Quiet Time

I was reading Deborah Barlow's blog Slow Muse [link here] the other day and these words expressed so well what I have been thinking about.

John Russell‘s admonitions feel even more necessary now than they did then:

I think that art should be allowed to go private. It should be a matter of one-on-one. In the last few years, the public has only heard of art when it makes record prices at auction, or is stolen, or allegedly withheld from its rightful owners. We need to concentrate more on art that sits still some place and minds its own business. We all hope for a strong response from art, but the kind of buzz that we have to live with nowadays is the enemy of art. Quietness and slow time are its friends.

A retreat from the outer world of garden and land, the sense of hibernation, the longing for quiet, for calm, for watching; a place I need to be now as I take the time to update my website. Details, fiddlely bits, organization, the figuring out of the puzzle, how to present things clearly, time to make mistakes, time to fix them; the sense that there is enough time and I will get it done. But I know I need full concentration and a letting go of where I'd rather be which is the studio. And I know, really, this is part of the studio.

Last night's sunset on the pond