Creative Jam in a Weekend.

Tired… I said I wanted a weekend now that I survived the actual weekend.. but what I think I really want is a room with a view and a big bed and 2 days in which to curl up in a nest of blankets and warmth and sleep on and off like a cat in the sunshine.  No interruptions, no responsibilities and no organizing.   I’m tired.  The kind of tired that makes the grubby brown floor in my office look like a comfortable place to lay my head.  That little alcove near the photocopier looks remarkably like a good place to nap.  So does just about anywhere. 

It’s been busy.  I mean really really busy.   It takes at least five people to organize the Creative Jam. One for each discipline… and one to over see them and worry about them.  Two of our organizers left town.. for destinations as exotic as Cuba and as obscure as Oona River (tiny little town of 30 or so people on a tiny little island in the middle of nowhere).  So that left three of us to pull off the event.

And we did it.!  Photography, Quilting, Painting, and Creative Writing workshops help simultaneously over a weekend, with roughly 50 in attendance.  The Quilters lugging their sewing machines and creating havoc with threads and pins, the photographers snapping photos and dragging tripods.  The Painters with stained fingers literally watching paint dry while others scribbled in their notebooks a written record of life. We started after work on Friday hauling tables and easels and I found myself at 7pm on Sunday night vacuuming up the last evidence of all that had transpired.

It was worth it. I might finally have my artistic inspiration back.  The rain hasn’t stopped, the grey sky hangs as low as ever and the wind howls at night – but I seem to have been re-inspired.  My paints are wet again and I’ve put brush to paper.

Here is a look at what the lovely LeslieRedhead helped me create in her Watercolour Workshop: 

Piece from weekend workshop: Sentinel Spirits.

and my mind is crushed by the pounding rain...

I talk about the weather a lot. It’s a Canadian pastime, and there truly are people who can’t hardly start a conversation if it were not for the weather.   Although I do spend my fair share of time commenting on the weather, I try not to complain about it overly much.  But holy rain batman!  Seriously. We are less than 2 weeks into the month and already we have had 246.8 mm of rain – they measure this on top of city hall and every hour or so the number creeps up.  That is over 20mm of rain a day for 11 days straight.   If we were to compare the amount in snowfall – you are looking at about 8 feet of snow in the last 11 days.

(and while I admit conversion is sketchy with averages varying between ratios of 1:6 to 1:10  - t it turns out in weather forecasting they use the 1 to 10 ratio in order to make snowfall forecasts.  That's because the computer projections can tell us how much liquid will precipitate out of a column of air, but not how much snow. )

My yard is a swamp. Thick spongy moss which normally soaks up the water has drank up more than it can hold and so it sits there – growing puddles on a hillside –yes it is possible.  Patches of what once was grass are now thick mats of slippery dark green slime as the algae grows in mats.

My dog has thick fur that takes hours to dry.  Even going outside to do her business three times in a 24 hours period means she smells like wet dog pretty much always.  And inevitably I find damp spots where she has laid down… like on my pillow…  *sigh* 

So far I’m not finding inspiration in this rain, I’ve not touched my sewing machine except to hem a pair of pyjama pants, and I’ve not lifted a paint brush in weeks.  My goal to sketch more and let myself be free about it has stalled… although I did dig out my sketch book and I did rummage through my stuff to find the accouterments of mucking about in a sketch book… felts, pillbox-sized painting pallet, pens, pencils, erasers, ink, and glue (you never know what will need to be stuck in) now if only I could put aside some time….

Watercolour on cotton rag paper  ©RiverWalker Arts 

Maybe if it ever stops raining…. ?