I hope you are having a good week, so far. It is feeling quietly autumnal here, with breezy, cooler weather - though this afternoon felt rather muggy. The days are getting gradually shorter, but not too short.

Now is the time of year when I track the changes in trees - especially the tree outside my workspace window. This huge, very old, ho…

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I hope you are well. Doing things a little differently this Sunday.

Here are photos of tiny sketchbook pages, made recently. I am also sharing three fiction pieces. Thank you for reading and looking.

How To See Japan

I wore yellow all winter - a stranger on a train told me.

We were sitting opposite each other and it took me a moment to understand why she had told me this. Then I saw my yellow raincoat folded on my lap. I never wore it that summer, only ever carried it everywhere with hope for rain.

I can’t imagine it will rain today, the woman (dressed all in grey) said, after I refused to make anything of her wearing yellow all winter. What was I supposed to do with that? Offer my congratulations?

It may not seem like it, I told the woman, but I am a quiet optimist.

The woman frowned. That’s rather pointless, she said, keeping your optimism quiet, you should shout it!

A while ago, I lent that yellow raincoat to a friend who was making a trip to Japan, an often rainy country. For weeks, I imagined my yellow raincoat visiting the hillsides, shrines and gardens, streets and cafes of Japan. It was having a wondrous time, yes?

The raincoat sent me a cryptic postcard, from Cyprus. Then another from Rome. Lastly, London. Just down the road. I’ll be back soon! It was having a wander. I await its arrival and exhausted/exhausting tales of travel.

New Term

Getting prepared for a new year, term. Sorting the leaked-on pencil case, pencil sharpener, perpendicular something, pinking shears, stubby pencil ghost friend, possibilities, peardrops, paracetamol, paranormal periods, saved cocktail parasol, plump new scented erasers and the plastic triangle things we will never ever use.

I don’t want to be back here but here we are. Picking up our illegible timetables, finding our locker has no lock. Waiting in line to volunteer as a librarian. The library is especially vast this year and full of earnest boys, which is pretty wild for a girls’ school. I’m in charge of teaching the ‘how to cover a book’ session, but, as ever, no one listens. They all can do it better than me.

In English, the teacher asks: why pretend, why imagine? Which is perhaps their way of begging us to listen. But this feels heavy and fragile, porous and uneven. What do you say when a stranger just wants to know if you hear them?

And then the whole school is evacuated due to too many punctuation marks, or something. We trek home in the snow, getting lost near the hospital where patients in pyjamas queue by a bus stop.

How To Climb A Tree

How to move through time, you ask, already clambering. Hold on.

One hand, one leg, one foot on a cloud, keep moving. One grip, one slip, one foot on a cloud, keep moving. One bend, one handful of leaves, keep moving. One scrape, one twist, one foot on a cloud, keep moving.

And so on.

Giddy, giddy, shaky, spinney (yes I do mean spinney - look it up, but don’t look down at me). Later, we will be somewhere near the top of the world. Seeing our lives, the repeats of familiar, familial patterns. Mistakes made over. Little wrong turns on a dull day. Shaking the tree. A click of branches on a warm afternoon. Enlisting bird song, for the simple thrill of it. Keep moving.

And then we wait. Will someone rescue us from the top of here? Where are we now if not as far as we can go?

And here is my busy desk with a new painting alongside my tiny books.

Shop News

Thanks to everyone who has purchased artwork from me recently, much appreciated. Thanks for all your interest. Here you can see the first three in a new series of small landscapes on paper. These are gouache paint on watercolour paper and each one measures 11.5cm x 8.5cm including backing paper.

I’ll be updating my shop with this new series, new drawings, more folk figures (hopefully), the new painting seen above - and possibly more - this coming Wednesday.

Next update: Wednesday 2nd September 7pm UK time - with preview from about 4pm

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Thanks always for reading and please do feel welcome to leave a comment. I appreciate hearing from you.

Paid subscribers receive midweek notes most Thursdays.

A coffee is always welcome.

Have a good week ahead

Cathy

I hope you are well and having a good week.

This morning I woke extra-early to do some tidying before a brief visit from an acquaintance. It was when I was drinking my first cup of tea of the day that I noticed a wasp. But this wasp soon became three. And once I had escorted them from the premises, there were two more waiting in the kitchen …

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I hope you are well. Here is my newly cleaned and tidy drawing desk. The cooler days and my better health are allowing me to enjoy sorting and tidying again.

Over the past few days I have been slowly but steadily reconsidering areas of my home, cleaning, sorting and deciding how they should be. I am not a minimalist but I like calm space and simplicity, with groups of objects and intentional collections.

Here’s another view of my desk. (The candle is battery-operated). You may see I have decided to decorate the top with a garland string of french knot circles - they are double-sided, so I can choose to display different versions. I like the quiet symbolism of the circle and the colours relate to my pencil collection too. Yes, I do hope to make circle garlands and offer them for sale.

I would like to make new coloured pencil drawings, but for now I am engrossed in simple graphite pencil.

here’s a drawing in progress

And a little more.

I will be working quietly on drawings and now my desk has been reorganised, I feel more inclined to sit and draw, and look forward to focusing on drawing each day.

I find quiet and clean space is becoming more and more a priority for me these days. To draw intuitively I need calm, not rush. I like to work in a way that allows me to find each best detail, the face that belongs, the leaf pattern that dances. I enjoy the opportunity to scratch ideas for a new poem. To just listen to the birds and the town waking up in the morning. I’ll never take this for granted.

Some of you commented last week on my French pine pantry cupboard - I mentioned I had found the dolls stored inside (the dolls are now on their way to new homes, many thanks).

So here is the grand reveal of the cupboard, or at least, here’s enough to give you an idea. With again things newly dusted and arranged. You may recognise some of the artwork as my own. I am happy to have my own work on display, but I like to see the work of other people too.

When I am not cleaning or drawing, I have been working on new paintings for a forthcoming online exhibition. Here is a detail from one mixed media work on paper.

detail from ‘endless days with birdsong’ - mixed media on paper

Shop News

I currently have this trio of tiny paintings in my shop at the moment. They are quite tiny and would fit into a lovely arrangement of special objects on your shelves or you might prefer to frame and display. There is a link to my shop at the end of these notes.

Thanks to everyone who has purchased work from me recently - very much appreciated. I look forward to offering a mix of new artwork in my next update:

Wednesday 26th August at 7pm UK time - preview from around 4pm

I hope to have new drawings, tiny paintings and works on paper - possibly more of my folk figure / book page series.

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New Writing

A poem I wrote earlier this month. I’ll always enjoy cross stitch, though I don’t work on it constantly, I find historical stitching so inspiring - particularly the work made by anonymous needleworkers, often very young girls, in past centuries.

Cross Stitches

If this is a blue tree

and that is an owl, what did the cat

do later with his own good shoes?

What can there be between

green dogs and climbing clouds,

when alphabets are missing j’s?

If this little girl threads her needle,

and the roses are all around,

so big are the birds with trumpets

now it is winter and we stitch all in red.

Here are a few owls that felt they wanted to say hello. I am planning to knit new owls this autumn and may offer a few in my shop. I have so much handspun yarn and other good quality wool yarn that needs knitting.

And here below is a work on book page paper (SOLD, thank you). A new one in my ongoing garden dish series. There will be more…..

Thanks always for reading here. Please do leave a comment and let me know if you too feel inspired to clean and tidy as we approach autumn, or if that is just something I’m doing anyway…. I always enjoy hearing from you and reading your comments, even if it sometimes takes me a little while to respond. Thanks for understanding.

A coffee is always welcome.

I look forward to writing to you again soon. Paid Subscribers receive midweek notes most Thursdays.

Have a good week ahead

Shop

I hope you are well and enjoying a good week.

It has rained!

The relief is immense - the drought is not over, but the cooler weather has allowed many of us to breathe and sleep better. The rain arrived here overnight a few days ago, waking me, that giddy sound of rain not heard for several months.

I have had a very busy week, so far. The doll…

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The past few weeks have been busy and challenging, working in the prolonged summer heat… I hope you have been staying well. In this post I am going to attempt not to grumble about weather/health/thestateoftheworld and instead offer you an eclectic mix of my recent work!

Sometimes, things you have quietly put to one side find you again - as a gift from the past.

I had a look through the large pine cupboard in my attic - it’s an old French pantry cupboard that I bought several years ago now. When you visit here, it’s one of the first things you see, in the sitting room. Anyway, I use it for storage and many of my ‘works in long-term progress’ find their way inside for a rest. These dolls were there, in a box of uncompleted dolls. They did not have faces but I had stitched, stuffed, painted a bodice on one of them. And now, it seems, is the right time to complete this pair.

And so, unable to paint due to the heat elsewhere in the flat, I decided in the past few days to sit and stitch and knit their features. And one thing I must say is I do not follow the rules of stitching symmetrical faces - oh dear no. Who wants a symmetrical face? We’ll leave that for the eerie cyborgs of this world. No, I like to ‘freestyle’ and make sure they have character.

Then I found this piece of patchwork I had made some time ago. It is an extra piece that did not make it into a final cloth. This piece is just the right size for two skirts. And so that is what it will become, all being well and if neither of these ladies decide it does not suit them. (You cannot make a doll suit a skirt, she either likes it, or she does not).

I hope to have these dolls completed soon. There’s a lot of work to do yet. They seem to be very particular about their needs as simple, folk-hearted dolls. Yes, I will be offering them for sale, separately. And another good thing is - I found the paper pattern I had made for them. Just sometimes, ‘past Cathy’ is helpful to ‘present Cathy’ and actually puts things like little paper doll shapes in the box with the doll. Who would believe I could be that organised?

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Shop News

Many thanks to everyone who has purchased or simply visited my shop recently. I really do appreciate your interest. This is always a slower time of year, though to be honest, this year has been completely unpredictable in so many ways.

My next shop update will be this coming Wednesday 19th August at 7pm with a preview from about 4pm. I will be offering a mix of new work including new drawings. There is a link to my shop at the end of these notes. I have a couple of paintings currently available.

Two new drawings. They both measure 15cm x 12.5cm

I really enjoyed drawing my recent ‘lucky dip’ series of drawings. Thank you to everyone who purchased one. Inspired by all the recent pencil drawing, I have decided to make a series of larger group portraits, so here are two.

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Sketchbooks / Artist Books

I really do love making books. As a book lover this makes perfect sense. The conversations between pages, the opportunity for surprise, variety and storytelling - there is a freedom in books and the book form for me, as a visual artist.

You maybe have seen recent artist books I have created and I do intend to make more.

A recent idea I had was to spend time this August making a series of abstract collages. I had thought about offering them as a ‘lucky dip’ of some sort. However, when I started to work on them I realised each collage as very much it’s own little creature. So a lucky dip felt less feasible.

As I painted, cut and glued, and spent time considering the collages I was making, I came to realise how I was gravitating toward collecting them together - and putting them in books. So the plan changed. It just felt more natural to me. Yes, some of the collages would work by themselves but they made me feel hmmmm… and I wasn’t happy with that hmmm, if that makes sense.

And some of the collages / pages are more colourful than others. Soon I realised I might like to make at least one book that was dedicated to black and white.

I will continue on with putting these books together and seeing where they take me. I will share videos of looking through them, once the books are completed/filled. They are intriguing companions to have in my studio as I work on more figurative ideas.

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New Writing

And to finish this week’s notes a recent poem… (and my apologies if the line breaks are a bit off if you are reading on a phone screen.)

Miss Hemstick

After visiting the ironmongers, Miss Hemstick realised

prior to today, she had not known the difference

between screws and nails, not really.

Not in a confident, buying capacity. She needed

to fix a door and was astonished to be told all

that was required was spray in a can.

Miss Hemstick walked home via the park and sat on a bench

to eat an imaginary cake; tiny birds, shabby in their summer feathers,

gathered at her feet to peck at the hard crumbs of her dreaming.

Sun glinted on the bird heads as they ate. Miss Hemstick became aware,

she stared into their shapes, their lean bodies something more:

metallic, fading into light, back again to iridescence.

How do you do that? Miss Hemstick whispered to the birds.

She thanked the birds for allowing her to feed them.

*****

Thank you for reading here and for subscribing to these notes. Please do leave me a comment and let me know what you might have rediscovered in a cupboard recently!

Paid subscribers receive midweek notes most Thursdays

A coffee is always welcome, thank you

SHOP

Dear Friends,

There is a real risk I will start all of my summer midweek notes with the phrase: it’s very hot.

So let me start again:

It’s too very hot! I cannot think clearly to work when it gets this hot. It is currently 34.5C in my kitchen/studio space. I shut the door and came into the sitting room. But even in here, my sweaty head is struggling.

So, w…

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I am taking a break from sharing studio notes. It is time for a quiet weekend. I will be back next Thursday with more midweek notes (for paid subscribers).

Meanwhile, in case you missed it:

Here is this month’s poetry salon post. I’d love to hear from you with your thoughts and ‘three things’

Shop News - I will be updating my shop this coming Wednesday with a mix of new artworks. Usual time 7pm with preview from about 4pm.

Thanks always for your interest. I have a few paintings currently available.

SHOP

Take care,

Cathy

Dear Friends,

I hope you are well. Today we have had decent weather - not too hot or cold, mild and overcast for most of the day, with sunshine this later afternoon. If only summer could be like this for most of the time….. Anyway, I am quietly celebrating this mildly mannered day…. until the next heatwave (due next week). We had about seven minutes of r…

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Hello Everyone

Before I share this month’s poetry salon with you, a little shop admin:

I am grateful to everyone who has purchased artwork from me recently. My ‘lucky dip’ drawing offer, which was available over the past two months, is now closed. I had a small flurry of orders this week so am going to get them sent out asap - and I will be launching my next ‘lucky dip’ just as soon as I have happily fulfilled outstanding requests. The future ‘lucky dip’ for the next few months will be something quite different - as you may see from above - I will be offering a small abstract collage, sent to you as a random pick from work I will be creating. More details soon.

my next shop update will be Wednesday 5th August at 7pm UK time with preview from about 4pm.

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How to write a poem when the world is on fire

This is not a protest essay and you don’t need me to tell you just how changed our planet has become. The news is full of how the climate’s accelerated changes are causing a myriad of problems. There are wild fires, ice melting, endangered species, famine, flood…

And so how, on this tiny precious earth, can a poet simply write a poem, especially about nature in mind, without feeling completely overwhelmed?

Somewhere, right now, someone not too far from you is writing a protest poem. It may be full of rage and sadness - and what-about-isms. And I do not have criticism for writing protest poems. There are powerful poems of protest to be read. But I want to encourage you to write beyond the protest, or to write/read poems that consider nature in a quieter, yet no less powerful, way.

Three Things

Step outside. Whether it is raining, snowing or blistering hot (but be safe). Take a look around what is on your doorstep, or nearby road. Note three things from the natural world. They may not all be pretty. Hold these three things in your mind or scribble them down in your journal/diary/notepad.

What three things do you have?

Here are mine: Verbascum, Thistle, bluebottle fly

I’ll keep hold of these and might write about one or two or all three. Or none. I might simply get into a habit of noticing three things.

Days will go by and the three things might stay the same or change. I might want to see beyond the same, so I’ll start looking a little more carefully. I may decide to leave home at a different time of day, just to notice something.

And if I start to note these changes, I may come up with an idea of how things are over a period of days or weeks.

Here’s a draft of a poem about writing a ‘three things poem’. Now, you may know I am committing a poetry crime for writing a poem about writing a poem - but perhaps forgive me on this occasion.

Three Things

Three things written

do not make a poem

but my handwriting is hurried

finger-itchy

to share something I have

yet to know

(no, don’t swallow a fly

or tread on a thistle -).

I could just lose myself.

Better water words wisely,

conserve, not bottle-up.

(Cathy Cullis 2026)

Read Poets Who Write Brilliantly About Nature

Here’s one of my poetry bookshelves. I don’t have a vast poetry collection. But those I do have are all intentionally there, waiting for me to return to them, as I often do. Many of my favourite poets write about nature in inventive ways. Their distinctive voices are there for me, on the page, to remind me of how looking deeply, listening to the natural world, really has mattered to people for many, many years.

Nature, not as a romantic folly, a tossed salad of pretty images - nature as often dark, alien or remote, struggling perhaps, grim maybe, ferocious, eternal, elemental forces. Something humanity can connect with and feel a part of, and yet feel apart. Many poets look to nature to understand our own mortality.

Some of my favourite poets who write deeply about nature include: Ted Hughes, John Burnside and Alice Oswald.

Please do suggest any poets who write about nature, in particularly distinctive ways, in the comments.

Here below is part of a poem by Alice Oswald, from her 2015 collection ‘Falling Awake’ (pub: Cape Poetry)

This poem share with the reader a very particular response to morning dew - how it is possible to connect with the natural world and yet nature remains forever elusive…

It’s that honing in, a particular-ness, that matters and can make linger in the reader’s mind.

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Minimalism & Form

I will write more on minimalism and small poems in a future poetry salon post.

Writing less can be a far superior use of time. A blank page is unsatisfactory, but so is wading through turgid and self-indulgent writing. It takes effort to write less and make sense, or suggest a sense. But minimalism does not stem from mere cutting back or editing to the bare bones of an imagined garden. Many of us were made to write ‘nature haiku’ in school - to learn the form of haiku and tick a certain box about that. I am not dismissive of haiku, but I have little time for using a form of poetry simply because - so consider, how best to write and which form to use, and how your subject might inform this

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Nostalgia & Poems About Nature

Just as there is a place for protest, there is a room also for nostalgia.

I often get carried away when I write first drafts of poems and find myself back in a childhood that might not have existed, a place filled with mild and easy-going weather, days spent outdoors. Or I might focus in on a particular dark memory - for example, I have tried and tried again to write a poem about digging up a dead hamster! (I was burying another dead hamster - the things we did in school back then!).

We misremember. But does nature remember us at all? The ways in which we move through the world varies throughout our lifetimes. To some people nature is always Nature, to others it is: that thing to deal with, or live beside.

Many children of my generation (growing up in 70’s and 80’s) lived literally close to earth, playing outdoors, getting increasingly grubby and hands-on with dirt, creatures and elements. It is worth remembering this but writing about this experience has often proved tricky for me. I don’t want to romanticise a time in my life that was often unhappy, a struggle. But at the same time, I do want to acknowledge how much I value the experience I had - which is different to the experience my own children had, for a variety of reasons.

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Just Write and Acknowledge

I would like to encourage you to write a poem about nature today. Don’t leave it until tomorrow, or when you might have ‘a spare few hours’. Just show up and write, acknowledge the things you see in this world of ours, be as playful, as cryptic, as minimal, as maximal, as song-driven, as contradictory - as you please. But please write a poem about nature today. And put this poem somewhere safe, perhaps fire-proof, flood-proof. We need the people who come after us to know we spent time looking and thinking.

**

Thank you for reading! I would very much appreciate your thoughts and comments.

Have a good weekend.

I can smell rain! After weeks of heat and dry days this seems too good to be true - and sadly it’s not going to linger. Just a few measly drops and humidity. Thinking of all the people caught up in wild fires in different places.

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We are still experiencing very warm and dry weather here. I am thinking of all the many people evacuating homes due to wild fires, in Europe, at home and elsewhere. I hope you are safe and well.

As my energy level continues to gently improve, with a few blips along the way, I have felt the need to be more playful. One thing I do every so often is simply sit and paint on sheets of paper - exploring texture, pattern and layering. These papers are used for collage, sketchbooks - even wallpaper in a dolls house. I’ll share more about these papers -

but first, here is a painting I completed recently and how it came together.

And so, as I so often do - I began with a figure. At this stage she might be stumbling through snow!

I am working with loose layers of gouache. I will not touch the figure very much at all now, because I like what I have and tinkering with that does not progress the painting.

My idea is to paint a moment in late summer, with autumn in mind. I am looking forward to autumn, my favourite season. As soon as I can, feel I want to, I start painting toward the mellow days…. Hoping, indeed, we do get mellow days. A cat has arrived to have a conversation with the young woman of the house and garden.

Sunflowers, looking still quite fresh and strong, are thriving in the front garden. Many layers and questions go into a painting like this. These photos are just showing you a fraction of the changes/decisions/layers. A painting quickly takes on its own life and I have to follow where it wants to lead me…

‘Sunflower Days’ - the completed painting - gouache on watercolour paper.

Shop News

I will be adding a selection of new work to my shop this coming Wednesday - let me see if I can get the date right for a change!

Wednesday 29th July - 7pm UK time with preview from 4pm

This week I hope to have new paintings on paper and tiny paintings - perhaps also a few french knots brooches! We shall see - I am still working at a gentler pace.

A link to my shop is at the end of these notes

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Playful Paper

Feeling dotty - layering. I am working with gouache and acrylics, mixing together in places.

Stripes and layers

Building up layers. I am print off, I allow to dry and paint a further layer. What I am aiming toward is an ‘ancient’ layered effect - a weathered wall, a patina, a faded painting upon another, something that might later spark an idea. I will come back to some of the painted paper and add more layers. I usually work at these for about an hour and then stop, to come back again.

Here is a collage I made recently, using other papers from my box of painted scraps and sheets. I cut and play, moving things around. I have also used painted fabric in this work. I’ll write about painting on fabric in another post.

My plan is to work on a series of abstract collages throughout August. Giving time to my ‘abstract self’ is feeling more important to me now. Maybe recent illness has made me realise how I want to do a variety of things, explore alternate paths.

I’ve decided I will share this series here in my notes, but also via my ‘alternate’ Instagram: phaedraspoon - I’ll be offering some of the collages for sale.

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New Stories

Here are three recent stories. They are inspired by my day-to-day creative life but as always ask that you read them as small fictions. And thank you for your kind encouragement.

Other People’s Ailments Are Rather Boring

I am not feeling well, which is very boring. I sit with my head back, a neglected toy. My hands cannot be bothered to fidget. The knitting next to me mutters like a tangled joke. How did I get to this place? Still waiting for the punch-line.

The fan drowns out the voices on the radio. I fall into an uneasy nap. All my dreams are like pale newsprint. This is what being empty does: fills your imagination with wet paper and badly-drawn old loves.

When I wake, I am heavy and numb. I might walk about but I know my legs are elsewhere. They are sturdily making their way up the green hill far away without a city wall, wherever that might be. Just legs, doing their adventuring without the rest of me to slow them down.

I’ll get better if I take the pills that are likely to make me feel worse. Of course. And then the doctor calls me and says: more pills for you!

Where am I? I ask for my legs to take me somewhere. Not yet, they say. We’re on our holidays, we’ll send you a postcard!

**

Ancient Smells

There is a smell like fly killer spray wafting through the flat. It reminds me of when I was a child. When - not finding fly spray - I filled a room with furniture polish to try and rid of a fly. I thought I was doing the right thing, but I just got the room into a terrible mess. Which of course I had to clean.

And now this smell which is not furniture polish but does remind me of fly spray, and is the deodorant I purchased for my son. He is mindful to apply it to himself before leaving for work during the summer. It is supposed to smell of cedar, spices.

How is it possible for something to smell so wrong? Do I simply replace the can with another? No, of course that would be pandering to my odd smell-memory. I say goodbye to my son as he leaves to attend his volunteer job. He is geared up, ready to face the world. Here I am thinking of fly spray.

For the rest of the day flies come into the attic, more than ever. They low-fly over me as I try to paint. I bat them away with a feeble hand, or a thin brush.

**

Shape of a Woodland

It has been too long and I must remember the shape of a woodland. I shake the shapes in my mind and let them settle. Like a snowglobe, but dry. Instead of glitter: glittery insects.

Ouch, ouch, say the small creatures and laugh as they settle down into their summery dreams.

How can I find my way through the brittle trees and feel the moss again? You know what trees do, I tell myself: they point to the sky in different directions. Years ago, I remember finding the woodland and realising I was no longer going to be lonely. I had found a way back to myself.

That was better than an iron key on a ribbon, hanging like a necklace around my neck.

All I can do is walk through the various shades of green.

Pedagogical greens, dried up yet ready. Just water and a brush, not even that. A damp finger. How easy it is to paint a tree canopy, if you really want to? Blue, olive, reddish something and then green. And then green again.

And then don’t forget the supporting act: a swoop of birds.

******

Thank you for reading here and for your kind support. If you enjoyed please ‘like’ and share - and do leave a comment. I look forward to sharing more with you soon.

Midweek notes is sent most Thursdays to all paid subscribers.

A coffee is always welcome

SHOP

I hope you are well. It’s another very warm day here.

After a few weeks of feeling quite unwell, I am feeling less unwell - if not back to my ‘old self’, who ever she is. I am slowly returning to the many and various side projects I have ongoing. Included is this house building. This one started life last year and has been partially demolish…

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I hope you are well.

Here is a jug sculpture I finished working on yesterday. I began work on it some weeks ago, making the jug form using card and book pages. This takes time. I’ve nearly always got a small collection of vessels ‘on the go’ and anyone visiting the attic will see completed jugs and cups scattered about amongst my ceramics collection.

But I decided to make this piece and offer it for sale. So I took particular care in making the shape and feel of it just right. Then began the painting.

The jug sculpture is titled: ‘A Portrait with birds’ and measures 23.5 cm tall by about 15cm including handle.

As you can see, one side is a portrait of a woman in nature and the other side is birds. That’s the beauty of working on a three-dimensional form! You get at least two views. And I can imagine how this jug sculpture would look rather eye-catching displayed with dried grasses, flowers, or feathers… or simply as it is.

Here’s a closer look from the top. It’s definitely a sculpture and not a functional vessel. It took me some time to complete and so I will have to think carefully about pricing - but I always like to think carefully about how to offer my work. It’s never an easy process. I often talk with my daughter and we have a discussion about how much time, materials, etc… A piece like this, made over a period of time, is rather special.

Thank you so much for all your kind comments on last week’s brief note. I appreciate your thoughtfulness. I’m currently working part-time as my energy varies - and that’s not easy for me, as I have got used to enjoying long hours of making. My brain wants to keep going, but then again even she gets tired eventually. So, moving through the day at a gentler pace with thanks to my family for helping steer me. (Gawd, now I make myself sound like an old boat…..!)

*

Therefore, my plan is to add work to my shop on Wednesdays and not pressure myself into making x,y,z. I’ll go with the flow and do the best I can - as always.

A new painting - in my ongoing bird series - this is titled: three birds in a shady summer garden.

Things are looking quite scorched outside right now, following heatwave after heatwave, with little to no rain. But in shadier places there are still signs of green and though wild plants may be struggling, things have a will to survive. I’m hoping for all the gardens and wild spaces and wildlife we get rain soon.

I am looking forward to getting back into longer walks again.

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Shop News

So my next update will be Wednesday 22nd July at 7pm - with a preview from 4pm. I will be including the two artworks you see here and anything else I may have completed. I would like to paint another bird/landscape scene but we shall see…

Also, please note - my lucky dip drawing offer will be ending after this month. Thank you to everyone who purchased a drawing. For a modest price, you receive an original pencil drawing and I always include a little bird thank you.

I’ll have a new lucky dip starting in August, but have yet to fully decide what that might be yet!

Link to my shop at the end of these notes.

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Poem and Story

Thank you to everyone who emailed me their poetry jar slips. I have put together a version of a group poem. This feels like something that may be forever in flux, with different voices and ideas making it happen.

A Group Recipe

Shall I go first?

Floating in blue

The same old pretty nonsense.

Life is just a bunch of fritters

A pyramid of raps

As if

You might

autocorrected message - on my way home to

only way home

Lamps hastily lit.

I’ll follow along

Your yellow yarn hair

But some recipes are better than others.

I’m waiting for my early morning acupuncture

And the weather stays the same

In the grip of nameless days.

A collaborative poem pieced together by Cathy Cullis and including words from: Marilee Reyes, Kate Fernyhough, Patty Leight, Helen Lee, Jeni Hankins, Jane Whistler, Richard Hughes, Cathy Cullis

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And now for a fictional story… one from my archives - I do hope you enjoy reading. This one may end up in the book collection I am currently working on.https://cathycullis.substack.com/p/midweek-notes-903

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Jane Eyre Goes To The Seaside

The boxes were so heavy I had to drag them from under the bed, and the effort in a heatwave was exhausting. But I wanted to find that one story, one of many about Jane Eyre. I had written it as a young teenager.

Jane Eyre Goes To The Seaside

Jane Eyre left Lowood, her escape quite a surprise, but good things can happen in sad stories. Little chinks of hope, if not the real thing. She got on a train (?) and went to the seaside (maybe she had had a letter from a distant cousin).

The house was built into a cliff so that it might never fall into the sea. Aunt X (too much crossing out to decide on a name) welcomed Jane to sit in the sea view parlour. ‘I was not expecting you until tomorrow,’ Aunt said. But she did not frown. ‘I will make a room up for you!’ Aunt left Jane alone but Jane was happy alone and stared out at the strange blue sea with its furry waves.

Jane pictured her Aunt making a room up for her. Aunt X was making a room with what she could find: a metal bed with a scrap quilt, a matchbox wardrobe, a stick chair. Yes, she would walk into a doll’s house room. It would have large flowers on one wall, stripes on the other, with a window and glued-on curtains you could not close. There would be no view of the sea from Jane’s new room. Or, it might be a painting. Yes there would be a painting of the sea that never moved.

I read the story aloud in a strange high voice and then quietly to myself. It was not the story I remembered, not at all. I had written several stories about Jane Eyre, all of them alternative routes toward happiness for Jane.

But this story was supposed to be a tremendously brilliant thing. Now I was angry with my thirteen-year-old self. That summer, with my sister, I had spent hours writing stories and no one else minded. Granny had always said I was going to be a storyteller and would one day write her story (she often told me harrowing details of her childhood).

Jane walked along the edge of the cliff. It was a rainy day and she watched the seagulls, worried they might steal her bonnet.

Oh dear. Oh Jane. I took you to the seaside - and then what, and then!

Nothing much happened to Jane. She lived in her doll’s house room and waited. Yet again, she waited for rescue.

I crammed all the stories of Jane Eyre and everyone else back into their dusty box. I could not bear the stories any more than I could bear looking back for long. There was only one thing to do now: re-read Jane Eyre and stick to what Charlotte had told the world.

pages from an artist book in progress - a simple handsewn booklet of gouache portraits - I am enjoying working on these pages very much. I think this is one of my favourites so far.

Thank you for reading here - if you enjoyed reading please ‘hit the heart’ button as it helps me reach new readers. Please subscribe if you do not already.

I send midweek notes to all paid subscribers - I have made this week’s post available for everyone to read but only until Monday evening. So do take a look if you like and there’s another story to read too.

*****

A coffee is always welcome

SHOP

I hope your week is going well - and I hope also you are well.

These days I am finding a slower pace and focusing on what I really, really wish to make and share.

So I am delighted to share with you here progress on my raised embroidery lady in grey. I still have plenty more to do to this portrait - I will be adding flowers and stems, leaves …

Read more

Apologies for the less than great photo but here’s a glimpse of a little raised embroidery stitching I have been working on. I’ll share more about this piece in my midweek notes next Thursday (for paid subscribers).

Hello Everyone,

I hope you are well. I am writing a briefer post this week, as I am having a few quiet days of rest.

I don’t feel comfortable sharing my personal life online and I rarely even post pictures of myself these days. (I could write an essay on ‘the self as a marketing tool’ but that’s not for today, you will be relieved to know).

However, I do want to share my recent experience of being less than well. Firstly, I do not wish to worry anyone. I shall get better. But I do want to share this: please, do not ignore signs of ill health, do not convince yourself things will get better by themselves, or ‘this is just hormones’, or I don’t want to waste the doctor’s time.

I will learn from recent experiences.

I shall find a different rhythm to my work, which may mean less, or different creative projects emerge. I’ll keep listening to myself.

**

No new work in my shop today. I had hoped to be reintroducing a small Sunday update, that’s not happening this week.

Oh to be a flower in the Summertime - is a new drawing that was part of my update this Wednesday and is currently available. Link to my shop at the end.

Thanks to everyone who purchased from me this week. All orders are on their way. I have a couple of lucky dip drawing orders to complete and they will be going out asap. Thanks always.

I hope to add a new small collection of tiny paintings to my shop this Wednesday. Working slowly and carefully on smaller things helps me - I am so grateful for my creative work and for your interest!

next planned update: Wednesday 15th July 7pm - with preview from 4pm

Thanks always for reading here - oh yes and one final note: the poetry jar slips! Yes, please do email me your poetry jar slip (one only) and over the course of this week I will put a poem together. Thank you. Please could you kindly put the subject ‘poetry jar’ in your email - and simply state your jar slip words. Please forgive me if I do not reply. I will name all contributors to the collaborative poem, which I hope to share in next week’s studio notes.

ccullis at gmail dot com

If you don’t know what the poetry jar is all about - please look back at last weekend’s post ‘poetry salon’ July 4th.

Take care and I look forward to sharing more with you soon.

SHOP

Dear Friends,

I hope you are well.

A recent drawing - Oh to be a flower in the summertime - this drawing was partly inspired by the nursery rhyme ‘Mary, Mary Quite Contrary’, of course you might have guessed that? But also, my great niece who has just started to walk and is into everything….. This is not a likeness but am imagined portrait of one of my ow…

Read more

Hello Everyone,

before I begin sharing this month’s poetry salon post - I would like to show you these two mixed media collages. They will be added to my shop tomorrow, Sunday 5th July at 7pm UK time. Each measures approx 20.5cm x 18cm. They combine book pages with monoprint drawings and painted collage.

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Poetry Jar

For July’s salon I want to introduce to you the idea of a poetry jar.

This is not a new invention (nothing is new, exactly) and the concept can be used for keeping hold of ideas for many different creative projects. For story writing, artwork, screenwriting, etc…

When it comes to writing, notebooks, for me, are irreplaceable. They can be any size and at hand day and night. I love writing in a notebook that feels like my own private space, with my choice of paper, lines or no lines - I can write as messily as I like. I can jot down anything and no one is going to pay attention to the book except me.

But alongside notebooks - I like to try different ideas. Particularly when I feel my poetry writing needs to get a little more inventive, playful, absurd - because often when you write poems it is all too easy to get into a format, a rut of what works for you.

I often have to remind myself why I write poems - and the main reason for me is to play with language. Explicit or direct meaning is secondary to me. I love the abstract opportunities poetry allows.

my poetry jar - sunbathing on the windowsill…. I might usually have bits of fabric or wool solar dyeing alongside, but I don’t have anything brewing at the moment. Hopefully soon.

The idea then: over time, as ideas - flashes of phrases, interesting words, come to mind - scribble them on a slip of paper and add that slip to your poetry jar.

You might also copy words/phrases from a notebook.

Have the jar in a place where it does not get forgotten - maybe your kitchen counter. Think of it as your word spaghetti. Don’t think of it as a poem in progress - though you never know, a poem might just be slowly fermenting within your jar. Chances are, the jar will only feed you so much - it’s there to offer starting points, ways into writing poems.

If you work outside the home, write slips and put them in your pocket - then try to remember to add them to the jar. Or, put phrases on your phone and then add them to your jar. I suppose you could have a totally digital poetry jar, if you really wanted. But the paper and jar version is far more interesting, especially as there’s always the possibility you will find other people you live with adding phrases to the jar (so long as you explain what the jar is for) or maybe their loose change (if anyone uses cash any more) or perhaps they’ll simply ignore the jar. Just as the people I live with are very good at ignoring most of my ‘projects’.

Now I’ve shared the idea - what to do with all those slips of paper and words?

After a while of accumulating ideas, you might dip in and take one or two slips from the jar, read them and make them a starting point for writing a poem.

If you are working on a poem and find yourself stuck - or feel the need for new energy, a different spin on things - then take a slip from the jar and see how that might help you.

Take several slips from the jar and arrange them on a table to make a poem. Think of this as a way into your own surrealist experimenting. It will either work, or not - no reflection on what you have written. It will be a chance worth taking though. At the very least, a moment of bafflement!

There is of course the exquisite corpse, the idea is often cited as one thought up by the French Surrealists of early twentieth century Paris, but I have a feeling writers have been playing versions of this game for far longer. You can’t tell me the Brontes, for example, did not play such a game! I can imagine them doing so.

If you are unfamiliar: writing an exquisite corpse poem is a group activity. Someone writes a line, the paper is folded or the line is hidden somehow - and then the paper is passed on to the next person for them to add a line - and so on!

So for this you need to work with others but you might also see your poetry jar as ‘working with others’ especially if you allow other people to add to the jar, but even if it’s you just adding slips - over time, don’t we reveal other versions of ourselves?

Now - of course I would love it if you started to keep your own poetry jar. But even better, in a week’s time please email me the words from one of your slips. I’ll put the slips together and share the collaborative poem via studio notes. I’ll credit everyone who contributed to the poem.

I’ll remind you when to send your line/phrase.

Thanks for reading here and happy poetry spaghetti.

Three random slips - together they do not make a poem - but they give me some ideas. Or, I could just put them back in the jar and try my luck again…. Something might spark a further few ideas to emerge…

Meanwhile, please feel free to share with us what you have been reading lately. Any interesting poets we might like to know about? Please don’t share poems but feel free to link to poet’s websites.

I hope your week is going well.

Here are some pages in my June landscape / abstract book. You may remember seeing my May book about a month ago. May was the first book in what I hope will become a year of similar books exploring my love of abstract landscape/ collage / ceramic forms and a little just abstract!

Read more

photo: Bits & bobs for a new mixed media postcard book - Since taking this photo I have worked on a few more pages. I hope to have this book completed soon.

hello Everyone,

I hope you are well. This morning has started with cooler breezes floating into the attic - and I am so grateful. The recent heatwave has been mentally and physically exhausting. At the moment I am dealing with some health issues and so the heat really impacted my well-being - and I remind myself of the many, many people who have ongoing and far more serious challenges.

I have worked gently and slowly on a variety of things. Last Sunday I wrote to you with great plans for stitching - and some of that got done, and other things not. For example: wool knots! Who was I actually trying to kid there? I can’t even think about wool in a heatwave - - -

But I did get a small collection of new hand stitched pieces into my shop. Stitching with a fan directed at my hands. Taking my time. Stitching takes a great deal of time. I priced things modestly. There are two pieces remaining in my shop. A photo of one piece is at the end of these notes.

Drawing

I love to draw and yet some days the painting takes over. All good. At the moment I am in drawing mode and happily so. Thank you so much to everyone who has purchased a lucky dip drawing! You are helping me keep going. I am working steadily on lucky dip orders.

Here is a drawing in progress - it’s possibly called ‘cut and come again’ and is one in my curious flora / botanical series… I absolutely love drawing these personable yet some on the verge-of-fading flowers. There are a few more curious than others. Still a lot of work to do here, but I will pace myself and hope it all comes together as I would like.

Here’s a detailed look.

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Shop News

I’ve decided, from July, to return to updating my shop on Wednesdays AND Sundays. Just a small collection of work each time, maybe just one or two pieces. I will be focusing on smaller work and drawings in July.

Future updates then:

No update today

Wednesday 1st July - 7pm with preview from 4pm

Sunday 5th July - 7pm with preview from 4pm

Lucky dip drawings continue to be available through July

Thank you for all your kind interest and continued support, it is very much appreciated.

Link to my shop at the end of these notes

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New stories

I have a few longer fiction pieces / stories for you this week. I do hope you enjoy reading and thanks always for your encouragement.

**

A Nap Before the Carnival

I remind myself: today is the day of the carnival. It coincides with the waning of a heatwave. So it’s like a celebration - no more absurd heat! For now!

There will be noise, there always is with a carnival going on outside your home. It comes with living right here, right now, with so many adept organisers in town, who just like children with trumpets and bagpipes. It will be noise waving and throbbing like the sea, but not like the sea.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to take a nap before the carnival begins. Before I can have a nap, though, there are things to do. I go to the supermarket and a woman holding a box of gooseberries turns to me and says: Today is the carnival. I am going home for a nap!

I am just learning the art of the nap. It’s still baby naps for me.

My energy is low, it’s like a skirt dragging through dirt. I clean the bathroom, congratulating myself through every stage of sanitation.

I realise, possibly, there’s no right moment for a nap. Maybe I just won’t have it in me to sleep. But you never know, I might get lulled by the noise and just nod off whilst sharpening a pencil. Has that ever happened before, to anyone? Falling asleep midway through sharpening a pencil?

Yes, of course. I remember now. Everything has happened before, everything: carnivals, heatwaves, trumpets, gooseberries, naps, pencils.

**

Picasso’s Pencil

The couple went to a small seaside resort neither had known existed. It rained and they felt at home. Their small cottage felt larger each day. Mornings were spent walking, sketching, and afternoons eating cream teas. They knew now it was possible to exist on a diet of scones, cream and jam so long as the cream was reasonably local, the jam a bloody hue.

On their last day they walked a different coastline route and along a cobbled street of old timber buildings found a small museum. They expected it to be filled with fishing-related bric-a-brac. He hoped for wax figures of long-ago working folk. She hoped to find some decent postcards. Instead, they were given a key and allowed to let themselves into a cellar, dark and sulphur-odored. They learned the place used to be a jail and for a while after that a place naughty children were locked up overnight to be scared into reformed behaviour. It was, quite simply, a despicable cellar. And yet she admired the high window and the view of wildflowers drooping after rain.

He looked into a glass cabinet and saw a small stub of a yellow pencil labelled: ‘Picasso’s Pencil’. It was covered with grim teeth marks. He did not point the pencil out to her. She would only go on and on about Picasso. It would be Picasso’s life story for hours and how wonderful and awful he might have been. So he kept quiet about Picasso’s pencil, telling himself, it was quite impossible to be a genuine artefact, if a pencil can be such a grave thing. What would a pencil once owned by Picasso the internationally famous artist be doing here? There had to have been a local called Picasso, or nicknamed Picasso.

She was not interested in things in glass cabinets. She stared about the cellar, re-decorating it, mentally. As they handed back the iron key, the museum attendant said: you must have enjoyed your visit. A statement they agreed to agree with. They found themselves outside again, not expecting sunshine and finding little.

**

Touch and Run

The children have made up a game. It started this morning, in the middle of the road and was something to do with touching the tree stump, then running all the way to the cul-de-sac and back.

And then you had to shout: Berry Berry! This was by the fence to the garden of Mr and Mrs Dock, because Mrs Dock was called Beryl but Mr Dock, who was called Bertie, would always be in the garden shouting: Berry, Berry! Should I bring the washing in? Or, Berry, Berry, I think it’s going to rain!

They never did see Berry. They never ever caught a glimpse of Mrs Beryl Dock. They just knew she lived in the house and had to believe she was making those cooking smells. She was there in the house, they imagined her, putting her hair in curlers. Bertie Dock, they saw him, pegging out the washing, wearing an apron!

By the time the ice-cream van has been and gone, no one can remember the rules for the new game. They collect sticks and stones, but that gets boring. Then Andrea says they can go and play in her garden. So long as they are quiet. So long as her mother does not catch them. That can be a game, flitting across her large garden with the magical pond.

Not all the children have ever been here before. It’s so much bigger than their gardens. Like a park with a house. There are lots of little paths dug all around the rhododendrons, pond and shed, then back round to a greenhouse and patio. They seem to spend ages just rushing along these little paths, hunting fairies or robins. Then someone spies a man sleeping in a deck chair.

Shhhh, Andrea says, with her finger to her mouth and holding her guts. That’s my father she whispers, he’s sulking. Why is he sulking? Because my mother won’t allow him to have a model railway.

Now all the little paths around the garden make sense. The children are angry, sad and confused about why anyone would not be allowed to have a model railway in their own garden. If you have the room and the tracks all mapped out, you need trains. They all imagine things differently. Some children imagine trains they could sit upon, others tiny trains the size of matchboxes. It does not matter, Andrea says, he’s not getting his way.

So now a new game is born: Poor Daddy! You have to creep out of the bushes, touch the man’s head or at least his hat and whisper: Poor Daddy!

One of the smaller children is too scared to play the game. What if the Daddy wakes up and is very, very cross? Her own Daddy would be off his head with shouting if woken. The girl goes to a shady patch and quickly squats to pee. Andrea says it’s not berry respectful to spend a penny there, on the strawberries, but too late.

But then Andrea’s Daddy wakes up and everything’s fine. He’s happy to see the children. He takes them on a guided tour of where his new railway is going to be. It seems he has woken up from his nap and quite forgotten he can’t have it! Oh dear, Andrea, the children whisper and snigger, and follow her leaning tower of a father around the garden.

He really is a nice man, with his sad smile glowing in the sunshine. Some of the children wish he was their Daddy, this was their garden, they would make sure he got his railway. They would beg the Mummy. The rabbit is dead, the cat is dead, please may we have a railway, please? That’s how you do it. Where is Andrea’s mother? She is at the hairdresser. She is always there.

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Rabbit in stitch - One of the four smaller portraits in stitch I offered in my shop this week.

And finally, a very brief clip of birds - the swifts seem to have enjoyed the heatwave even if many humans did not. This is a view from my attic home.

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Thanks always for reading here and for your kind support.

A coffee is always welcome

SHOP