Baked in summer sunshine we melt into this ‘new’ living, my time is spent mostly working on the land and playing with my son, who knows what the future will hold but we do not need to know, we are living in the golden now and mostly mucking about on cadmium chaffed fields and alongside rolling amber hay bales.
I am still working with the floral forms that surround me and have made a few black & white acrylic paintings of the the jasmine flowers that surround the house. I planted them around the terrace maybe 7 years ago now and they are reaching the top pergolas, the smell is incredible, in some ways too potent, attracting bees and butterflies and providing shade. I wanted to work in black and white to strip back, to get more of a feel for flow, for the quick sweeping stems, the drooping lines and swirls. The fullness of foliage and fragrance. To try to reflect a little of that energy in some way.
I decided against the exhibition in the end in Vasto, due to covid restrictions there would be no possibility of a private view and only one entrant at a time, for me the costs would be too high with framing, publicity, cost of the space itself to come away without any guarantee of a few sales. I have my eyes on the exceptional artichoke flowers looming high in my vegetable patch as the next work, luminous fuzzy violet and sacred spiral geometry.
‘Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion’ Rumi
‘I hope you never play small. I hope you never have to shrink yourself down or soften your sound simply to fit into the hum of the world. I hope your wildest dreams don’t scare you and that you are never afraid to let your sound be heard. I hope you fail and mess up sometimes, because that means you’re trying new things and going for bigger dreams….. And most of all, I hope you never let those moments stop you from chasing. Because if you keep climbing, if you keep going big anyways, if you keep squeezing out every drop of effort you possibly can, beautiful friend, know that your divine melody will echo across the seas and stars endlessly.’ Nikki Banas
