Tender maintenance of endeavour

My heart and mind are seeking something.
A request is not a demand -just a tender-
hearted hopefulness.Waking in the morning
-well this and many I recall regularly,is this
mindfullnees of all those who are/were good.

Arthur Gee for example was not overly proud
courteous and gifted with humility soft spoken
 and interested.A listener a hoper sharer
carer kindly minded man.I hope their are
print rooms and a a piano in heaven with
the Jesus I have sought to share for him to
see through the eyes of purity and childlike
 playful discovery disclosing revealing enabling
the aspiration to enjoy being.

He admired many Tunnicliffe and unknown
tender eyed mark makers who  made such lovely
hand made books.Oh for those shared discoveries
a small crafts gallery somewhere and yes a pretty smiling girl
somewhere.Whilst we were not seriously beer swigging
lusting lads,nor dower cynicals of unsweet bitter tea,yet
butty  eating and flask enjoying modest soldiers journeyers
students of what to draw and what draw with next.
Oh for that same companinship and similarly I miss
Dr Frederick Franck who was company through a
 book-the Zen of Seeing  that caused a good road to
 form beyond the narrows of vanity with the touch
of Christ's purpose for me the 'me' that we all share.
The us that is true fellowship the church with the
 small c rather than the big I am of the ego filled C
the Church that does not see.


Oh something in me in life in the hopefulness.
Tom Wayles has this quality.I have seen how
 vulnerable and human we all are .Oh as I think
 in the quiet and  the tender hopefulness of nearing
 Christmas I am seeking you God Jesus Holy Spirit
You are not the shallow panel of judges of a heavenly
 X factor.You are not looking for a star you are the
 light giving all seeing all caring all being worth caring
 about three in all that is and are in some mysterious
goodness All that there is and all that is is good through you.

Believe in nothing But God.
God is what who and why all is
every fragrance heart beat imaging
'seeling' of what ever detail point or suchness
 imaginable.Perhaps it is a sin to publicly pray
for those who we hope with all our being to bless.
Simon Wallis needs God's goodness to feed his
 human battery so that he can wind the cogs of
schools imaginations and tunefully roll along the
keys of the dinner hall piano keys that feed the
 kids with the seasoning of good food

FIVE A DAY perhaps a Christian hymn or the beatles
a c major chord or a one accord breakfast of cylce repairs
 and shepherding of the shepherds in the scools.
The bigger picture unfolds from Tom and Simon the St s
on the hill bless these neighbour both.

This has been my morning pages form the quiet
cold November monday the last in 2011


Oh but what then is it I seek ?.I seek Lord security
hopefullness energy income and a wife .
Arthur Frederick Tom and Simon have been blessed with
good ladiesin the background of their lives.
My friend George Ryan too and all those friends who make any real
sense have known or know caring sisters to their being.
Oh I pray for Barbara and for my past marriage and I
seek wholesome companionship.My friends occasionally
 pray for me on this one and the yearning seems to leave me.
I seem to accept sad songs are all mine.Unrequitedness aaaaah!
Horrible empty being here by myself
story writing to distract myself from the longing to cook
 for and be cooked for to share warmth and hope and
aspiration walks of wonder teacups of time together
come home my heart all is reliving.Let something be brand new
a born again husband  in a creative joy.Yet I dont not want either
 dating site nor dirty book.and I do not want to spend my life
 in a  dieter's self denial club.Oh help Lord in the public blogging prayer site
where I hope to do the Julia Cameron morning pages of
 saying my feelings and thought to improve or
at least sustain the writing activity and play the notes
may find their octave or locate the song that God chooses
 this life of mine to play upon whilst I sustain simply being
and waiting it seems feels.Aaaaaaaaaaah! A cartoon loneliness

Being hoping praying staying alive.

When all else seems to fail just keep going. Go on feeling loved believing you are relevant knowing you are here.
Joanne Harris's book The Artist's Way suggests just keep writing even when you do not know what to write.
Loving my neighbor as myself and least of one of these and Emmanuel God amongst us.


What to say? Am I praying or just keeping going.Whilst yet I live in whatever sate Joanne Harris is right  just keep writing.So sustaining is the key to what- success?Well that is a tricky one in the light of this expression:


Success suggests God's love no more than struggle suggests a lack of it.

Change is happening.NAPA was once a brand new idea in the mind of a friend .It was to be sustained and has been.It was a creatinve use of plastic paint,which like words would and at times did create possibilities.Ken Hodgson and I met on a very interesting yet short live course run by the Open University
The course was called TAD292 I think .I remember we called ourselves Tadpoles-those of us attending a summer school in Brighton.Felt like the  'born again' invitation of Jesus.Abundance was what Jesus said of life.
Fully alive and hopeful and creative noticing many ways of being -not hedonism just child like joy in form sound and image playful creative rethinking being.Art as hopefulness-Paul Klee ,Chagall ,Bob Dylan and Dyson .Did you know that John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath ,Woody Guthrie's Dust bowl blues and the Vacuum cleaner are all the result of the dust clouds being observed and devastation being given a spin?

Any way no time to explain and I am listening to seagulls in a cold November morning dark sky at 7.40
typing as a thing to do just like practicing piano or walking.Keep going .Let sense make itself as it is wont to do eventually retrospectively as Joni Mitchell said 'you don't know what you've got till its gone'.

'Something is happening here and you don't know what it is -do you Mr.Jones' says Dylan and so these are the phrases and ideas informing my walk as I reflect on Ken's National Acrylic Painter's Association.Associative free associativeness .Plastic paint that like words can say anything .Ken was 'art trained' perhaps enough to know that dad was eventually accepted and the emperor's new clothes seen as a revelation of the truth behind the pomp.Those who said he wasn't art trained lay in the wings.Having created nothing themselves they needed him to give it to them to train into something boring limited in scale and only inclusive if the product complied with their authorititive interpretation of aesthetics that involved  purpose and many othe 'holy' essentials of their golden 'section'-ing


Ken I won't be there at the final NAPA showdown.
Thank you for the amazing time I had with so many wonderful people.
I have little to offer at present and NAPA
is no longer useful as I cannot do the little picturess they want,

Now that you are free of it satrt to adventure and become free
I suggest SARKS new creative companion
a bit like TAD292.  http://planetsark.com/

How's my prayer life?

From my point of view not from God's it feels unanswered
but I cannot really know.My habits have changed
 but my hope is still the same.
Feeling a need to be physically active meant changing my morning reading pen and bible for boots and shoreline.

Stepping out keep going keep trusting keep hoping is that prayer?Knowing a need to write and for dialogue or the morning pages of writing drawing is strong with me.

My financial resources have been dwindling and I have reached into funds I had hoped to leave alone.

Looking at my other assets I am trying my best to draw and keep drawing as Dr Franck suggested as a friend and as author of the Zen of Seeing so this is going to have images that are either meditative doodles and hopes or quick snatchings of the eye in Toast ,Linghams and The Ship Hoylake.

I found these first few doodles when looking in the plastic box of bits that I keep my writing course work in -my in tray .It has been full for 2 years on hold awaiting a portable laptop
with a battery that lasted more than a few seconds.

There are these drawing made in Toast as I sat and pondered being on hold sometime early summer.These of passers bye in the crescent opposite:


In another submission on this blog I think I upladed by Barcelona people and the drawing of Kappa band.

These are Zen of seeing and not sketches as my respect for Dr.Frederick Franck runs deep .Both book and concept Seeing-drawing as meditation is for me a prayerful celebration of life seeing life.A sketch is for picture making or furniture building etc-these are for themselves though I concede to them being tuning up for a larger melody.











So these were made a while ago and I found them as I am revising synopsis and plot plan in the hope of resuming my writing course now that I have a little web book to write and save on whilst drinking tea and point counitng (Weightwatchers style) in cafes.
These next drawings were made at' First Thursday' a poetical evening on the first Thursday of each month in Linghams Heswall:

From this point on it is the jazz musicians that play

 monthly

at the Ship Hoylake 

The new Tin tin film

Fabulous
Steven Speilberg has created a wonder!
Go and see it .
Thank you God
the girl I love beside me
 and an artist I admire given new life wow!
grateful  Jim

weight loss-one stone!

One Stone!

So then I have lost 1 stone and a bit since this holiday photo.

I will lose another stone before donning shorts shirt and oh unfortunately the hat did not do well in the wash and has shrunk too but that will no doubt add humour when I upload new slim jim bearded grandad Santa style  me.

 Yesterday whilst working on my new website for the murals I found I had saved these lovely images of gardeners from one of Simon Wallis' Bikeit projects thought Id' put it here in the blog because I liked them so much. Oh and the details of the new website :https://sites.google.com/site/jimtheartistmurals/

Adventure

Life ought to have a continuous sense of this.
Wanting to resume my children's writing course
I have waited for an affordable laptop
that would have a battery that would last
whilst I sat in a cafe to think and study.
One that is about £50 from T.J.Hughes
has just become available and my friend
John Broughall spotted it in Wirral News.

I am also hoping to include some journeys
to Heswall dee Fine Arts by bicycle.
My friends Alison and Dave Lacy
have let me borrow a lighter 11 gear one
and allowed me to store the heavy blanc et noir cruiser.

The Barcelona holiday with Amy showed me
how unfit I was.I joined Weight watchers and had my
heart checked out too.

tony and liz wilson's grandchildren

Last year in Paris the dizziness of any incline
or fast walking worried me too.

Adventure well-so far I create a large image of
a bigger view.A commission and a journal for Paris
helped last year and it was great to get closer visually
to Brighton where Amy had studied.

Currently I am working on Gaudi's Barcelona
and was delighted when I saw parrots flying free
about the town and the Sagrada familia.

I ahev done some watercolour studies from tourist's
 uploaded photos to include in my larger painting.
I will go outside and photo the drawing and studies so far.

Well I stayed in and then when I got the tiny web browser I plugged it in

f or 3/4 hour and its battery lasted the same oh dear
I am not sure it can save to usb stick nor do a full editable page of text

Not sure if prayers to get back into writing course are
 being answered through this gadget.I have it on charge again for another 3/4 hour then perhaps
 John Broughall
my Chrisitan friend can help me to see its benefits

Morning pages

Connected-ness
I have hanging on the side of my bath
lots of what I call sea strings.

I have recently lost 11 pounds weight
 through weight watchers


Looking fat on a photo
I put together using Photoshop
from a trip to Barcelona with my daughter
I decided to loose weight

Cameron had lost stones
using weight watchers.

I had also been dizzy when walking
in the heat of Barcelona  on sustained inclines .

I mentioned I was dieting & walking
 to Fabienne to whom
I teach a little drawing.

When I spoke of going around
the Marine Lake twice each day
she offered an alternative root
across Cubbins Green towards
Thurstaston alkong the beach
back up some steps along Wirral Way
up Mellon croft and back down Caldy Road.

The adventure of walking on sand rocks
 and pebbles  brought me into contact
 with these strings.

They appear to be fibres like hair
to which shells have attached themselves
and into which the sea has rolls felt
or paper connecting and weaving sea weed
and any loose strands it could rolls in the surf
presumably on the draining board of the beach
where I have met with them.

Recently on the piano Barbara my tutor has
 been showing me how Peter her friend
adds a lower bass note from a chord
associated to the melody from using the right hand thumb
whilst selecting notes from the chord in the left hand.

Chords strings associated rhythm riffing.

Whilst doing the sound system on Sunday in Church
Danny was playing in harmony with a girl singer
when Brian joined in and so I had to find which
 line his guitar was in and also his microphone .
Whilst Danny packed his guitar away and the girl singer also
left Brian's thread of song replaced the earlier two chord strand mix

I went to see Dylan the next night
and it was fabulous to see what his surf had

 'gathered from coincidence' through Grace.
He gripped tightly now to lyrics he had written over half a century
or more and whilst the new band and new arrangement of
riffs and tide rolled in to the M.E.N  arena.
It was awe inspiring and encouraging that
new life could be poured into these words
without the predictably crass allegiance to and earlier
liturgical hymn/recordings.

I did not go there to listen to an old record
and he had not set out to deliver one.

The harmonica bite was a clear and
well washed strand of pearls.

My friend Tony at church had kindly mentioned
on Sunday that he missed my own harmonica playing

What is great is that you hear the sound you blow
into the mike come out at the other end of the church
so long as the fold back doesn't override it.

I bet Dylan could hear himself as we could 'out there'
on the water

The next night it was Kappa at the Wro
and having seen my photographer friend
and suggested we both go and record the event visually
it was great to be a sea of splashes and scribbles 
to the rhythm of the musical waves


Laura Ed's daughter went up and mixed with 
the genius of the regular drummer and bass player
and like bobbling threads Paul invited drumming on his guitar

passed his guitar to the drummer had Laura drum on guitar
 whilst changing the chord shapes the bassist turned 
drummer Paul became bassist and so the invitation 
of the truth goes marching on Glory Glory Halleleujah
that followed the tuning at the beginning was met
with blessings


And it was great to see Paul outside the Wro 
looking in over my shoulder as the router picked 
up the drawing his guitar hand was making
on our ears inside through the router and speakers
of the elctro connected waves-'lecky' as Paul would say
though usually preserved for the solid body guitar
this was an acoustic set with amplification really.


I will go and see whether I have to paddle the 
coast and leave the strings unattached beside the sea

I have dry ones in the car I used to teach drawing with yesterday Wed
and those draining one on the shore of my bath tub.