Gardening the Soul 

The happiest place I could be these past few weeks was in my garden. Touching the earth. Grounding myself. Clearing, re-arranging my garden and my thoughts.

"If we lose touch with our sources, we are in danger of losing hope. 

That is why it is so important to stay close to nature, to listen to the trees and flowers, 

potatoes and hedges, shrubs and bulbs grow in silence.”

Sister Stanislaus Kennedy. Gardening the Soul 

Although yesterday was mainly spend recovering from outstaying the welcome in my garden the day before (weeds are more difficult to remove from gravel than it is from soil... trust me... ) I also had the great fortune to have a lovely meeting with an other creative being.

A creative meeting about possibilities for my work. Where to go from here.
To see the bigger picture of years of creating, and learning. A meeting in which minds were aligned, and experienced support, from a clear, open and honest mind. A chat which gave me hope and direction, and in which I saw my work through someone else's eyes and experiences. It also brought a possible new meaning of the project I have been working on for over a year. I am so glad I did not cancel that meeting because of the challnges of my body that day!

Life-Dance - work in progress

I might not be able to walk much, or cycle, or stay up late, or garden to my heart's content, but I have hope. Hope with a capital H. Which is ultimately linked with Trust.
Trust that all is well. And that I can see the biger picture of my life as it is.

I am grateful to have spend so much time in my garden these past few weeks. To reconnect with nature, with Mother Earth.
And to have taken the time at making sense of own little world again.
To observe what I value most. And... where I don't want to be. And where I can possibly go from here. To have reconnected - even it is just through talking about- and not quite doing- with my creative life.

Grateful to have taken time to reconnect with me again, not just with the capital letters M.E.


I truly hope that you, my dear readers, are well. 
And are finding hope, with a capital H, in your lives.
Thank you so much for your continued interest in my musing.
Be well.

The dance of life

"Prachtig" 

Gert Roos

Creative projects never progress very fast with me. But there are visible creative growth spurts.
I am experiencing one right now. Thank you Gert.

For years, and years I wanted to do an animation project.
Maybe this stems back from the Ballycardool project I was involved in (making the figures) in the two years leading up to me becoming ill.
Or maybe because I love puppets. I love when 'dolls' come to life.
Maybe it is the Life Outside the Box project that sparked finally starting my dream project.

I knew the theme of my project for a long time...
Inspired by this image from the Japanese animation movie Spirits of the Past.

still from: Origin, Spirits of the Past. Keiichi Sugiyama (Director) 

Although I tried to so something with this image initially through the form of a tapestry.

And... in all honesty - cocoons, pods, eggs, boxes... have appeared in my work for as long as have made Artist Dolls. (See link below to my galleries if you like to see them).

Anyway.
A pod
A cocoon
and a figure emerging from it
exploring my garden.

a little footnote
Over the years my creative work seems to go hand in hand with what is going on in my life. But I only became aware of these 'coincidences' much later. Sometimes months or even years.

So.
In July (I think) I bought an animation armature.
Sounds grand, but it really is a bag full of tiny, tiny, nuts and bolds, and rods, and screws, and wire, and a drawing on how to put these bits into a a figure.

Fun. Frustrating. Painful (literarly). But in the end I did have a little 'being'

I found some small eyes and put this in a piece of clay. The base for the head.

This is the way 'she' sat there for months and months, while I researched on how to make hands, that can move; what material to use, how can I make a face that shows expression... Animation/claymation is mind blowing stuff really. But interesting to explore a completely new territory.

The first cocoon I made out of paper mache, but as I wanted to be out in the garden, it had to be made out of real clay. This method brings its challenges. 

Real clay (versus air drying clay) shrinks a lot during drying and can not that easily be added on to when dry. And my studio days can be few and far between. But in the end, I did end up with a pod. And to my surprise and delight, it did not crack at all, at all, during the firing.

unfinished cocoon

The idea is that this little being would emerge from the pod/cocoon and walk through my garden.

But when I thought about it a bit more, it felt kind of lonely.

So I bought another armature. A slightly different one. 

Two, to dance together through life.

'She' turned out to be a little bigger. Somehow a little bolder.

I brought both with me to my retreat at Dzoghen Beara in February.

In the past the work that came from my hands and mind in Room 4 had a kind of wisdom in it. The location, the peace, my thoughts all making their way into my creations (Think 'Into the Light' book, and my Wisdom sculpture).

at Dzogchen Beara

I worked on the little one first. Shaping the body and working on her face.

It took me a few day, and what emerged was a kind of wise, quiet, knowing expression. 

A kind of purity - according to John Doughlas.

John Doughlas

The last day I got to know the other little being.
She turned out to be much 'bolder'. Stronger. 'Out there'. Not really caring what anyone thought of her.

John, the wonderful spiritual care staff at Dzogchen Beara whom I have chatted with every single time I was at this beautiful place. He is wise. Very wise. Just before I headed home he explored the week's thoughts with me. And we ended up talking through these two little figures. Talking about where I am at in my life... I am ready to speak up... but bring the wisdom of illness with me.

Ready to dance. The dance of acceptance. The two figures representing both side of me.

"She can only dance when she remembers the connection of the pure one"

dance of life- who is pulling the strings

John wondered that maybe the pure one is pulling the 'strings' of the bolder one.

The pure one having a kind of presence, but not really engaging with her surroundings. 

She can retreat back into her cocoon. 

Together they can dance with joy. And hold on to the inner contentment.

Much later, at home again,  I finally go to work on the cocoon.

resting

I went into the studio to paint it, but ended up using the beautiful papery layers of a wasp's nest.

And over the past few weeks, I have worked a few times on the hands and feet, and boots. Using Silicone. Again a process of trial and (many) errors. But am getting there.

adding silicone on to make hands

On one of the sunny days last week, I chose the location in my garden where the cocoon will be filmed. (how that will happen I don't yet know...)

cocoon in my garden

But then, I received the sad, sad news that my dear friend Gert Roos had passed away after a long illness. A brave man. A friend for 33 years. Gert encouraged me in my journey through life and illness. Encouraged my creative path. (I will write a proper post over the next few days about this beautiful human being).

The sadness of no longer being able to share our worlds took a great deal of my thoughts and energy.

Yet, Somehow I felt this great need to go into my studio. I found I was able to work on the little figure. I gave it hair. I started with the clothing. I felt at ease.

I truly believe that Gert was there with me. Guiding me to keep going. 

To step out of that cocoon, and dance with life.

I have been in my studio every day for the past few days. And will go there again today.

Over the past few months, we communicated via what's app. Sending short messages, memories and photos. I forwarded images and a short film of the cocoon opening to him. The word that came back most times was "Prachtig". Which does not have a direct translation in English, but are a mix between: lovely, gorgeous, stunning, wonderful...

Thank you my dear friend.

Much love to you and all.

Further reading and links

• first images of animation project
• The Dance of Illness
• A drawing by Artist Spark Deeley of the way I sleep
• Fantasy Folk and early ME-related art  and more recent sculptures