Amy Palko

It’s hard to know what to write on a day like this when the news is full of shocking edicts and social media aflame with righteous anger and revolt. The threat to the precarious balance of global diplomacy is increasing day by day, with populist movements running roughshod over common sense and basic human decency. It is heartbreaking. It is infuriating. And it must be resisted.  But what does that look like? For you? For me? For us?  As a woman from a small city in a small country, it’s hard to feel like anything I can do can really make a difference. I feel my efforts being swallowed up…

My mum shared with me her ribbon box the other day there. The most beautiful and unusual collection of ribbons that I’ve ever seen each housed in its own little compartment, liberated from the drawer that had been their home. No longer hidden away, they were now laid out, made visible, showcased… And it struck me that this blog is performing a similar function for my words. No longer are my thoughts and stories and ideas hidden away. Instead they have been given a home. They have been honoured through their visibility.  The beautiful thing is that my words aren’t just visible to you, my lovely readers. They’re also visible…

It’s late here. Just coming up for midnight. So really, I should have posted before now… posted earlier. However, I’m consoling myself with the thought that it’s actually only 11pm back in the UK. So, if I pretend that I’m back home, this post will still be published today.  I’m playing tricks with time… A couple of days ago, I wrote about giving gifts to our future self, and receiving gifts from our past selves. I was circling this specifically from the place of tending to our sense of wellbeing and to our creative practice. However, since then, this idea of exchanges between past, present and future selves seems to…

A short post today, as it’s the end of a busy day where we visited the beautiful city of Bordeaux. Such a luscious day full of yummy treats. But a highlight was our visit to the Lego shop…. Much joy, much laughter, much fun. A really good reminder to never stop playing. Makes me think of that great quote by Picasso – ‘Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.’ I think part of “remaining an artist” might be remembering to play and have fun – just for the sheer joy of it. 

I love to develop fascinations in my creativity – through my lens or through my pen. Flowers, selfies, swans, yarn… At the moment I find that I am fascinated by the colours of a sunset casting the unpruned vine stems into silhouettes that, in turn, create abstract patterns of stark line and soft light.  I forget this sometimes. That I develop my creative fascinations through my practice. I think that I have nothing to write, nothing to take photographs of – no subject that calls to me. I sit and wait for inspiration to strike. And then I wait some more. And then a bit longer… before realising that inspiration…