'Angela this is ridiculous!'

So said a friend who entered my studio/shop and looked around at my work, 'Have you done all of this? People won't know who you are!'  Jenny makes beautiful, tactile baskets from green willow. They feel like the countryside and smell of the hedgerow. There is no mistaking who she is by the things she makes. I must be an enigma then. I like all sorts of things. There is nothing crafty or artistic that I wouldn't like to try. I grasp at the new and throw myself into it. I see no separation between each process. It is all creativity and I live and breathe it.

Jenny knows what she is doing, she is a professional, she makes and she teaches.  Her workshops are not just instructive they are delightful. You enter a world of tradition and become one with Nature as you weave Her materials fresh from the Earth. It is so hard to return home to the real world but you take with you at least one beautiful basket that you can feel really proud of. So, I took notice of what she said and asked the opinion of others. They seemed to agree and thought that I confused the onlooker because there was no coherence to my displays, there was too great a variety of work.  The real me was hidden behind a cornucopia of techniques and materials. It must appear as if I haven't discovered who I am.

I gave this some thought, thought long and hard in fact about which discipline I should choose to concentrate upon.  Which would be the area that would most reflect me and who I was?  Why was it important and did I really need to make that connection?  It clearly needed a lot of soul searching.  Discipline was the thing that I lacked, discipline and focus.  So, I had to have a think about myself in order to project who I really am. Trouble is, do I really know? Do any of us?

What I have discovered is that I'm a mixed up butterfly brain who flits from mood to mood and obsession. I can change my purpose and activity several times an hour.  I live in a whirligig of doing and at the same time be in a dreamy, imaginative and reflective state. Some days I hardly seem to be able to function at all because I have exhausted myself with overactive thinking.  I probably have a 'syndrome' of some sort. I try to conform to social norms and feel terribly inadequate but, hey, I've decided that its OK to be me.  I'll keep on dancing through life doing a bit of this and a bit of that. Maybe people won't be able to see who I am from my miscellaneous and often unfinished body of work.  However, if they look a little deeper they may begin to glimpse the inner workings of a random transcendental butterfly who has no intention of being coralled within the confines of a disciplined and restricted method of working or living.  I shall remain a 'Jack of All Trades' but shall continue the pursuit of mastering a few of them.

So, this is to become my online notebook/journal/portfolio/record of some of the things that I feel comfortable in sharing, the goings on of Lady of The Greenwood Studio. I hope that it will be a personal reflection and an illustration of the work that I do. It may reveal a little more of who I am.  I may even find out myself!