Autumn

A time for change

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

            Close bosom friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

            With fruit the vines around the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage trees,

            And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

                        To swell the gourd and plump the hazel shells,

         With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease

            For summer has o’er brimm’d their clammy cells.

I have always loved this poem, To Autumn by John Keats. We studied Keats when I did my O levels and although my recollection is sketchy I don’t think I understood much. Poetry was a bit wasted on my then 14 year old self. (I am a summer birthday and took English Literature a year early so I wasn’t quite yet fifteen when I sat my exams). We did Ode to a Nightingale, The Eve of St Agnes and the rather gruesome Isabella or The Pot of Basil. It was only much later that I realised that Isabella had buried the head of her murdered lover Lorenzo in a pot of basil. But the Ode To Autumn I understood and can still recite to this day… well the first verse, not the other two. For me it conjures up perfectly this time of year.

Isabella and the Pot of Basil, William Holman Hunt, 1868

Today is the first day of September which is also the first day of meteorological autumn. The blackberries have been ripe in juicy abundance for several weeks now, apples are almost ready for picking and there are signs that the leaves on the trees are beginning to change colour. The nights are starting to draw in, with cooler mornings and evenings and I am enjoying the feeling of a change of seasons, despite the fact that our summer was very late arriving in the UK with a long, wet and cold spring.

I also enjoy the fresh start that comes with that back to school feeling. The new sharpened pencils and the fresh exercise books that herald a new school year makes it feel for me far more like the beginning of something than January. Although I enjoy the start of a brand new year in January it never feels like the right time to be making changes or resolutions. Hot on the heels of Christmas and with the nights still long and dark, it’s not the right time for new beginnings or radical changes. September however feels as though it is loaded with potential and as a result I have had some ideas for something new.

It will be no surprise that I’m currently preoccupied with clearing clutter whilst not just chucking everything away into landfill. I’ve written about it a couple of times lately (See last weeks post here) But this isn’t something recent and it’s a subject that has caused me a lot of concern over the years related to my creative art practice too.

Whilst I was teaching machine embroidery and other related textile subjects I became increasingly aware of the amount of stuff I was both creating and accumulating. I still have a studio that is full of fabrics, threads, dyes and haberdashery as well as a whole load of design materials. For many years not only did I buy things to add to my stash but people would donate their excess to me. I was also making art pieces to exhibit that were often mounted and framed and over the years these built up too. I have a huge tub full of teaching samples that are of absolutely no use to anyone and it overwhelms me to think of how I might dispose of all these things.

As I gradually cut back on my teaching I stopped accumulating textile related stuff but that also coincided with me taking up painting and now as well as fabrics and threads etc I also have a huge stack of paints, brushes, sketchbooks and canvases, including a whole load from my Mum from when she could no longer see well enough to paint. And there are dozens of finished paintings that are just sitting there without a home to go to. The result of all this is that I have virtually stopped painting and making and experimenting. It is completely overwhelming.

Add to this my interest in the climate crisis and how we might consume less and live more sustainable lives and you can understand why I feel like running away and burying my head in the sand. But it is September, time for a fresh start so I am going to try something new which has in part been inspired by listening to all the back episodes of Zoe Edward’s podcast Check Your Thread. Hearing Zoe’s thoughts on sewing more sustainably and listening to her many interesting guests all trying to live more sustainable lives has made me think much more about the consequences of our actions in our daily lives.

None of us can tackle all of these issues all at once and as individuals it can feel as though anything we do is a mere drop in the ocean and a waste of time but I passionately believe we should all do something and collectively the more people that join in to live a more sustainable life, the more of an impact it will make. At this stage I feel it is important to add that I realise I am doing this from a position of privilege where I can afford to make more sustainable choices and I know this is not the case for everyone. If you have limited financial resources or have demands on your time then it’s not always easy or possible to make these choices.

I also believe that no one was ever persuaded to make changes to their lifestyle by being lectured or preached at. So I am hoping to lead by example by sharing the ways in which I am making small sustainability wins in my own life… and sharing where I fail too. I’m hoping it will not only make me more aware of what can be done but also it might encourage others to come on board and embrace some of my ideas. I’m hoping it will be a two way conversation not a lecture because I know there is still much more for me to learn too. To do this I have set up a second Instagram account ‘The Aging Activist’ where I will document my journey in sustainability and activism hopefully with humour and a light touch, separate from what is supposed the be my art account. I have dithered for a long time about whether I should do this or not and frequently end up thinking ‘What’s the point’ but the point is I am doing this for me, to make me stop and think before I buy something new, throw something away or consider how I might do something differently. And just maybe others will want to see what I’m up to and follow along, so I’m really hoping you might join me.

I make no promises to post everyday nor even every week because I don’t want to set myself up to fail before I start, and I feel I have enough pressure in my life at the moment, but my plan is to do something regularly because there is not much point calling myself an activist if I’m not acting. Occasionally if there is something significant to write about I might put something here on Substack as well because it’s all as much a part of me, my life and my art as painting pictures.

What to do… repair, recycle or chuck?

So I would love it if you came and found me there, where I have my first post (Well second really because there was an introductory post). I have made a small repair to one of Stewart’s shirts. Now as you will have seen before, I am completely on board for repairing rather than chucking, however I’m not so great at actually getting the jobs done, hence a huge pile of clothes that need fixing in some way. Some things only need the right button for goodness sake so that will be easy wins for my new IG account and might encourage me to get it done and clear the mending pile. This particular shirt never even made to the mending pile as he caught it on a door catch just last week and I offered to mend it before it got any bigger. It hung there on his wardrobe door making me feel guilty every time I saw it until this morning when I finally patched the hole with some coordinating fabrics. Two simple patches hand stitched in place with a couple of machine stitched seams over where the tear lay. Not quite an invisible mend but not entirely visible either… a blended mend with which he is delighted. A tiny sustainability win for this weekend and a shirt given a new lease of life.

So I hope you will come and find me… just click this link and give a shout of encouragement so that my enthusiasm lasts beyond September. And next week I have some stunning art to share. Until then, have a good week.