It's ironic because i'm not showering so much these days

painting detail

painting detail

printed/painted wall hanging detail

clay, glitter, paint, ink mmmmmm

making plans

some palazzo style pants i made ages ago from old sheets and dyed - but i like these photobooth photos - they look glitchy and wierd

baobab tree and it's small friend

greenery - in black. therefore: blackery

*

Bathtime is the most imaginative time of day.

Water seems to provoke imagination at any time, in any place: rockpools, rivers, dams, oceans, lakes, puddles, waterfalls…

But when you are submerged in it, it seems especially magical.

Kids’ bathtimes (I only know this because I’m a nanny, not a soppy mommy-blogger) are pleasant for everyone; they’re usually happy cos you’ve just eaten tea, and because they’re in one place their imagination seems to work overtime to think up crazy adventures and sceneries in the watery playland that represents places far away. Everything in the bath moves at a gentle pace, placid and quietly responsive if it meets an obstacle. Imagine if our streets were like our baths.

Actually, this is the same for any person’s bathtime. You are observing what is right in front of you, and I don’t mean this in terms of the body (this is not a body project). You are consciously feeling and seeing the water and the room/place and the air that immediately surrounds you; the temperature, the mass, the movement. This is so rare throughout the rest of your day. In the bath you feel able to observe and survey, and also to reflect on that, and extend your mind into imagination. It’s like being in very calm control of your own imaginative kingdom. It’s therapeutic of course, but also productive.

Bathtime is a perfect tool to slow us down and make us observe and reflect, and to then make new decisions.

Bathing is historically a communal and sociable pastime. This isn’t so much the case now, but I would suggest that bathtime is still social, because it provides this time for reflective behaviour, which when understood can be helpful for socially (and others sort of..) cooperative behaviour.

So I might do a bath / water based piece of artwork. I'm thinking black glittery bathwater... But it can't waste water cos that would be hypocritical.

I'll just have to have a bath in some glitter and paint.