Inspiring Creativity

Its all busy busy busy down in this neck of the woods - but yesterday I went off for a symposium at Plymouth University looking at the way messages are communicated through the combination of word and image.

Wow.  Really WOW.  Some really inspirational speakers - brilliant minds and awesome work travelling the spectrum from beautiful design of practical every day objects (books, stamps etc) to more conceptual graphic design exploring text and playing with it in a very physical sense.

Three favourite people of the day:

Graham Rawle - www.grahamrawle.com

Just AMAZING.  Works in Collage focussing on the 50s and 60s (women's magazines and bubble gum cards)  Many of you will have seen his Lost Consonants series in the Guardian (ran for 15 years!)  

For my husband and his friends - 

who love their twee (d) Tuesdays...

(c) Graham Rawle

His 'Woman's World ' is so much more than a book - though it does constitue the stipulated length for a novel ... A story worked from actual quotes from Woman's Mag's of the mid 20th Century  - carefully piece together to create a full and rationale narrative it is soon to become a film.  I can't begin to really describe the genius of this man - or his dedication to his work.  A great speaker too!

David Pearson - www.davidpearsondesign.com
who's book cover designs for Penguin 100 great ideas many of you will have seen in the bookshops.  Slick, simple, elegant, clever and beautiful too - I want to own any and all of these books (no matter how relevant or irrelevant they may be to my life and work!)  His work is full of texture and depth and in an age where so much graphic design is computer generated, it was really refreshing to find an artist who works with rubber stamps, block printing and letter press. Since leaving Penguin he has started up his own company and now you can own a cloth bound edition of some of your favourite classics wrapped - truly desirable objects just to look at, and smell, and touch (I hope I am not the only person who loves these things about books....?!) all for under £20 if you want to find out more find them here...White's Books  I have an obsession with Jane Eyre - and that edition is SO going on my Christmas list (come to think of it our first anniversary is approaching - I believe it is traditionally celebrated by a paper gift? nudge nudge wink wink Mr Creative in Cornwall... :-p)

and

Lizzie Ridout  - www.lizzieridout.com

An amazing brain inspired by the things that also motivate me to work - the way objects out live us, what they say about us, what sorties can we tell from them.  

Over the past couple of years I have wondered if perhaps I haven't missed a vocation as a graphic designer (weddings, theatre and heritage clearly not being enough to keep me occupied!)

Anyway - that's all by the by - and part of much wider thinking about how we only have one life, and how as you get older all the avenues of infinite possibility which lay before me at the age of 15 become ever more finite with every decision taken - a slightly melancholy thought perhaps, brought about by an impending school reunion type affair - though it does not in any way mean I regret where I am or wish I was somewhere else!  Just an observation - and one I will ponder on my 'walkabout' this summer (more on that another day...)

Bestest to you all x

Cows may safely graze

It's been an eventful couple of days which began yesterday with a visit to Farmer Chris and his new calf, Barney.  Barney's Mum, Marge, is having a spot of bother following the birth of her second (elder brother Harold is a beast now at 6 months old) and Chris is feeding Barney by bottle twice daily, in the barn.

Spotting a sucker for anything small (ish) and furry, he very kindly invited me to help with the feed when I popped up to meet Barney and Marge.

'Put your wellies on' he said. 'You do have wellies don't you?'

Funnily enough my brown wellies with retro sprig flower print are the most sensible thing to actually have made it out of the garage (where all the sensible things are still stored in boxes) and into the house (where all the ridiculous things are spilling out of the boxes struggling to find a home and generally causing a health and safety hazard.

Wellies donned I head for the Barn at the appointed time. Chris doesn't use gates, he climbs over them - which I duly do to, thinking 'when in Rome' and proceed to sink up to my ankles in the mud.  His caravan sits in the middle of this mud and I can see why he prioritises the large screen tv and not the house work!  I wouldn't bother either if I lived in a tin boax floating in the middle of a swamp!

Barney and Marge are asleep.

I hold the milk while Chris climbs in and gently lifts the calf and moves him away from Mum.  It seems that, especially with a stranger in the pen, Marge might get a bit protective of the bottle feeding.

At 4 days old Barney is still a wee bit wobbly on his feet and stumbles on his long gangly legs to get to the bottle and get his breakfast.  It went down very quickly and when he'd finished it he started head butting my tummy.

' He's looking for the teat' says Farmer Chris.

I remember a trick I used with my god-son Ted when he was also tiny and frustrated at the end of the bottle and I held out my fingers.

It struck me the power of nature - how exciting it is to be living so close to it - this 4 day old creature just following his instincts, and how much we could learn from following ours too.

There's so much frustration in our lives - too much food, too little exercise, not enough sleep.

Cows just eat when they are hungry, sleep when they want to, and spend their days minding their own business.  They just get on with it.  I'm glad I am human, that I have the capacity to think, and reflect and take something new from each day.  And today, among other things, I have realised quite how far I have come from a darkish place I was in a few years ago.

Today I have made two batches of apple sauce, cleaned out the fireplace, taken Tilly for a long walk, and now the Mr is lighting a fire and radio 4 is chuntering the background whilst she tucks into a bone (on the newly hoovered carpet....) and the rabbit is hopping about hopefully hunting for a cable he hasn't yet had a go at chewing.

Yes, I think, I am going to like this new life.