New Births on the Edge of Winter

GREETINGS to you all, should you still be here on this quietest of blogs!

This is a small note to you from the depths of my busy creative, mothering days as we descend into another wintering. As you might be able to see in the photo above, taken by Tom recently, I am pregnant with our second child! We await their arrival any day with tender and jubilant expectation. As this year turns into next, we will be four!

Here, I am standing with our son inside a Bronze Age hut circle on Dartmoor, marvelling at the thousands of years that have passed in that place, and wondering about the people who made their hearths inside those stones, who raised their children there on the high moor, who went in and out of those doorways and whose house walls still stand, even in these strange days at the furthest end of now.

And this brings me to tell you about something that I have been thinking on for some time, and which now seems timely to share with you. As you may have noticed, my painting and blogging and general artistic output have been very quiet for the past three or so years since my son was born. I am still wrestling with the challenges and gifts of trying to be an artist and a mother, and this second child coming has caused me to think on this more urgently, and finally to boldly ask for support. In a world where we are connected to community across the world in such a uniquely creative way, and at a point in my artistic life where I feel that in order to keep making work I must call upon the energies of those who have loved what I do for years, I have launched a Patreon, which I invite you to go and read ~ it tells my tale and explains my request.

As I write over there on my Patreon page, the hope with asking for this kind of support is that I will be able to create a regular financial stability underneath my work at a time when it's particularly and uniquely hard to be able to devote focused time to my artwork. If you have enjoyed and been nourished by this blog, my posts, paintings, writing and thoughts over the years, I would be massively grateful if you would consider signing up to be a member of my Patreon community. You will be adding rich black compost on these art-seeds I am planting. This is the place I will be sharing my works in progress, artworks and writing from now on. Those who have signed up will be able to see these, as well as choosing from a variety of other delicious offerings...

I do have a new blog, too, as well as a newsletter, if you'd like to sign up to receive those.

Portrait of Tom and me on Dartmoor, pregnant with our son in 2015 by Ishka Michocka.

And there I leave you, with warmest appreciation for your continued interest in my work and wishes for your wintering to be both restful and enchanted. I shall likely be quiet for a time over these dark hibernatory days while we welcome our newest one into our family, but I hope that with the coming of the new year and a renewed strength grown from this Patreon community, I will be creating more paintings and wonders to share with you, wherever you are...