The way ahead

The green chair

I enjoy continuing the work strategy I had during my publishing career: detailed work on current projects, doing preparatory work on different stages of upcoming projects, and also looking ahead to proposals for future projects.  At present I find myself happily engaged in work current and upcoming; but for the first time I feel a gaping hole in the future.

Over the years my work has progressed steadily, piece by piece, always looking forward and trying to learn that it is one's own opinion that counts most.  I have been making what I'm happy to call work rather than play, samples, or experiments since 2001 when I started my photo album of the oeuvre - my catalogue raisonné ! 

Today I added the latest batch, and see I'm just four photo slots away from filling this thick album.  I am pleasantly surprised still to be satisfied with most of the work.  I do have another similar album ready to take records of work in the pipeline of which there's enough to make quite an inroad,

Ponder

but I seem to have reached a point when I cannot see further than the immediate and the already developing.  The way beyond that is not yet even vague.  I feel the need for the challenge of growth, to move on somehow, but I must be wary of not pushing myself too far in any particular direction.  (I went down all sorts of inappropriate alleys with my knitwear design - which in itself was quite the wrong direction!)  It's a delicate balance between turning thoughts over for size, trying things that could initially feel alien, following enthusiasm while tempering fantasy.  The purpose of the pondering is to be ready to recognise and distinguish the solution when it appears.

Quiet blue

It's lucky that my present work aids meditation and thought, and that these are occupations along with problem solving which I thoroughly enjoy.