Rhythms

As I’ve got older I’ve started to notice things more, particularly rhythms of life. The seasons are the obvious ones when you live in the North of England, although you can get several seasons in one afternoon as it hails, sunshines, rains, one after another. So, I find myself waiting for the Blackbird to sing, the spiders to spin their webs, the geese to fly in skeins.

There are other rhythms too. Creativity is a big one for me and, although they seem to follow the seasons, they can also be seen in any given week or month. There are times when I can’t seem to get into the head space, times when I flit from one project to another, and those glorious times when it pours out and feels like it’ll never end.

I also have days, usually in the spring, when I rediscover lost projects, as if pushing aside the winter debris to discover green shoots pushing out of the soil. Sometimes these projects have remained untouched for months or years.

This week I found some of my photos that I’d adapted and suddenly I was making more, trying out different filters and effects. For three evenings I made hundreds of images with no purpose apart from the joy of making something. It was like an obsession.

Then I stopped.

I may make more next week or next month or in five years time, I don’t know, but when it calls to me again I’ll answer.

It used to bother me when things were incomplete, which is a problem when I have dozens of unfinished projects, but now I just go with the rhythm and the process has become much more important to me than the product.

And now you’ll have to excuse me because I’ve just noticed some illustrations that I’d like to develop a little more.