Hi friends,
Here is one of my latest mosaics – a small one of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, where I ran some mosaic workshops a couple of years ago. I feel rather attached to it, having had the privilege of going right into that dome to see the mosaics close up. This mosaic was verging on ‘micro-mosaic’ as you can see from the photos. It evolved over several months (and its making was interrupted by discovering my eyesight had changed – small, black tesserae and nearsightedness do not go together!)
It’s been quiet on this blog at the moment. I am still very much here, teaching and making mosaics but also making choices about where I direct my attention and energy. I don’t want to be a slave to the online world so it feels good to experiment with seasons of varying engagement with computers, how much I surf, how much I blog etc. I am practicing how to exist fully and happily both with and without cyber-space, including in my life as an artist.
I love all the tools and opportunities the internet brings but I also feel, as an individual, as a parent and as a society, that we are only just learning how to manage our relationship with the internet (including it’s downsides and dangers).
To be truthful, I was getting a little weary of all the Facebook ad’s popping up on my wall telling me how to make millions online, how to become rich and run a successful business using the latest online scheme. I don’t want to give my power away to the latest fad or be pulled this way and that by marketing programme’s.
Rather, I want to trust my inner voice to guide what I am supposed to be doing, to use and develop my skills according to that voice and in a way that values relationships (both virtual and real time).
So I will continue to do a dance with the internet (and with my presence on it) – coming close and drawing away as seems right in any given season. Even in the quiet, I am still here.
Maybe, by separating from some strands of the web presence, you would become a ‘Bohemian’ of the Internet age!
When do you find time to sleep?
Love the butterfly video and the cat lending a paw.
Ahh thank you – I think I like the idea of being an internet bohemian!! Thank you for the kind words. Its lovely to have the video because our sweet cat in the vid sadly died so she is honoured on my home page 🙂
Lovely work. Ah, yes, we re constantly told that making money is what we need in life. It is tiresome when so many of us how so much already. I am constantly trying to disconnect with that and finding it hard. It feels like such a negative drain on energy. You work, however, is uplifting and give positive energy!
The plain fact is that the planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as we have defined it.”
A quote by David Orr or the Dalia Lamma depending on where you read it!
A wonderful and timely reminder – thank you so much Jo x