Monday is for Mindfulness

My blog yesterday was aimed to help someone to work through particular problems with parchment craft.  Today, I am trying to explain a little of the way I try to live and think.

As most people will know, yesterday was Mothering Sunday over here in the UK, a day to remember our mothers, although this was not strictly where this day originated.  If you want to know more about that, this is just one of many links to explanations - http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/holydays/motheringsunday_1.shtml

I will leave you to choose whether you are interested in discovering the history of this day.  That is not really what my purpose is to think about today.  I am lucky enough to have both of my children and their families living in this country.  

Yesterday, my son was unable to visit but he took the opportunity to call after finishing his night shift.  It was a very good thing he did call, as I had overslept, and only had an hour to get ready to be taken out by my daughter for a Mothering Sunday treat.  A little bit of a panic there.

She chose to take me, as a secret, to a local crafting centre out in the Worcestershire countryside, called the Jinney Ring.  It has been there for many years now, but seemed to lose its way for a while, so I had not been for some years.  Right now, the mix of small crafting units in the old farm buildings is really good, garden plant unit, selling all sorts of  bits and pieces of decorative things, a glass blower (great place to linger on a cold day), a potter (Barbara Gray would be in her element with shapes she would recognise), a jeweller, a chocolatier and several others.

We had a long chat with the resident artist, Michael Salt, who was in the middle of developing a beautiful view of Corbiere on Jersey in oils from the small watercolour done on site.  It was while chatting to him that I got the idea for today's blog post.  Bec was asking him lots of questions about how he worked and sold his paintings and he said that, these days, he paints for himself, to please himself.

He is so right.  Crafting, whether fine art type painting, pencil sketching, Powertec modelling or parchment craft, or any other style, they must satisfy something within you, otherwise it is really a waste of time and effort.  Anything creative you do must fulfil something emotional within you, otherwise it loses an important element.

A friend of mine has asked several times why I keep going to workshops and creating different designs.  I do it for my own pleasure and satisfaction.  Apart from the pleasure of learning with like minded friends, it satisfies a deep need within me, and gives me great pleasure.  It has given me confidence in myself and encouraged me to try lots of new things.  I no longer feel the need to justify my crafting.

At the start of every school year, I used to ask the children in that year's class to tell me when they thought you should stop learning.  The answers were always very varied, from "when we leave school", to "when we go to work".  Occasionally, someone would cotton on to what I was trying to get at.  The time to stop learning is the moment we leave this life.  If we do not keep learning, we start to lose important parts of our lives.  I try to learn something new every day, but I do it for ME!!  Not to please someone else, but to satisfy me.

My crafting does two main things for me.  I learn new skills, which makes me feel good, and it allows me to go off into another place, where I can lose myself away from anything else.  With colouring pencils in my hand, the house could collapse round my ears without me noticing. Snipping picots on my parchment pieces does the same for me.

Whatever to choose to do, allow yourself to enjoy doing and learning.  Concentrate on the journey, not on the end result.  Today, start by losing any guilt at "wasting time", and give yourself permission to enjoy doing something  for yourself every day.  Take ten minutes to, perhaps, sit with pencil and paper to draw what is there in front of you.  Just use that ten minutes to do something to satisfy yourself.  Who cares if you never become a world known artist?  This is time for you to lose yourself.

Try it today.