This is a new regular series I am starting about the practical aspects of art, and I'm going to start with 'inspiration' (a topic I will come back to again and again I think).
If you follow my posts then you'll already know that I like to get out and about in nature. This is what makes my heart beat faster and my mind more focussed. I draw my inspiration from the things I experience as I watch the waves by the sea, or the light rolling over the hills, or sunsets...
But I can't always get away, so I've grown my own little oasis where I can sit and think, away from the noise of the internet and the world at large. I believe everyone should have a space like this to themselves.
Monet and his garden at Giverny is a famous example. Monet constructed the gardens full of colour and asymmetries, he had his ponds dug and enlarged, and he planted waterlilies...and we all know what that led to. Charles Darwin had his 'sandwalk' at Down House where he would walk daily to think. You too can have a little place to ponder and think...
When I first moved here with my wife, we had a flat, muddy weed-patch, full of builder's rubble. It's roughly 10 m by 7m and it has taken us many years to get it to this, but it has been worth it. Spring has sprung in my little corner of the world and I can sit and watch it unfurl...
Bluebells in bloom
A Speckled Wood butterfly rests in my
garden, enjoying the sun
And under the shade of a Greater Buttercup...
...a common frog take refuge in my little bog garden
Spring always brings to mind the opening lines of 'Green Fuse', a wonderful and powerful poem by Dylan Thomas: "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower..."
I sit and watch this force at work in the seclusion of my own space, while the world outside these walls carries on. Here there is no noise, no confusion, just stillness and peace.
A cool spot under the blazing May sun
A place to sit and reflect...
...even when the sun goes down
Sit and watch. Let your thoughts settle. Plant something. Tend to it and watch it grow. It's in these moments that inspiration can come...colours...patterns...heartbeats...
Make your own space in the world, even if it's in a plant pot or two.
It will help.
Adam.
All photographs Copyright of Adam Fryda.