Brighton Rock

                     Brighton Beach July 23

 When I was a boy, it was our summer treat to be taken to Brighton for the day. We were forced fed Brighton Rock and Wall's ice cream and plonked in a deck chair and told to paddle in the water and brave the wind. (both exceeding good for us)
I remember thinking 'So, this is life?'
Last time I was to go there was when I was eighteen, on the back of a friend's motorbike but was equally unimpressed.
But here I was again in late July running a workshop entitled 'Photography and the Creative Mind'
I arrived a day early to get the feel of the place, wandered along the beach in a southerly direction looking for my B&B and walked into a beach monstrosity. A sort of giant pole without a giant pole dancer with an equally huge metal doughnut on top
And in the Guardian a few days after I get back I see it again. Look at this 
It's that tower! It is!
Now, living as I do in Italy, where this would be a giant chicken perch or a Fire Dept observation tower on top of a mountain, I couldn't help but condemn this as a visual aberration and in no way did I think that it could be anything other than basic functional, like something to do with radio, electricity or gas or sewage. These were my first thoughts.
But it turns out to be a costly work of art.
And this is where we did our morning exercises on the my workshop, right beneath the monstrosity. We did Ci Kung and played a few mind emptying games and turned our bodies into sounding boards, under the ugliest object imaginable. So that set the theme for the weekend; ugliness and beauty. To these add weird.
What is he talking about? I hear you mumble.
And what has all this nonsense got to do with Photography?
Wrong question, I reply. But I'm glad you asked.
(Mind you, you would have to have been there to fully understand but I shall attempt to explain, if inadequately).
Here goes
And it's this, that.......

 'The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable'  ......Robert Henri

That photography isn't just about the eye, or the brain, or indeed the mind, it is about the total absorption of our entire being from head to toe, in the very actuality of the moment. So when Robert Henri writes above, about 'that wonderful state', this is what he means.

And the weekend was about that, turning our entire beings into sounding boards, tightly drawn drums, alert and within every nuance of shifting time.

And the participants were wonderful. They were game for every twist and turn and trick I played on them and, incidentally, produced some excellent imagery. But that is quite beside the point. Because they were the products on which I was focused; cameras are mere machines and three years olds are photographers nowadays

And I sent them away with a survival kit and much to ponder on, much more.

I hope they don't forget.

Look out for more photography and the creative mind workshops on the Starstone site and watch out for more in UK in 2017 and one in Venice planned for winter when the city is dark and moody and haunted and tourist free

Michael@starstone.org

www.starstone.org

About Creativity, Passion and Jack the dog

                                       CREATIVITY, PASSION AND JACK

I am often asked 'What do you mean by human beings creating beyond themselves?'

(This refers particularly to my last blog where I postulated such a notion).

The easy answer is that I read it somewhere years back and liked it and adopted it into my personal useful philosophy phrase box, along with similar phrases like 'You teach best what you most want to know' That sort of useful buzzybrain stuff.

But I feel it does need explaining, (if only to myself).

So let's start with animals.
Jack, for instance, our neighbours' dog.

 Jack is an escape artist, a canine Houdini. He is also a wanderer and Casanova, dog version.

In Italy, where I live, dogs have to be either chained, kept within a fenced garden or on a lead if out with their owner. None of these options appeal to Jack who burrows under deeply dug fences (or climbs over them) bites through chains and leads and consequently is the nicest and brightest dog I have ever met. We are best buddies.

Birds build nests, squirrels, bears, badgers, make winter homes in which to hibernate and cuckoos commit genocide, bird version, by laying there eggs in nest of small birds.

But you know all this stuff

You get what I'm going on this though, don't you?

Animals, and yes human animals, are born with certain instinctive behaviour patterns. but we have that something extra, beyond the basics of territorial imperatives, survival and hunting etc.

And it is this added instinct, or desire if you will.... to create things which have never existed before, this is what I mean by creating beyond ourselves, be it what we call art, a garden, a poem, a tune, and entering what I choose to call the creative garden of now; that realm of total absorption and abandonment where we are alive to our passion. A passion which has no end in view except the act of creation itself

So you've guessed it, this is what our workshops are about, finding out how to enter this state of receptive mind. Not a conditioned mind or a repetitive mind but one which is open to that enriching flow of creative beyondness which is waiting for us all if we had the good sense to step back and recognise it.

Michael and Michelle Rumney are running a workshop May 26 weekend in Assisi 'Time and Space to be Creative' a beautiful place, a sumptuous Italian weekend.

For info you can call Michael or leave a message on WHATSAPP +39 3283535358, SKYPE spiker39

Or email him on michael@starstone.org

A message to my friends

Dear friends,
Firstly, please forgive me if I have already bombarded you with messages from Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram, forums, all that stuff that I grope around in; that dark forest of my aimless wanderings and treacle swamps.
This is just to remind you of the workshop which Michelle Rumney and I are hosting in Assisi May 26 to 30. It's about re-awakening creativity.
Stop! I know some of you are thinking 'I haven't got a creative bone in my body', or some such nonsense you were lead to believe in childhood.
 
Truth is, every adult retains within them this wonderful instinct which humans have to create beyond themselves
And what we do in our workshops is quite simply (and as if by magic) turn the key of that old solid creaky oak door and let you back in to the creative garden which has been waiting patiently for your return.
And as if this were not enough in itself, There is Assisi, just 8k down the road; that wonder shining like a diamond perched on the mountains of St Francis. And then there is Casa Faustina itself, with it's wonderful environment and simply delicious Italian vegetarian food.
More on our website www.starstone.org
And email Michael at michael@starstone.org
Much love to you all,

Birds, life and death and Prince

This morning the first cuckoo. And I feel excited as I always do when I hear that sound.

Life affirming and real. But ten minutes later.....Aia!.......Minu, our youngest cat, drops a bird at my feet. It's a gift of course so there is no point in getting angry, she wouldn't understand. This little bird is still alive and I nestle her in my hands for warmth and take her to my studio and wrap her in an old T shirt to keep her temperature constant. And leave her there to recover. And sure enough she does and I find her 30 mins later fluttering at the window and as I go to gently catch her and liberate her, ...... Zak! Minu's mother leaps past me and catches her in her mouth. She had somehow secreted herself into my studio and had been waiting for her moment to strike. This time, though, I am angry and shout at her and she drops the bird. So then again I wrap it up again in my T shirt and place her on a table to recover.

Fast forward three hours. We are back from lunch and I head straightaway to my studio but she isn't anywhere to be seen. So what can I do, I make sure no cats have got back in and close the door to check again in an hour...Which is right now!

Phew! You can put your kleenex away because she is alive and perched on one of my paintings, which may be a good omen for us both. And I've just checked on Google and will do as instructed and release her in the morning because it is currently raining and the sky is darkening. Just keep her warm and give her time to recover, that's what I have to do

So, there you are, two bird stories to start your day.

Update tomorrow after breakfast.

Next morning... Poor little bird died over night.
Cats are domestic sharks and now I am angry with them, although it serves no purpose to be so.
Worse still, I then find her mate dead outside our front door. They were Orphean Warblers, the first we have seen in our garden. They spent the days swooping and diving after each other, no doubt creating a nest in the trees nearby.
Such a wanton waste and a desecration of beauty and sheer goodness. An untimely and unnecessary loss of life

Lenny Henry writes this about Prince in this morning's Guardian
'Prince was about high stakes, love, hate, life and death - he was into extremes. In the song Sometimes it snows in April, from the Album 'Parade', he said
'Sometimes I wish life was never ending, but all good things, they say, never last'
He was the ultimate in good things. His creative legacy will last'
I've read, too, that in this last year Prince was working with incredible intensity, almost as if he was trying to beat the clock. One interviewer asked him what he felt about getting older and he said something like 'It's great as I am getting close to the source, my maker'
And when Guardian reporter visited him last year, he described spending the previous night just playing to himself for three hours without pause.
“I just couldn’t stop. That’s what you want. Transcendence. When that happens … Oh, boy.”

And they say the music was flowing out of him in an unstoppable torrent, 

Ah, such mixed thoughts this rainy morning. But the sky is clearing from the North and I will go and buy some flowers and bushes at a festival of flowers by the sea in Civitanova. And plant them in our garden

Michael and Michelle Rumney are running a workshop 'Time and Space to be Creative' in Assisi, Italy May 26 weekend.
Contact Michael for information

The tree and the sea

The tree and the sea.

I am often asked why, if my passion is for painting, did I choose to teach photography. It's a good question and the simple answer is that it was more fun. Photographers are gregarious, share stuff, move more quickly and have a wider spectrum of activity and are not so scared of messing up.

Another reason was that I wanted to instill in photography students the slower and often deeper instincts of a painter.

Sounds somewhat elite this doesn't it?

But that is not the case at all.

Let me explain by giving a simple example from this past week of how this is still relevant in my life, a life which has me floating in the space between these two expressive forms of creativity, respecting both for their differences and power to affect our lives in incredible ways.

The Tree

This I pass half a dozen times a day walking to my garden studio. I posted a photo of it to our Facebook page 'Mindful Photography'

I added an explanation, describing it as a City, probably three times my age, which is the home of a colony of 10,000 ants, spiders, beetles and a myriad of micro creatures as well as black squirrels occasionally, and of course birds; a living organism in itself and a host to other living creatures.

Not an unusual thing to do you might say, but for me this is so. Unusual because I have always taught that a photograph must, if it is meaningful photograph, say all of these things by the singular power of its image alone.

So I would impress on students that making a photo is easy, but to fully absorb oneself in the subject of interest, absolutely so, this is what one must do, even before even thinking about picking up a camera.

The Sea

And this below is a painting I made at the same time.

I live by the Adriatic sea in Italy and this is one of a series of the influences this area is having on me, feelings and thoughts and mindsnaps which are bouncing into me, of the wind, the colours of the sea and the adjacent land, the boats and the stark boatyards, the smells even of the fishing boats and the continuous movement of birds and people around its shores.

But can you see how different these processes are?

There were times in which I forbade students from taking more than one photo a month; all the time slowing them down, becoming what we now refer to as mindful (although I prefer mind empty, except it sounds a bit odd)

So, there you are. Memories which surface from time to time which serve as teachers.

Historically of course, I am referring to a time at Bournemouth Art College in the 80s and 90s (when it was nicknamed the Zen School of Photography); a time when there was time, and with only a small number of students too. But to me, these principles of course still apply; that any form of creative expression must involve complete absorption into the arena in which we choose to express ourselves.

And you get there by going there.

Michael Eldridge and Naga Dipa are running a workshop in Brighton in July entitled 'Mindful Photography' for details write to michael@starstone.org

And Michelle Rumney and Michael are running a workshop in Italy in May entitled 'Time and Space to be Creative' Click here for more info or write to michael@starstone.org

Michael is interviewed on the subject of Creativity

Michelle Rumney and I have been putting the final touches to our retreat this early summer in Assisi and she reminded me of when she had interviewed me back in 2010 about Creativity for one of her Room on the Edge interviews. I hadn't listened to it for years, so I played it back to myself yesterday evening. I know what you are thinking, that I was riveted with boredom and fell off my chair. Not so. She has put it up on the Starstone Creativity Retreats Facebook page but here it is for you bloggers http://artistsadventur.es/michael-eldridge-interview/
It is interesting for me to contrast this with an interview in November with Anthony Rogers, director of The Foundation for Recovery and Wellness and to hear how the questioner got different stuff out of me; squeezed out more recent memories. Here it is http://www.irwcconference.com/michael-eldridge-creativity-and-wellbeing/
These should go down well with a nice cup of tea and a cake, in the evening
However maybe they are both too wordy and give the impression that creativity is somehow difficult to rediscover in ourselves, should we ever imagine that we have lost it somewhere in our lives (which in truth we haven't)
But words apart, (and these can be inspiring but are never enough)...what I was struggling to express was the simplicity of living creatively; contrasting this with the mind's seeming objection to this state of being.
And so, our workshops are about the pure physicality of being immersed in this realm. To experience what it is to act with the absorption of a child, to be fully attentive to the actual, where past and future thoughts just peel away and we can watch them past by as if they were fish in a stream which we have no wish to catch or engage with. To be absorbed in the realm of creativity by the very act of creating where we and the flow and the act become one.
There! That is what I wished I'd said.

Michael 3/3/16

Time and Space to be creative

I wrote in a previous blog about the Seminars Tony Maestri and I attended at Brockwood Park with Krishnamurti; the many books we read and how we based an entire Photography Course at the then Bournemouth College of Art, (now Arts University Bournemouth) on his teachings (a secret course which ran parallel with the official one we pretended to follow)

And this is the very heart of the teaching I have followed ever since. He wrote something which particularly inspired me..

'that the state of creative emptiness is not a thing to be cultivated- it is there, it comes darkly, without any invitation, and only in that state is there a possibility of renewal, newness, revolution':

'....to die to everything of yesterday, so that your mind is always fresh, always young, innocent, full of vigour and passion. and that it is only in that state that one learns and observes'

In short, that is what our workshops and retreats are all about. They are where the adventure starts.

No need to tell you any more right now, simply because there is no written formula to follow in being creative. Can you remember when you first learned to swim or ride a bike? Of course you can. And it's like that, we just do it. painting, poetry, photography, making, doing and of course walking, eating, laughing; inhabiting this beautiful space where our creativity is released, it is suddenly there.

Our next Time and Space workshop/retreat is May 26 weekend in Assisi, with Michael Eldridge and Michelle Rumney
Time
Where past and future are brushed aside and our minds are fresh young and innocent once more
Space 
 

                      The studio at Casa Faustina

A beautiful studio on the hill beneath the swaying pine trees at Casa Faustina

You can find out more on this link  
And you can hear Michelle interviewing Michael on this link

And should you wish to write to Michael, here is his email
michael@starstone.org
Or call him whatsapp +39 3283535358

Best wishes

Michael