With a crazy year behind me, I finally got into my studio on the weekend ... and landed up doing an extra-super spring-clean.

My family tease me saying that I clean more than I paint/create ;-) but I think the line between the two's not that clear.

As I re-arranged canvas, tidied tins of paint, lined up turps, thinners and linseed oil and sorted through drawers filled with an array of the things I delight in ... pins with shiny round heads, ancient nails inherited from Gramps, rusty bottle-tops, twigs-a-twisting, pressed leaves, used old postage stamps, stencils that outline things, pretty pens, waxy crayons, Willow Charcoal and sticks of incense of Sandalwood and Old White Musk .. I realized that far more was going on than a mere clean-n-tidy.

I found myself re-acquainting with 'hidden-treasures' that had been put away for safe-keeping; Forgotten feathers found still brightly coloured, I was remembering the importance of delighting in the simple things that make me happy. Discovering a packet full of torn map pieces, I was determining that it was time for new direction. And then seeing beautiful butterfly wings that had been tucked between the pages of my journal, I thought … it's time for new dreams and for looking forward, however fragile our futures sometime seem.