the gallery

The Gallery – Colour

April 23, 2015 by Merry 4 Comments

This is a hard project to stop. It's been very therapeutic. Part of me wants to square it (but how?) and another part just wants to keep going. I adore it. #ZenMandalaProject #crochet #crochetmandala #FrithaMandala — This is a hard project to stop. It’s been very therapeutic. Part of me wants to square it (but how?) and another part just wants to keep going. I adore it. #ZenMandalaProject #crochet #crochetmandala #FrithaMandala

I’m entirely artistically inept, with no ability to put pen to paper or paint on canvas and conjure up a world of sensory delight.

If my art lies anywhere, it is probably in words.

When it comes to colour, the theory isn’t in my head – at least no further than that half completed colour wheel I failed to hand in on time in 2nd year. Orange and Blue, Red and Green, Purple and Yellow.

And design is perhaps not my strong point either; I’m impatient, hurried, a botcher of work and a shover in of ends. Completer finisher has never been my strength

But making, learning to wind colour together using simple stitches, now that has opened up a world of colour magic possibilities to me. My under bedside is stuffed full of boxes bursting our with balls of colour waiting to be turned into something beautiful – or beautiful enough for me. I’ve taken to having baskets of yarn I like and colours that might suit a project soon scattered around the house – and it is funny how much even a basket of potential project can turn into something that lifts and room and adds a spot of jazz.

The husband calls it crochet mess. I call it installation art 😉

I’ve always been rather staid in colour choices, overly tasteful for fear I’ll overdo it (as previous attempted dramatic decor has had a tendency towards) but learning to let go in small and recoverable makes has unleashed such delight in colour.

It’s unleashed the artist in me, just a little. I’m rather nervous of her and keep expecting her to get laughed at. Ever since the wild sanity blanket, I’ve tended to stick with muted shades and grown up designs. And funnily enough, it’s even teaching me to finish what I start. I still tend towards throwing colour together in an artless jumbled but these days, more often, I’m pleased with the result. I’m even starting to have the nerve to work out my patterns properly and share them. The riot of colour in this mandala is the biggest ‘let go’ I’ve ever done and the first time I’ve ever had the confidence in my design to get people to try out something I’ve made.

The Fritha Mandala is currently in testing with some friends. It’s almost like having a baby. A very colourful one.

This post was written for The Gallery.

The Gallery – Green.

March 20, 2015 by Merry 2 Comments

I don’t have enough green in my life. I don’t get out enough, I forget to put plants in my house (and they aren’t much fun if small boys tend to pull them over anyway) and there isn’t the budget for cut flowers either. I’m so grumpy that I don’t live somewhere lovelier that I probably do lose out on the outside I do have.

There isn’t a green room in my house. There is a sage green, but I forget to go in it and I’m about to turn it sunshine yellow.

So when I looked around my – blue – bedroom yesterday, I wasn’t expecting to find inspiration for green.

What does green even mean to me?

It’s a garden I haven’t made beautiful.

A Dartmoor I don’t live in.

Trees that sometimes make me smile, but it is always a wistful smile.

This week it is also a yarn I have run out of.

But it is also the colour I assigned to Bene back when he was a hope of a bump called Marmite and it is a colour my husband always chooses when we play games.

And, so it turns out, it was the dominant colour in the heap of tat that is on my chest of drawers, dumped in passing by children, picked up off the floor to save sleepy midnight feet.

Random asdortment of green from my chest of drawers — Random assortment of green from my chest of drawers.

The yarn is ready for an April peace mandala crochet project, the pens come from a rep who has become a friend and who I love like an uncle, the thread I wound on to that card when I was pregnant with Freddie. The bracelet I made on a holiday with friends when I was pregnant with Freddie. The bottle was sent by a kindly brand after I lost my CybHer bag.The bookmark comes from my dad in Egypt. The cold remedies and tissues sum up the last few weeks, the tree is Josie’s and there is a faded out bottle of fabric blue, a deodorant that I altered to from spray after my breast lump scare last year.

And a little green car, one of the most precious possessions of one small boy.

I quite like green.

This post is for The Gallery, on the Sticky Fingers blog.

The Gallery – Talent.

October 22, 2014 by Merry 6 Comments

Talent.

They say it is everything. Some people have it. Some people don’t.

I watch people who don’t have talent all the time. I watch people who have some talent all the time.

I watch kids who sparkle. I watch kids who just ‘have it’.

I watch kids who learn fast and kids who learn slow.

I watch kids who kick the beam and I watch kids who fall off it 50 times and still keep going.

I watch the ones who are all mouth and I watch ones who were written off but never gave up.

There is more to talent than just having ‘it’.

There is more to talent than sparkle and fizz and stretchy limbs or the best voice or the cleverest brain.

***

She’s nine years old.

She has some talent. She’s pretty good, in a ‘will never be in the olympics’ kind of way.

I love to watch her.

I love her strength, her 6 pack, her neat limbs and her dainty dancing. I love that she never smiles because her brain is focused on being the best that she can be.

4 days a week she finishes school at 3.30pm and by 4.30pm she is at gym, ready for 4 hours of press ups, leg lifts, running, stretching and working moves over and over again.

She gets home and uses our living room as a gym for another hour. Every trip to the park is a chance to practise.

She never moans.

She never grumbles.

She never asks not to go tonight.

It’s not the talent that impresses me. It’s the dedication, the determination.

The relentless, mature, single-minded drive.

Its not the talent that inspires me. It’s not what I love most.

She embodies one phrase for me, a phrase I think should be drilled into the brain of every kid.

“Hard work beats talent, when talent doesn’t work hard.”

Written for The Gallery – Talent.

The Gallery – Eyes

October 8, 2014 by Merry 9 Comments

“She has beautiful eyes,” they said – and they meant it kindly.
Drawing attention away from the gaping hole they saw in her face.
The one I didn’t see, so consumed was I by her beauty.

“It will be okay,” they said – and they meant it truly,
Knowing, as I didn’t then, that it was but a small thing,
that marked her face while I saw only the girl in her eyes.

Reflected back at me, just a girl, with no idea
How to bring up a girl, facing challenge ahead of her
And only her eyes to see her through.

They fixed her face, as they said they would,
And when I found her all alone but awake in the baby ward,
Face changed…
It was the eyes I knew, straight and true.

She grew.
She looked out at the world, fearless, brave
And full of challenge, optimism, change.

Those baby eyes, the toddler eyes, the ones that swore
She would always be small, always my little girl.
And I said “You won’t. But that’s okay.”

Eyes that dance, eyes that tumble, eyes that sparkle but rarely cry,
Except tripped up by some unexpected joy.
Eyes that were – and are – my baby.

She’s almost grown. And now, these days, as she fusses and frets
About how she looks in a photo, and if a hoodie is smart enough
Or whether to wear make up, just this once,
I look at her – at all of her – and hardly knowing where to start, I say…

“You have beautiful eyes.”

This post is for The Gallery and is also in support of Sightsavers. You can follow Winesi from Malawi as he has his cataracts removed on my other blog.

The Gallery – Sky.

September 12, 2014 by Merry 1 Comment

And when my heart has ceased to beat,
And atoms loose and seek to meet
You up above where dreams and tears
Have mingled, crowded, waited years
To be together, rest and be
As one again before we flee.
Over hill and under cloud,
Through the rain, among the flowers,
Sweep through grass and tumble child
In wind and weather, fierce and wild.

And then at last, when all is gone,
And only upward calls us on,
The threatened storm thunders past,
Calling us to come at last.
Among the blue, with fading cry,
The solace of the lasting sky.

***

For The Gallery