Layers
Photos by VickyTH.
No matter what the focus of the foreground of life, the background continues to patter away. In fact, the background is often more interesting in a subtle way.

Lately I’ve been going out of my tree getting ready for the fabric painting and landscape quilting workshops this weekend. Not to mention writing up submissions to the Standards Committee of the Craft Council, working on stuff for the Comfort and Joy Show at Devon House and making Craft Fair stock. Work has been at the front of my life.

Photography has been a sideline creative outlet that has sort of kept me sane throughout the mayhem. I can take quick breaks, look at other people’s photos, go for a walk and take a few of my own and generally exercise my creative eye in an instantly gratifying sort of way. I’m coming to realise that these photos are, in a sense, a record of what’s going on in the background of my life.

Of course, there are things that don’t get photographed and they are in no way less important than those that do, just sometimes more private or less photogenic.

For instance, you can’t tell from the pictures that The Hard and The Easy by Great Big Sea has been playing in the background around our house lately, or that I’ve added Christian Bale’s Batman to Nicholas Cages’ Goodspeed as a means of keeping my butt anchored to the studio. I tend to get distracted by tedious work and have a great sense of procrastination. Movies not only energise me, but they keep me in the same room as my work. Movies I like, that is. The music is good for energy (this GBS CD is especially good – mermaids indeed!), but doesn’t have the holding power, as I can hear it throughout the house!

You also can’t tell that the dishes are no longer piled high in the sink or the laundry overflowing the baskets, as I’ve waged a war on both this morning. Airing my dirty laundry is one thing, photographing it is an avenue that I’m not about to explore this week.