Wade in

The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach - waiting for a gift from the sea.
Anne Morrow Lindbergh

12 months ago I received such a gift when I had the wonderful pleasure to spend a week with Kristoffel Boudens when he was in Melbourne presenting at a conference. On this occasion he was teaching letter cutting into stone and I was an eager and faithful student. It was a pinnacle moment in my life as I have always wanted to learn the techniques of letter cutting but never had the opportunity before. I waited more than 20 years for that week.
Two years prior to this another gift was unexpectedly presented to me when the chance arose to spend a week with Kristoffel studying the graffiti of ancient Rome and developing modern letter forms from them. It was the first time I had met Kristoffel and I did not know what to expect.
Needless to say it altered my thinking for ever and changed my outlook in a number of ways. Because of these two unlooked for gifts, I have learnt much and have gained a good friend for which I am most grateful.

I mention this because I need to do a couple of paintings for an exhibition in June & July this year. I have received a reminder about the fast approaching deadline. Not much time left, so I had better get to work. Tonight I was looking through my book shelves for a misplaced book that had some short stories that would suit these paintings very well, and I came across the little hand bound booklet that Kristoffel had made last year titled 'To Fuss or not to Fuss.' He writes:

Each shortcoming creates room for a talent. It is not the product that is the artwork but a field of forces shared by work and the viewer.

This made me think of another unexpected gift I recieved at last years conference and that was being introduced to the Irish letter cutter, designer, and calligrapher, Gareth Colgan. Gareth is a remarkable artist and craftsman, exquisite work, very shy, and very humble - there is that word again! No more 'very', please Graham.
We managed to swap some artwork and we are now good friends and share much in common.

But I have become sidetracked and gone off topic. My point is that things happen and gifts present themselves and we must not only recognise those gifts but accept and embrace them willingly.

From walking along the Semaphore jetty today looking for a possible blip The above scene was there waiting for me. While processing this tonight I was reminded of Anne Lindergh's quote [which I had to look up as I had forgotten half of it]. This intern lead to my unexpected re-engagement with Kristoffel's little book which progressed to finding the right words that will form the major content of the paintings I can now go to work on. The words then invited me to look again at the work of Gareth's which has now provided inspiration for the appropriate letterforms I will use (my artwork almost always contains lettering and words of some kind).

So wade in and enjoy the unexpected experiences that are presented to you every day.

Three other shots that didn't get selected from todays outing can be seen here.

Now, to some important matters. I commented on someones blip today(?) that the word very should be banned!
In the wonderful little book title The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E B White, they write:

Rather, very, little, pretty - these are leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words, The constant use of the adjective little (except to indicate size) is particularly debilitating; we should all try to do a little better, we should all be very watchful of this rule, for it is a rather important one, and we are pretty sure to violate it now and then.

A very good night, or morning, indeed afternoon to all.