Headmost in wind’s shoving
Waves a wilted leaf.
Roaming, youth, and loving stops:
Their time is brief.
Trackless leaves ascend, descend
Wherever winds will stray,
Only to stop in the woods, in decay.
Where will my journey end?
Hermann Hesse
In between bouts of activity I do a bit of pondering – some people who know me say it’s the other way around and that I am fundamentally lazy. Be that as it may, and I’m not arguing, there are times when a bit of pondering is in order; when a journey is completed, or when there’s a snow storm howling and it demands your attention. Sometimes, maybe once or twice in a lifetime, the two collide.
As the snow storm howled around me, and I put my tools away, I sat in the chair I’d just completed, looked out the workshop door and did a little pondering. The view was magnificent – literally and metaphorically.
As I watched the snowflakes fall, their flurries dance in the breeze and settle into little drifts I joined them and drifted off into thought. I got caught in the little flurries and eddys of life that had carried me along to that point in time. I considered the little journey I had just completed.
It started last year with an email from The Sister telling me someone wanted to have a chat and maybe have a look at my work. With one thing and another it was not until January that I finally packed the car with some travel essentials and some chairs, and, four faces pressed uncomfortably up against the windows, we set off for Ballinskelligs. As it happened I was going to be able to kill two birds with one stone; show my wares and, on the way back, deliver a commission I had just completed.
Arriving at Cill Riallaig Arts Centre we discovered a beautiful building filled with even more beautiful works of art created by artists from all over the world. As I stood looking around me, I felt completely out of my depth – an imposter – and I looked at my chairs and felt acutely embarrassed, fighting the urge to get back in the car and head straight home.
However, Dr. Campbell-Sharpe, the force of nature behind the gallery and the lady I had come to meet, immediately soothed away all concerns and trepidations – she was and is kindness and charm personified – inviting us, complete strangers, to stay in her beautiful home, giving us a grand tour of the area (part of which was a white-knuckle ride along a cliff’s edge), and, for me, best of all, said very kind things about my work. Within 10 minutes of meeting Noelle two of my chairs found their way into the gallery and she asked me to prepare an exhibition of my work.
This was all a little unexpected and I began to quietly panic. But, I put it to one side for a while, as I had a wonderful evening chatting to The Sister, the catalyst for all that had happened up to that point.
On the journey home next morning, the panic began to rise again and I was consumed with thoughts of the challenge ahead, the amount of work to do, the time it would take, how little time I had, and myriad other things. I began to overthink – I needed a theme for the exhibition, I needed to have the chairs already created in my head and they needed to fit into the theme, whatever that may be, I needed……..
I began to work. I had my theme. I had thought of my first 5 chairs and I had sketched them. I had named them. I knew what they were to be, who they were to be, what I wanted them to be, what I expected them to be.
As I worked on the first chair I knew its form, and I thought I knew its personality – I was, after all, creating it – and I became more excited as it took shape and at the same time increasingly anxious. It was not what I had expected. I was doing something wrong. But, I kept going and the more I worked the more distant I became from what I thought this chair was, who it was, what it meant. I looked at it, half complete, unfinished, and almost naked before me and I was close to despair – it was physically as expected, in fact better than I could have hoped, but it was not who I thought it was.
When I had completed whatever little I wanted to do each day I retreated to Rosshalde and watched an artist work, looking over his shoulder as his life unfolded. I saw, felt, and experienced his discipline – and I witnessed his letting go, his release and his freedom.
All the while Chopin played for us.
I watched, I listened, but I failed to hear or to understand.
Each day I worked, I was enamoured, elevated by the Willow I was using, the form it took – and, each moment took me further from where I expected to be and closer to something else, more sublime, more beautiful, more peaceful, more gentle. And, still, I fought it – until it was complete, whole and as it should be, as it needed to be.
Then I saw it, understood it – I knew what I was looking at. The anxiety of the past few months fell away; I let go my expectation, my want, my need, my desire – to have what I wanted when I wanted and as I wanted – to be in control, to be secure in what I was doing and how I was doing it – for the surety that control brings, but which is in reality an illusion, a trap to catch and hold you, to create unhappiness and disguise it as comfort and ease.
I looked at the chair. I saw the willow, and the form. I heard the masterful piece of music I had listened to again and again as I walked with the artist through his long summer into the autumn. I saw the willow, the moon, the night, and the sublime music it brings, and as I listened to the music and the fluttering, leaping play of the notes, I watched the snowflakes swirl and dance. The leaves from the Beech at the bottom of the garden joined them in their riotous, boisterous exuberance. They let the wind carry them, enjoying the journey.
As I watched I let go of the theme for the exhibition – I will simply make some chairs, and they will reveal themselves to me as I go. I let go of the exhibition and I let go of the worries and pressure I allowed to arise – I will work, gently, towards it, and hopefully I will get close to the mark, but, if not, I will at least enjoy the journey.
Emily, you have no idea how much I enjoyed the chat and your company, and I cannot thank you enough for all you have done for me – for this little journey.
Thank you.
The Poet’s Chair – Hazel and Willow Greenwood Chair