January musings - do you know your 'Why?'

Here we are in January once again. Cold, grey days and resolutions for the new year.

January is the most challenging month in my view. It is unpuctuated by celebrations, and summer feels so far away.

I work hard on strategies to lift my mood and stay positive. It is a time for reflection and planning. I don't make resolutions, but I do spend a bit of time gazing at my navel, wondering what to focus on when the garden is quiet and my studio is too cold to spend much time in.

I watched a Youtube video on Buddhist principles that got me thinking. It challenged me to ask 'What is my Why?'

More specifically it asked me to name the three things that really matter to me.

I sat down with my trusty typewriter, Olive, and made a list of things that came to mind. There were many more than three.

Antarctica abstracted

The list included, in no particular order.......

• family
  
• the environment
  
• landscape
• friends
  
• healthy living choices
  
• trees
• water
• adventure
• mountains
• creativity
• words
• music
• feeling useful
  
• light
  
• time alone
  

Many more than three, so I tried to allocate them to groups with a common thread.

There seemed to me to be three key categories emerging:

1. self care
2. landscape
3. environment

Now I could have chosen different categories, such as relationships, health, or art or but I decided that a lot of what I do is about making sure that I feel calm and creative, and to achieve this I need to feel that I am living in a way that is true to my values.

So first, I put 'Self Care'.

Into this group fall good relationships, time for creativity, regular exposure to outdoors and sunlight, healthy eating and exercise, activities that allow me to feel useful, and making space in my week for time alone in a creative environment.

The second group I call Landscape

Into this group I place natural environments that I crave, such as oceans, forests and mountains, together with time for exploring and 'adventures'. My adventures are not epic, but going away even for a few days to new places is really important to my sense of purpose. Even a few hours immersed in a forest or wood are immensely uplifting.

For this year I plan to travel by train across Europe. From west to east and back..... destinations as yet unknown...... but I would like to make it to a little town in Croatia where I spend happy days as a teenager in a tiny caravan with my family.


Lastly there is the third category, Environment.

This creates a degree of conflict with the second category. My desire to explore the world conflicts with the effects of travel on the environment. I can, and do, choose train and bus when possible, but in order to visit family I have no choice but to fly long distances.
Much of my art work recently has been about my local environment, in particular beach litter. The images that you see above are made from manipulated screenshots from Google Earth of places that I long to visit, but would feel guilty about travelling to, Antarctica is one such place.

In the meantime I try not to eat things that have travelled long distances, and spend more time than most people picking up litter........

Andes abstracted

So what have I been doing in January to live by my 'Why'?

I visited a solo exhibition 'Kaleidoscope/London' at the Guildhall Art Gallery by Anne Desmet. Anne's kaleidoscope based collages created using her own wood block prints of London scenes were inspiring. Her attention to detail is extraordinary, and I enjoyed seeing all the different types of paper that she uses in her printmaking. 

I particularly enjoyed her collage onto razor shells. Anne was inspired to use the pastel colours of the razor shells to represent a dawn or dusk sky over an international city skyline. The fragility of the shells serves as a metaphor for the vulnerabiity of all human civilisation with respect the climate cricis. A subtle but powerful work.

Fragile Earth | Anne Desmet 2022

Kaleidoscope Collage | Anne Desmet

I went to my regular writer's group for an uplifting chat and a friendly ( sheepish) cup of tea.

There I learned about the naming of full moons. Did you know that each month's full moon has a different name, based on native American culture? January is a Wolf Moon, named after the howling of wolves during the food scarce winter month. My favourite is 'Worm Moon' for March. Imagine the worms throwing up their first casts as the frozen soil thaws in early spring.

You can read more about moon cycles and names here.

No matter that I hadn't written anything for the group. I can't write to order, and luckily others were feeling more inspired.

A friendly pot of tea.

I have started trying to do a daily meditation. Five to 10 minutes daily. The first was sitting with my eyes closed in the morning sun in a small shelter on Rye golf course, during my habitual morning walk.

I find meditating extraordinarily difficult. My mind races with thoughts, and as I try to 'bat them away like clouds', more appear on the horizon. But it is exactly for calming these thoughts that I am going to try ( again) to make this a regular habit. If I could do it every day with my eyes closed and my face turned to the sun I am sure it would be a whole lot easier. I will let you know how it goes.

a perfect spot for meditating

 And what of creative endeavors?

Not much has been happening in January.... and this is normal for me.

So to make myself do 'something', I created some marks on paper for the @areyoubookenough challenge on Instagram.  This month the theme was 'wild'.

I had the idea to create images of 'wild 'places on earth, and manipulate them as per the images at the top of this post. But my heart wasn't in it, and it reminded me too much of lockdown , when I yearned to be somewhere other than suburbia.. So I changed tack and made some wild marks on a long sheet of paper, which I then folded into a concertina. I enjoyed the process, and experimented with different objects to make the marks. My favourites were a feather and a piece of fishing rope from the beach.

'Wild' mark making | Caroline Fraser

Son sent me off to north London to draw meerkats in a wildlife drawing class. I now know that drawing fast moving furry creatures is a test! How to stay calm when the delightful creatures hold poses for less than 10 seconds.. I found it challenging: a bit like an exam when you turn over the paper and don't understand the questions....... but it was a great exercise in enjoying the journey rather than worrying about the outcomes.  Highgate is a very interesting part of town; I even found a delightful river walk with ducks tucked in between the road and the expensive houses. 

Oh, and I nearly forgot.......

I took 8 trains and two buses to deliver my work 'Sansui 1' to the Royal West of England Academy for the upcoming exhibition 'RWA Open 2025: Paper Works'

I think that comes under 'environment' as well as creativity. It was an exhausting day!

Do let me know your top three 'why's'.

I am intrigued to know how different they might be.