As I sit on my deck in the warm sun and ponder over my week, I realise how grateful I am for the time I have spent with my whānau during lockdown. It is so easy to get lost in work and the laptop and if this lockdown has taught me anything it is to relish the time you have with the ones you love. We’ve spent lots of time doing the things we love including spending time with the horse, growing seedlings, playing in the forest and most importantly for this blog, making art.

We haven’t been this creative in a long time. And by creative I mean doing stuff we love just for the mere hell of it and not for a project for school or for work, not under any deadlines but just because we can and because it makes us feel so much better about everything.

I picked up a paintbrush and my daughter and I painted the horse, if only he’d have stood still! Not sure either of our paintings look at all like him but it got the cogs moving in the brain and made us spend a good hour of quality time living in the moment and connecting with each other whilst finding endless ways to keep him in just the right position so I could draw his ears. Those ears!

I wrote in a journal. I hadn’t done that since I worked on a cruise ship many years ago (yes, I do still have them tucked away in a box of treasures.) I encouraged my kids to do the same. I spent time finding ways to bake bread and cakes in a slow cooker (my oven is broken!) I hung wall paper on a wall and now my once stark white bedroom is covered in butterflies. Bliss!

And I had this epiphany that I had forgotten how much I loved just being creative not for a project or a show or an event but just for me, just for us. I have spent my life in the arts, it’s all I really know how to do but I think over the years the love has dulled and it sometimes becomes a chore, something I have to do rather than am compelled to do because it is who I am. But being creative without boundaries just for making arts sake has certainly fed my soul, it’s given my mind some space to help make sense of what is going on and made me reflect on the positive aspects of this lockdown.

On that note I thought I’d share the Mental Health Foundation in the UK’s article on how the arts can help your mental health. It’s well worth a read.

“Getting involved with the arts can have powerful and lasting effects on health. It can help to protect against a range of mental health conditions, help manage mental ill health and support recovery”

— https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/blog/how-arts-can-help-improve-your-mental-health

This week I caught up with Jeremy Hinman the Director of ‘The Incredible and Glorious World According to The Fitzroys’ to finally have our debrief after our season at Auckland Fringe. Not only was it lovely to catch up with him (he’s a super human is Jeremy, talented in the extreme with a heart that is so full of love and joy) but it was so lovely to talk through it all and get excited for what lies ahead. Of course it also generated a huge list of new stuff to do like scenes to write, festivals to contact etc. But with that extra space from having a soul, that feels nourished through creativity, it genuinely felt exciting. Much like when you turn the page of a much loved book that you’ve read a thousand times and you find something new in it.

So I implore you to take some time to do something creative this week not for a project, not for work, not for an end result even just because it will build you up and give you some space to tackle life head on.

On a sunny Sunday afternoon … or is it Monday?