Updating the Elephant and Shraddha's Tool box.

I read my mindfulness book each week when I was in Nepal, attempted the practices and did little sketches of potential tiles but didn't actually make any. For obvious reasons.  Like I had absolutely NO TIME and no room to make any in!!   So over the last couple of weeks of not going anywhere I have been catching up....mindfully of course...on my project of making a tile for each of mindfulness activities.  And thinking about how to put them all together.  The notion of a wall hanging of brooches on dark fabric held by the hands (and face) of a wise woman is evolving.  Lots of stuff emerging from the depths of my subconscious and I am interested that when I flick through my note books that the seeds of ideas for lots of what is happening now are all there. Just waiting for the gestation to finish!I have uploaded photos of all the recent tile here on FlickR.  Some may get re-imagined (good word that!) and some already have been!  Can you tell which is Listen like a sponge, Become aware of procrastination and Pay attention to the movement of air-like the wind and your breath on this page?  (Hint: Remember all those years ago when people gave one another pictures of round tuits so they could do something when they got a round tuit?  That was the inspiration for one of the tiles.  Kind of corny but it worked for me!)I am also thrilled and relieved to report that I am finally making progress on pieces I am preparing for an Exhibition in August this year.  When I did Tory Hughes' Creative Development manual, one of the results was committing myself to this challenge.  Not quite sure what I was thinking or what particularly confident and brave muse I was channelling at the time but the dates are set and that is a great incentive to work.  Again, it has been fascinating for me to see how seeds of ideas are growing after a long period of enforced dormancy.  In Judy Belcher and Tamara Honaman's great book Polymer Clay Master Class, Robert Dancik makes the comment that he often has many projects on the go at once. ( He says he usually has 15-25 projects on the go on his workbench which conjured images of a pretty impressive work bench!!!)  He said he finds that when he surrounds himself with projects that utilize [hundreds of various materials, processes and procedures], they start to talk to each other.  On a much smaller scale, I find this to be very true to and find that what happens with one project is enriched by what is going on with another.  I love the organic-ness of this!  How things I might have thought I had all stitched up in my head then grow due to something else I am thinking about.  Shraddha's Toolbox (pictured in progress here) reflects that.  Ideas I had for a number of things, (none actually a toolbox!) seemed to all hum together when I just started this. I was like a pig in mud making this one and found that many of my motifs, or personal symbols and emerged, begging to be incorporated in a piece that I wanted to be both beautiful and functional!!!  I put a few photos on FlickR too.In Nepal, I am generally referred to as Wendy didi or merely didi (big sister) but the ladies have given me a proper Nepali name and that is Shraddha.  It is MY toolbox, hence the name. La, back to Shraddha.