Comments on: Still Life

By: Kirsty Hall

Kirsty Hall — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 17:25:53 +0000

Hi Melanie, thanks for commenting, I'm glad you found the blogging posts helpful.

By: melaniemillar

melaniemillar — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 06:07:10 +0000

Kristy, i have been looking at your blog off and on for a few months. I don't remember how i stumbled on it. I just read your posts on blogging. very helpful to me. i have just started blogging the last few months. i wanted to say thanks.
regards,
Melanie

By: Kirsty Hall

Kirsty Hall — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:12:37 +0000

I find it strange that there's always been this hierarchy of subjects, to me, still life is every bit as valid as any other theme in art.

By: Kirsty Hall

Kirsty Hall — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:11:27 +0000

Thanks for commenting, Ruth – sorry to hear that you've also got CFS, it's a very annoying illness.

It's been a big exhausted 'can't do anything' crash this time around – the longest and most intense that I've had in quite some time actually. I've done tiny bits of gardening because getting out in the fresh air and working with dirt helps as long as I don't overdo it. But the only thing I've been able to do mentally is read easy fiction – I didn't even have the concentration to play on Twitter much. So I guess it's been a blanket brain fog. I can often just swap activities but not this time.

By: Kirsty Hall

Kirsty Hall — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 17:07:16 +0000

What a beautiful reply, Kruse, I love your thoughts on a crash being more like being becalmed.

By: Kruse

Kruse — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 00:50:20 +0000

What a lovely post. I crave stillness, silence. I like the small gesture. The quiet, unconsidered thing.

I know (from experience) that it is awful to have a CFS'crash,' but a crash implies noise and movement and action and what you are being forced toward is stillness, rest, calm, a misted, fogged existence. Become your own still life in this moment and maybe (I hope) the wind will start to pick up again and your sails gently unfurl and you can re-join this 21st century craziness. Best wishes to you.

By: RuthC

RuthC — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 13:39:37 +0000

Hi Kirsty, I found your blog through Kate Davies Needled blog. Sorry to hear you are having a CFS crash. I also struggle with M.E./CFS and try to maintain my creative/artistic endeavors, and know that there are just times where it's not worth pushing it. I'm finding that the specific part of my difficulty with thinking/concentration is making decisions, this is constantly making the creative process difficult, and to actually make/create something loads of minute creative decisions are made. Yet as I am opted out of the working daily grind (a bit), and have more “head space” I'm finding that actual creative ideas are bubbling up. The process of developing these ideas and putting them into action is more tricky. I find I can knit, choose colours/designs, and knit away following instructions, and what a godsend it is for me.
Are you finding a similar creative concentration issue, or is it just blanket brain fog? Hope you feel brighter soon :)

By: jennybarron

jennybarron — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 19:24:33 +0000

Thank you for that………some lovely thoughts on still life……..
It's interesting for artists like myself who paint mainly still life subjects, to see the same response to those subjects, homely, exotic , symbolic etc, reaching right back into history.
No matter what 'big' movements are going on there always seems to be a still life painter on thier own track, saying ''Wow, look at that artichoke, egg, leaf, broken cup''.
It's exciting to feel the connection………..
What you say is right…..it's an essential part of the picture, and a way to enhance the experience of seeing things, and life,for the artist and the onlooker.

(That could be more grammatical, but I'm not s'posed to be computering !!)