Sunday 15 August 2010

Windows to the soul

I like the fact that someone landed on these here pages after searching for dying trousers. I would hope that I need not point out that rumours of my death, or indeed my being dyed, are greatly exaggerated.

I was away to see my mother this weekend. As usual, distanced from laptop/musical equipment and any other such creative tools, the ideas flowed in abundance. Part of me thinks that this is a case of Sod's Law. Separated from the means to create, my brain starts working overtime on what I could be doing.

On the other hand, I know for sure that that's less than the whole picture. What I get from such weekends, in this particular respect, is space: in a literal sense, thanks to a non-urban environment; but also in the sense that, away from the pressing (ha ha) demands of the week, my mind can wander with far less constraint. Thoughtful, reflective at times, but alive, buzzing.
During my art college days I was drawn to landscape as subject matter, which was later to inform more abstract concerns. For so much of that time I felt immersed in such space, and it really fired me creatively.

Though too often buried beneath layers of the stuff of more everyday matters, it heartens me to feel that I can and do still respond to such stimuli. Indeed, I have to - these things are as important to me as life itself.

6 comments:

Zhoen said...

Creativity craves idleness, doing nothing to allow for dreaming.

Carol said...

It's usually when your thinking about something else...or nothing in particular...when ideas pop into the head. Often I am in awe of my subconcious...it solves problems for me when I'm thinking about something else and gives me great ideas when I'm not searching for them!

Space is essential for the soul...i'm glad you have somewhere that provides you with it!

C x

Reading the Signs said...

yes - space and the natural world restore the soul. And I encho what Zhoen says about idleness.

Good to hear that Trousers is alive-alive-oh!

Fire Byrd said...

What you didn't go rambling for this photo, nah you must have done.
x

Kate said...

A lovely post. I've been away from your blog. Can't think why...

"Separated from the means to create, my brain starts working overtime on what I could be doing." I understand this! I write all my ideas down, and try and do them when I get back from wherever I've been.

trousers said...

Katherine, lovely to see you again.

I write some of my ideas down, and those that don't often get lost....but not forever: many come back at the most unexpected of times, and when they do recur, that's when I nail them.

FB, the photo is related to the pics I posted on the Beautiful World site x

Signs, yes and I'm nourished by such a sense of space all the more these days.

Carol, the subconscious is a very powerful thing (leaving aside the fact that it's a theoretical construct...) - dreams, random thoughts, memory triggers and so on often do amazing and very telling things!

Zhoen, as pithy - and correct - as ever :)