A Painting Artist

I read so much in the press about ‘the top 50 retreats’, ‘the best writing retreats worldwide’, we have become obssessed with the idea that in order to write we must retreat. Retreat from what exactly, and to what exactly is my question?

Retreating to The Hay Festival is the good kind of retreat to do in my view. It’s a chance to fill up the creative tank listening to my favourite authors, catch up with friends, and hear some publishing gossip, smell the whiff of new trends, and pick up ideas while slurping an ice-cream in the sun. Yum.

What if retreating to A N Other place isn’t an option? What if in these recessionary times, you decided to stay at home and create your own retreat indoors, or outdoors – even better?

One of the best retreats I went on cost me nothing in airfares or train costs, my accommodation was fully paid for, and my only cost was stocking my larder with tempting and decadent foods.

Here are my top tips for creating your own writing retreat:

Clear the shed or spare room, and lay a luxurious rug on the floor.
Stockpile it with really comfy cushions to sit on
Create retreat sounds on your iPod playlist
Collect a chocolate stash and other candy treats
Stock your fridge with voluptuous Sophie Dahl type foods to snack on
Switch the phones off and tell your family you are ‘on retreat’
Write!
Intersperse writing with a long soak in the bath while reading your favourite novel.

We don’t need fancy and expensive places to retreat to in order to write, nor do we need to get away from ourselves. Virginia Woolf was right, a woman needs a room of her own to write in, so your retreat can be anywhere that you are set up to write from, and the essential quality is a desire to retreat within, not without.

Live wildly. Write more wildly.

Who Is Rachel Smiles, And Why Do I Care?

I have to share this with you all.

I woke up in the middle of the night with the words, ‘Rachel Smiles’ clearly in my consciousness. I grabbed my pen on my bedside table and in the dark, scribbled these words in my journal, because I knew I wouldn’t remember them when I was fully awake. I had no idea whether I would be able to read them in the morning because I couldn’t see the page, but I knew it was important to write them down.

I just googled Rachel Smiles and this is what I got:

http://www.rachelschallenge.com

You may know this story already, but I did not. I was moved to tears.

Rachel Scott was the first person killed at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999. Her acts of kindness and compassion coupled with the contents of her six diaries have become the foundation for one of the most life-changing school programs in America.

Just days before my dream I had shared with my mentors Bob Yeager and Rachel Goddard my desire to start a revolution in women’s healthcare. Rachel and I have been talking about this coming to fruition in me for several months. Gradually I have been building up to this point in myself where I feel strong enough, awake enough to take this on, to take that first step, to plant my flagpole in the ground, which I did on Friday on my blog, to invite people to join me and contribute their stories.

When I read Rachel’s story I knew I had been given a powerful message of encouragement, maybe even directly from her – isn’t this just amazing – I don’t really have all the words for this yet.

What I do know for sure is that I have now started a chain reaction, as she felt called to do, and sadly she had to lose her life for this vision to come to fruition. I saved my life. I survived cancer. I came through that challenge, and now I want to build this huge community in women’s health, where every woman counts. Every woman’s voice is heard. Every woman’s message, story and intuition about her body and soul wisdom is taken as seriously as any drug, prescription or otherwise.

The other thing I know for sure is that I am writing 3 books – I have written 1, and am working on the 2nd.

Then I read Amazon’s review of Rachel Smiles book and discovered
it is the 3rd book in a series of 3! What graceful guidance was at work.

I’m sharing this story with you because when we commit ourselves to our own ‘revolution’, support and resources show up from surprising places.

I invite your ideas, encouragement and wild spirit, to connect me to other wild spirits who want to join with me in bringing this vision I have to fruition.

Thank you for reading this.

http://www.rachelschallenge.com

Amanda

This is a big question. Or is it?

According to the filmmaker, Martin Scorsese, “the artist’s job is to make people care about your obsessions and see them and experience them as their own.”

This view may be shared by Sir Howard Hodgkin, the 76 year old British painter and Turner prize winner who I met yesterday, at his private view of Prints, in London.

He’s recovering from surgery so looked quite frail, but his Prints, which hung on the walls of the PM Gallery, did not.

As I walked around the exhibit I was lost for words, and reminded of the quote from the essayist Susan Sontag that: ‘a way of feeling is a way of seeing.’ * This applies directly to Hodgkin’s work. Although the print titles provide clues to what each print is about, the ‘stories’, are really contained in the feelings they evoke.

Howard Hodgkin describes himself as ‘a representational painter of emotional moments’, but he has always resisted describing what his paintings are about, because he claims the true knowing and meaning comes to the viewer through his/her engagement with the work; to know why he painted it, is to really miss the point altogether.

Staring at these prints, some of which I have seen before, stirs up feelings of loss, grief, desire, passion, tenderness, so that I am left, for the first time, speechless, and yet more engaged than ever.

I think Howard Hodgkin would approve.

The Susan Sontag quote is taken from the essay, ‘About Hodgkin’ by Susan Sontag, first published in Howard Hodgkin Paintings Abrams Inc, Publishers in association with The Modern Art Museum of Forth Worth 1995.

If you have an opinion on the role of the artist, please leave your comment below, and be sure to register for my newsletter in the top right of this blog to receive free content.