The Magic of Myth, an enchanted journey by Elizabeth Duvivier

It would not be untrue if I wrote that I love this woman's blog best of all blogs.

I have written of her work before.  A snippet here and snippet there.  Mystic Vixen is where I wander when I need a fix of beauty, both in words and in images.  There's quite some wisdom to be found over there too.

Wandering there is like opening a window onto a beautiful view ... it simply restores my soul. 

And she shares her dogs too.

So, Elizabeth is even more than I knew her to be.  I've attached the video where you get to know a little about her and work.  She's responsible for Squam, as founder and director.  You have to read about Squam to believe it but obviously any place where I read 'creativity as a way of life' in the subtitle I'm going to be interested.

Anyway, the video below, it's all about Elizabeth and an exciting new offering she has created for Squam - The Magic of Myth, an enchanted journey. 

Take a peek ... see what you think.

the MAGIC of MYTH :: an enchanted journey from Squam on Vimeo.

Balance ...

I am always searching for a kind of balance in life ...

I work hard. I work long hours.  There is no income.  However I have finally decided to commit to the life of an artist.  And I'm lucky, my Belgian bloke is pleased  that I am finally writing again.  It was the thing I loved first, the thing friends back in New Zealand most associated with me, it turns out.

So I write in the mornings these days and depending on whether I'm on the school pick-up run, which is lunch-times two days per week, my writing often runs on into the afternoon.  And the evening.

And I edit for friends and causes I believe in the way some people do crossword puzzles. That's my hobby.  I love making texts beautiful.

And I can be lured out of the house to shoot an event or a portrait for friends I admire or whose business impresses me. That was last night.  And I sparkle on the inside.  I love the energy that shoots through me when I'm working with my camera. And I always meet really superb people.  There was this wine-maker last night.  An extraordinary woman that I will interview on Saturday.

So I have all these things that I love doing but they rarely involve money.  And making them earn money while bowing to the gods of taxes, social security, and etc, can only be described as a Kafka story.

Do I kill all the art and get a real job? 

It feels so much like cutting off my nose to spite my face.

I can create beauty.  I'm pleased with the shape the book on Genova is taking.  My photographs seem to please people and even if they don't, I find them pleasing.  I printed 20 of my Genova photographs off as A4 colour photocopies. 

I was like a mother with her new baby.  Who knows if the baby is ugly, I was that mother who was besotted.  The images looked so powerful laid out in front of me.  I needed that.  I was bored with looking at them on the computer.

The scales that weigh the content or purpose of my life are sensitive things.  Sometimes I have them in balance - my work is good, I should continue with photography and writing, the housework, and this crazy extended family of mine.  Other times it's ... who do I think I am.  Some princess who can live so irresponsibly and lightly in the world!?  I must find a job!'

We live in a world where the arts are always first against the wall in budget cut and yet art is the thing that makes humans different to animals, isn't it?  Art is the place we all escape to ... into books, into music.  And yet the raised eyebrow, the idea that we are spoiled ones ... oh how that messes with my head.

I was out with a friend last night and I said, I should get a job.  She said, but you work.  I said but I make no money.  She said you work really hard.  We laughed.  I do enjoy Ruth's company.  She keeps me sane.

So here I am, living what feels a little like life in bubble.  If I float out here, kind of disconnected from the world, then I can write this book I've been carrying inside of me for a long time but ... like being on the edge of a cliff, I can't look down.   If I look down, I'll may fall into despair and despair means I struggle to write and create.  Bitterness is deadly.

Lately I've read through a million job decriptions, trying to work out who would hire me, woman of strange abilities.  And I can't get past what I might gently call the 'wankspeak' of job descriptions.  I think you're meant to apply anyway and then everyone laughs and says noooooo, you're absolutely what we need but we had to write that other stuff ...like,  fluent in 17 languages, with the ability to get our newsletter out into the world in 17 seconds flat.  But maybe it's better those jobs have seemed impossible.

This morning began with a bit of a crisis.  Oh, you guessed.  Maybe I've written it out of me and tomorrow I'll delete this and we'll pretend it never happened. 

But make no mistake, this needs to be read knowing I'm smiling.  I have fought off the despair.  I'm going to write now. 

Adjusting ...

Alice came to a fork in the road. “Which road do I take?” she asked. “Where do you want to go” responded the cat. “I don’t know” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “It doesn’t matter.

Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

Source: Oh Fairies

It's fascinating (for me) to watch myself struggle with having made space and silence to write ...

I didn't realise quite how addicted I had become to distraction.  'Addicted' for want of a better word.  Facebook is perfect as a distraction.  It's full of some of my favourite people and, often, it's the only place I easily and instantly reach them.  It's playtime all day, if I allow it be.  Or forget that it shouldn't be ... on a slow day when I am quite lost and lacking in self-discipline.

And my FB wall was full of interesting folk.  It wasn't the tedious stuff you read about in the 'worst of FB' stories.  They were posting politically and intellectually interesting stuff ... as well as day-to-day life, links to good music, and their stories too.

These days of allowing this silence to fall around me haven't been simple but slowly I'm growing  used to the peace of it all.  Instead of multiple story-lines telling of other worlds running there in my head, I only have my stories ... mostly.

The loveliest thing is that I am receiving long emails from friends who have either already left facebook or who want to stay in touch.  Long emails are bliss and I find myself setting aside time to reply, instead of them being lost in the avalanche of action that my life used to be.  And links to good music are often included.  I would hate to lose those introductions to music others love.

Yesterday I was consumed by a desire to further prepare myself for the long winter ahead.  Bookshelves were moved, the sofa went upstairs to Miss 9's room, replaced by a exquisite yellow armchair I found secondhand and today this office space/bedroom is so much more beautiful.  When the sun angles in through the window behind me now, it is no longer absorbed by the other deep-red bookshelf, instead it reflects off the wall painted a warm terrocotta (I think) and lights the middle of the room with a warm glow.

Light, and that colour range from pale yellow through into a deep gold, they are things that I love.  My desk area is clearer than ever, and the small round red patterned rug that we found is perfect under my chair.

The paddling-people delighted me, in the image below, but so did the house.  If I had a Pinterest board, I'm almost sure that it would be filled with images of houses and rooms made for dreaming and writing in...

An Afternoon at the Antwerp Zoo

In my photography, there are themes that recur, images that I don't realise I'm chasing ...

Reflections would fall into that category.

Today was a sunny autumn day here in Antwerp.  Miss 9 and I wandered off to the zoo.  School holidays.   And I had to smile as we worked on a miniature photography workshop while exploring the zoo together. 

Her joy, as she worked out shutter speed and focus, was lovely.  She really got it. 

Anyway, she was given a zoo map when she paid for her ticket.  Oh my, there were some conversations where I suggested her map-reading skills were dodgy.  She laughed and, of course, we ended up at that funky slide over in the playground ... 

Not so dodgy it seems, perhaps we were simply on different missions.

Eventually I was able to arrive at the giraffe enclosure.  It's one of my favourite places there in the zoo but what I had forgotten was that there is a water course that runs round the edge of their space.  I don't know what it is about the water but it reflects exquisitely.

The image that follows ... Antwerp's blue sky reflected with the stripes and paint on the giraffe house.  Miss 9 and I could have stayed there all afternoon but for the fact we were cold and getting hungry.

Dank u wel for a lovely day, little Miss 9.

Perseverance ...

Of course you must perservere. Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Some days, working my way into the state of mind I need to work, I am fortunate and begin by reading a post by Terri Windling, a writer, artist, and book editor, and so much more. 

She offers up inspiration more often than not.  I smiled when I read her Cartier-Bresson quote this morning.  Just the first 10,000 photographs ... perserverance is all.