image | Samantha Humphreys

How beautiful is this? I am so lucky that I have this on my doorstep, for now anyway. It wont be long before this walk will be alongside houses and back garden fences and maybe not such a clear view of the lilac rose gold sunrise and hazy late morning views across the fields.

I heard some lovely words the other day during a journaling for wellness class, “Whatever happens, Don’t die before you’re dead, stay alive…” After some googling, it seems as though this is a part quote from Virginia Woolf. Whether it is or not and I couldn’t find a legitimate source, it packs a punch.

Particularly as later in the day I was asked what job I wish I could have done. My answer was, without a doubt, the job i’m doing now, but I wish I had done it sooner. This of course was not taking into account that I took the route I did through life for a reason, I wouldn’t swap what I have for the world. If I had made different career choices in early adulthood I may not have the family I have now so it was only a ‘without taking all things into consideration’ answer. I also may not have been as engaged and switched on to the importance of creativity in fostering a healthy sense of wellbeing when I was younger. It was something I considered a hobby that I was good at.

Now, I like to think that every choice I have made in life has yielded a success, whether that be a small win amongst what may have seemed like a failure or a huge turning point.

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August 14, 2024

Foraging

I love that word, Foraging, it feels wholesome and healthy somehow. I have been a manic forager of late as there is an abundance of blackberries near us. I used to go blackberry picking with my grandma, or ‘Mangar’ as we called her, due to the fact that I couldn’t say the word grandma properly when I was little-so it stuck!

We used to have long walks, along Mersey Rd, along Otterspool Prom and other roads that I didn’t know the name of, we always seemed to walk for miles and there was always blackberries somewhere along the route.

Now the funny thing is, I didn’t like them then, which is what brings me to writing this post. I liked the jam that followed the foraging, I liked the routine that happened in the school holidays, I like the memory of Mangar reminding us often that we mustn’t pick the low down blackberries because the Pooka spoils those ones, she was deeply Roman Catholic, Irish and the belief was that the Pooka was the devils horse. This was a far more exciting way of discouraging us from picking the ones near where dogs may go to the toilet I think.

While on a walk last week, there was a small boy with his family, his cheeks stuffed with the fruit and juice running down his chin, his grown up was telling him that she thinks he has had enough now as he has dinner at home. It was lovely to see.

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April 23, 2024

Turquoise with Threads of Black

Turquoise with Threads of Black (2024) #366 series no.113

I have been keeping a creative journal since last summer, I have only really made the effort to keep it up since the start of this year. The process of journalling along with my 366 project are pushing my brain to reflect as a matter of course and recognise things about what I am thinking and feeling in a way I never have before. I have various themes running through my journal which is largely driven by my daily walks that I take for wellbeing, circles, colour theories (my own as well as established), trees, artist tools and zentangles….and I will probably think of more as I continue on through the rest of the book.

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June 10, 2023

Miles, Minutes & Steps

Creativity takes courage. ”Henri Matisse”

I have started a new job this week, I am going to be learning how to translate what I have learned as a University College lecturer into what is required of me to teach in a school. It is a lot to learn, I will have to think quicker and ‘do’ faster and If that isnt scary enough, I was used to a wellbeing routine, early morning walks full of rich green-ness and tranquility that started my day off whatever lay ahead. That has all turned a little chaotic and I need to find a way to develop a new routine, I need that walk infused into the start of the day. I already wake at the crack of dawn and I find that while I’m thinking all this, inside my head is like a roladex that flips round and round and I can’t quite grasp the visual and exciting ideas that whizz past at too fast a pace….Breathe…

…Today, I decided that what I must do, while my routine develops organically, I will take every chance i get to ‘bank’ wellbeing miles, minutes, steps-whatever I can to keep my mind healthy. So today I banked some, stopping (inside, I was annoyed that I kept on doing this) to take photos of the familiar route I have been craving all week, which had a newness to it, as though its a metaphor for the new eyes nature of my new role.

The Wood Melick brushes that delicately protrude from the side of my path and then once onto the newly mown and difficult to walk on fieds, the purple Orchard Grass catches my eye in the thick patches of wild that have been left.

Then there are my favourite trees, well, some of my favourite trees, I have several…I’ll stop now.

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July 17, 2022

Art Journaling

I have started an art journal so I can keep in one place all the art I am making in the name of looking after my own physical and mental wellbeing. I walk a lot and I don’t know about you but my phone is full of photographs of interesting things I noticed my walks such as a bindweed that I didn’t know could be pink and white striped, or a dandelion that looks different to yesterday’s dandelion that you also took a picture of. I have also been making art while preparing for and teaching art for wellbeing and have botanical drawings and Zentangle inspired pieces. As I have produced these works, I have placed them in my sketchbook along with flowers that are pressing nicely in the back pages. By keeping the pieces together in a sketchbook, naturally, a journal develops.

My art journal will contain art, not backgrounds for art (even though the art may be used as a background), preparation for art, not writings about art, not evaluations or process records or photographs of art…just my art.

oh, and it will never be considered finished, always a work in progress.

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Image | October 27, 2020

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Aspiring to Matsutake (2020 An element of the second year Developing Ideas in Art and the Environment module on the course I teach on began this semester with an extract from the book The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing. As we (we, as in all of […]

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April 16, 2017

My favourite was the bunny…

This is my silver charm bracelet that used to fit me as a child. I used to like looking at it more than wearing it, each charm was bought by my dad when he traveled to a different country. As a baby, I went on the QE2, I can’t remember but the ship charm on the right hand side was bought from that trip and is a tiny replica in silver. I loved it. I’m not sure why I was bought the cat and the dog as I was (and still am ) highly allergic, so not sure what the relevance of those were. I believe I added the silver cross myself when I no longer wore it round my neck (I think the bracelet still fitted me as a teen)

My favourite charm was the rabbit as it had an orange stone for a belly and this fascinated me.

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Samantha Humphreys

Tag: image

January 18, 2025

Peace and Rose Gold Sky

August 14, 2024

Foraging

April 23, 2024

Turquoise with Threads of Black

June 10, 2023

Miles, Minutes & Steps

Creativity takes courage. ”Henri Matisse”

July 17, 2022

Art Journaling

Image | October 27, 2020

April 16, 2017

My favourite was the bunny…

Tag: image

Creativity takes courage. ”Henri Matisse”

Image | October 27, 2020

Image | January 4, 2015