working as part of a ‘Japanese 72 season micro-climate’ artist collaborative initiative within Treesisters)

Japanese season called ‘Kanro’ / cold dew, 8th – 22nd October
Micro climate ‘chrysanthemums bloom’ 13th – 17th October

Well these last few days have flown!

Been keeping up with all Extinction Rebellion news, meditating each day sending support.

All crumpled and lost today.

Section 14.

The government invoked Section 14, and now the whole of Extinction Rebellion becomes ‘illegal’….all protesters cast as criminals.
Those who care, really care, are made the villains…..again…..

I do not know why, but I was not expecting that.

I understand the idea of civil disobedience…many prepared to be arrested…many arrests made….for obstruction mainly….for standing in the road….for asking for action…brave enough to be made ‘criminal’…..to rebel, but for those in power, to just click their fingers, and invoke this despicable ‘act’, as a way to ‘clear up this mess’ and put the fear into the whole community, is unforgivable….

The news came back and hit me like a wrecking ball.

I felt choked……and not for the first time…..Section 14….. rising like a seasonal ghoul….

Crushed.

It’s all left me a bit numb.

Like I am only half-here.


My new ‘Earth Flower’, hands, logo has had to go too…..

A friend noticed that it was very like this, famous, mandala, by a favorite artist of mine, Richard Long.

I had not looked at his work for years and then, bang…here it was….

I had never seen it!

I had, however, been very surprised, that no-one was doing these, when I did a Google search, before the community action….

This did not come up on a ‘mud hand print mandala‘ search back then!?

Isn’t it beautiful though!? Much more controlled than my version though. That was entirely more organic!
Perhaps he is speaking through me now? Just not as ordered and perfect….loosing something in translation?

I was so happy with that as the new logo…..
Seemed to say it all. Round, many earthy hands, a flower, mud…..
Lucky I had not ordered the business cards eh!?

Probably that dratted Morphic Resonance phenomenon again!

(I guess this bears a passing resemblance to a ‘chrysanthemum’….possibly my only tie-in to the theme of the micro-season this time….)

Anyhoo….I am not keen on appearing to steal others good ideas, so I had a play with my FOOT prints!

Now I think I like this approach better than my Earth Flower!!

A reminder of how, what appears to be a sad, difficult situation, can turn out to be the best possible turn of events!?

A less hands-on approach?

Keeping our feet on the ground.

Something in this logo’s, digital, perfection continued to irritate me.
This was made using a digital image of one foot and repeating it over and over, flipping it.

I found that I wanted to actually DO this. Get muddy….

So I went outside….the sun just having left our garden….still only in my nightie and a jumper…and cut a huge piece of paper….one thing led to another!

I wish I could say this had been created in a perfect prayer, standing and repeating the process, but actually it was more like a funny game of Twister, hopping about on one foot, holding the muddied one up, and using a staff to lean over sometimes to get the print in the right place!! Very tricky indeed!!
I am grateful no dog walker’s or farmer’s passed to get view of me doing this, in my old tartan nightie, in the garden….goodness knows what I would have heard back about myself if they had!!

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I had lots of ready mud left, so was also inspired to ‘join’ with XR and daub my hands with redder mud….this time only in the four directions….all with blood on our hands…no innocents here…..

So after working with the resulting images I have decided on this as my new logo. It is not as smart and symmetrical as other designs…but I love the perspective of it…and the uniqueness of each print.

And I could not resist making a wee GIF of them all!

The homemade ink experiments continue.
I could not find any local oak galls (a good sign for ‘our’ oaks, as indicates no oak gall wasps in this area), but found that they were for sale online, fittingly from Green Woman Crafts. I love that they were lovingly collected, down south, by ‘witches’ for spells and other homespun, tannin, related crafts!
They arrived through the post.
I followed this recipe and it all seems to have worked a treat! The ink goes on lighter than Chinese or Indian ink, but apparently only darkens with age, on the page.
So now I have two ‘tree inks’ to use for future work.
Excited to begin using them both.

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And here’s a random picture of a candle with no wick…..let’s never be ‘like a candle with no wick’….although it did, strangely, remind me of the stunning, full, moon we were all treated to this micro season….in it’s perfect circular glow….