simplicity

After a spell of lovely weather, the garden is beginning to get tidied up after the winter gales.Nestled behind the box hedging I planted a few hellebores, plants that I can't live without, but that don't really like the climate and soil here. After four years they are finally established and their blooms through dark days have brought us  to this glorious Easter morning. They have withstood the worst of rain, frost and winds and are rather unobtrusive plants that don't look spectacular for the rest of the year. A bit like the people in life that have meant the most to me, those who live simply, often quietly, dealing with all that life has thrown at them with dignity and keeping their own shape and integrity come what may. I decided that for me Easter is hellebore shaped. Whatever it means to you to have this holiday, as Spring in the UK hovers on the horizon, we wish you a blooming good time.

some weeks are just black and white !

Whilst escaping the heavy snow falls that others experienced this week, it has been cold and windy. Photography took on  black and white tones for Paul. And because we are getting ready to open up our Shepherds Huts for the season, we have had to prioritise work  - if work wasn't connected to the shops it would have to wait. All a bit black and white..... but we are looking forward to warmer weather and a bit more of a kaleidoscopic approach to life soon !

windmills of your mind  - screenprint by esther

sketchbook and images

Isn't it strange when you begin some work thinking you know roughly the direction you are taking with it, and then you realise somewhere you took an unexpected turn and the artistic process has led you into unplanned, unknown territory?  I had imagined that what I would draw in the day at the British Museum would be shapes and patterns, and I did a little of that. But when I sat down yesterday to review photos and sketches, what has emerged are faces and torsos. 

The Sainsbury Gallery of African Art stole my heart, and I want to spend more time there.  The textile exhibition of African printed cloths was a timely reminder to me how the wearing and use of textiles is so bound up with questions of power, status and politics.

The current exhibition of Ice Age art was humbling, as you gazed at such ancient artefacts and the work of unknown artists portraying their world and lives.

Combining the sketchbook course I took with Dionne Swift a couple of weeks ago and these last few days work, will be an interesting journey in the days ahead as I begin to redraw and abstract shapes and designs from my sketchbooks.

Sheep even in London !

Look what we found yesterday morning in the middle of London. We had gone to Somerset House to see some exhibitions and there in the rain
 (yep everything was authentic !)

was a trailer and a farmer and his flock. But we loved the coloured sheep best !

The exhibition about wool was wonderfully colourful and Esther ran from room to room getting more and more excited ....

Then a Landscape photographic exhibition which saw us debating what we consider  makes a wonderful landscape photo all the way home to Scotland.
Finally but not least we even managed to get in and see the Picasso exhibition- amazing what he was painting at the age of nineteen.Too short a time for such wonderful exhibitions but the plane back from Luton was awaiting us and we were missing the croft even after just three days away !

Today is a wonderful morning, we woke to sunshine and the best landscape in the world and of course to our own sheep and goats. But all those coloured sheep means the dye pot is out this morning and our own wool is being transformed into skeins of wonderful colours ready for all our knitting customers for the new season. (It is just the skeins of wool that get dyed and not the sheep themselves !) !

research at the British Museum

Off to do some sketching and research at the British Museum - London, this week. I have been so looking forward to the time away that I thought it deserved a new sketchbook for the trip. This is made with hand dyed papers
 and a painted canvas cover.

I had just invested in a bookmaking awl so this is the first time I have sewn signatures into a journal. I got so carried away painting canvas that I made a bag for the journal and my pens and pencils !!


And in case you are interested these journals and bags will be available in the Shepherds Huts this season - each one is unique !

wabi sabi

For the past few years I have been interested in the Japanese concept of wabi sabi - a term hard to translate.
 "Wabi sabi has many different meanings. However today it means living a simple and modest lifestyle; one which is peaceful, balanced and in tune with nature.

Sabi  is associated with ‘growing old’, the natural progression of time, transitory or short-lived beauty and enjoying objects which are aged, fading or weathered.

It's about just ‘being’. Enjoying the moment and life’s simple pleasures and bringing more of these into our lives. "


I was originally drawn to the concept after reading "In praise of Shadows" by Junichiro Tanizaki for my textile degree course - but I realised this week how interest in wabi sabi has affected not just my art and textiles but how to live here in the Scottish Highlands in our tiny croft house.

"In home decor, wabi-sabi inspires a minimalism that celebrates the human rather than the machine. Possessions are pared down, and pared down again, until only those that are necessary for their utility or beauty (and ideally both) are left. What makes the cut? Items that you both admire and love to use, like those hand-crank eggbeaters that still work just fine. Things that resonate with the spirit of their makers' hands and hearts: the chair your grandfather made, your six-year-old's lumpy pottery, an afghan you knitted yourself ."

This simply put means we spent some time this week Spring cleaning - paring down - rediscovering what we most value and letting other things go. It is a very freeing process and means that your life / home/ art becomes your own - authentic, not subscribing to the dictates of the latest trend or home decor magazine. It seems that this Japanese aesthetic ideal has met a Scottish Croft house and the two are becoming uniquely one.

twigs  tied around a jam jar make a lovely vase for our first daffodils

Another good day

"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year." Ralph Waldo Emerson.

We were stumped this morning as we had our coffee and revisited the question "what do we say in our Sunday blog post?" Because each day here is special  to us, the mists, the sun, the wind and rain all bring their beauty and challenges. But we are aware how ordinary we are and that so many of you lead exciting lives compared to us. Maybe our blog 's character is just to try and live out Emerson's quote.
So today we enjoyed our Fair Trade coffee from the new stock arriving, ready for the Shepherds Huts' opening at Easter, and enjoyed the sun peeping out from the bank of mist  over Loch Ewe. Happy Sunday !