Word Art Competition with Arvon Foundation.

I've just submitted a piece of work to the Arvon Foundation for their Word Art Competition and feel rather pleased with myself.

I wrote a short piece trying to capture how it feels to run early in the morning and painted the route that I often run in a slightly abstract way, trying to capture the colours I feel after I have been for a run rather than something representational.

This is a new departure for me, I have often written words and thoughts but keep a lot of my creative writing secret.  So to enter a competition with a company that I, dare I admit it, desperately want to go on one of their courses, feels rather exciting.

So a big thank you to my sister Sylvia for pointing this competition out to me.

Running at 6am

This is a second version I have made, the first was a little book.  However, the little book has had a massive fit of shyness and has refused to come out and have its photo taken.   I cannot coax it out of its hiding place or in fact find its hiding place...

Colours to Run to

Just finished off mounting and cello wrapping four of my latest paintings in the running series.  I'm really pleased with how they look.  They are based on the GPS tracking that I've got on my phone and I've done my usual thing of using the colours I wish the world really was.

They'll be on display and for sale this weekend at the Draycott Arts & Gardens Festival for £25 each.  I have debated internally whether to put them up for sale or whether to keep hold of them with the aim of having a solo exhibition based around the work produced for this blog.  I've decided to put them out there and see what response they get.

GPS Tracking

I've been playing with GPS Tracking by downloading Sports Tracker to my phone.  Initially this was to see hard data on the progress I've been making, but then I started to play with it...

At first just zig zagging across the field to see how sensitive it was to smaller movements, which came up with this:-

I like the effect of leaving an ethereal trace of where I have been on the landscape, more than just footprints, but an essence of myself.

I then took some string up the local playground and gained some very bizarre looks from teenagers as I wrote on the football pitch, and then walked it.  I also tried to map my friends living willow labyrinth, but that just ended up looking as though a toddler had been scribbling on the trees.  I'm a bit clearer on how precise the GPS tracker can be.

At this point my own kids pretended not to know me...

Running

I was joined by my friend and artist/beginner runner this morning for a 4km run along the river Derwent.  It makes running easier when I have to keep up with someone else and we are both competitive enough to not want to give up in front of each other.  Invarieably, it is me who stops first!  I dream of the day when she puffs 'I got to stop!' at me...

I have had to struggle with my own perception of what is achieveable and what is real, I am not going to be able to run 5k instantly.  As I struggle to keep going, I remind myself that I have recently stopped smoking, got at least 4 stone to loose and having not exercised in years.  I am having to learn to be kind to myself and learn to ignore my monkey mind.

Belper After The Hail Storm

Imagination

In my imagination, I run a lot further than my body can actually do in reality.  Every night when before I go to sleep, I imagine myself running my chose route.  When I drive in the car, I am looking for tracks that will take me off road to enjoy the freedom of trail running.

However, when I actually get out there, especially in the cold and wet, my body is soon screaming to remind me that I am still a beginner.  It cries for sympathy it deserves after 8 years of no exercise at all to suddenly have this new torture thrust upon it.

My mind is willing, the body is willing.  However the muscles still have to catch up... But as George Bernard Shaw said 'Imagination is the beginning of creation.  You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will'.

So my mind running wild across country, up hills, down through muddy tracks and crashing through streams is just the start of this journey of imagining a healthier, fitter, slimmer me.