Dirty feet

So, I love to be outside. I love Alfred's tower and I love to walk barefoot in the rain.

It was raining rather profusely a few days ago but dried off in the evening. I decided to take a walk to defragment my brain drives. I walked barefoot in the mud. Conifer needles and leafmould merged into the damp soil creating something quite firm underfoot. I enjoyed the way it squished slightly between my toes.

The grassy patches between the trees held my weight better. Happily I seem to be genetically advantaged for boggy walking. My feet are wide and there is a big gap between my big toe and first toe.

There is something very primal about barefeet. Shoes and boots protect our feet. Isolate them from cold, heat, wetness, sharps...

Do we really 'feel' the ground we walk on?

I have left footprints. They will wash away overnight but they are impressions of my feet. My toes, heels and soles. Not a mass produced bootprint but my footprint.

I was here. I am actually real, not a deranged figment of my own imagination. I am alive and I exist.

Or perhaps just in this corner of the multiversal conciousness....

I am going to try and visit the woods more often, the petrol is frankly a luxury but the exercise and peace of mind is not.


Captain Purky x

Happy Birthday Mum x

Yesterday, it would have been my Mother’s 64^th birthday. Beatles song lyrics aside it got me thinking.

At the moment I am averaging 75 hours a week at work between my two jobs (yeah I took on a second job…) and it is leaving me no space for anything else. 

Pragmaticism dictates that I should make hay while the sun shines but I am tired, stressed and irrepressibly angry. The anger is taking me very much by surprise and it’s a constant struggle every day to contain my rage.

It has been playing on my mind over the last week that my Mother who was such a beautiful, loving caring soul had a life filled with tragedies. My heart is pulled to pieces by this and the knowledge that there was no triumph at the end. 

I miss her most days anyway. At the moment it is much stronger and I wonder if that’s why my core is so hot, fiery and prickly right now.  However, in the search of future positivity I decided to make a list of what I actually want, for myself.

1)      To live creatively and express myself through my artworks, designs, writing and performances.

2)      Financial freedom.

3)      To find love again (Though I find the prospect of a lasting emotional relationship somewhat unlikely)

4)      To get married

5)      To raise children, in a loving stable home with my partner.

6)      Create a Purky Art Farm (A self sustaining small holding with studio and gallery spaces, offering  artists somewhere to work and teach)

7)      To build and sustain strong relationships and networks, offering something positive to all the people around me.

8)      To die at the right time, for the right reason.

And perhaps most importantly of all that all the things I think I ‘Want’ actually bring me happiness and fulfilment or points the way to my ‘Truth’.

Here is a 'Truth' that helps me. This is my Mother's oak tree. Right now it is not much more than a sapling but it will outlive me and quite possibly my grandchildren. As it grows and flourishes, over three hundred different kinds of life will be supported under, over and inside its mighty boughs. 

I like to think that my two very talented, hardworking brothers, my amazing sister and myself, are acorns from the oak that was Lynn Joy Pursey.  We are growing and building our futures, raising families, loving and living.

Things will get better, you just keep going...

Captain Purky signing off x

Beadtastic Moment

Today, I hitched a lift to Glastonbury with some friends, I have worked a 60 hour week and needed some 'moochy' time.

I enjoy Glasto for its eclectic mix of shops and styles and often feel inspired after visiting.

So wandering past one of my stockists, the lovely Minervra Beads at the top of the high street, I was delighted to see these in the window...

Some of my beautiful handcrafted beads in the centre of their window. I felt rather joyful to see my work on such prominent display.

Also to the right was some of Jim's work as Lonely Soldier, he is a very talented wire worker who makes fabulous pieces.

I find the organic blend of shapes he creates from wrapping, hammering and combining wires, visually delicious. Check him out at www.lonelysoldierdesigns.co.uk to find out more and see his work.

Also remember you can see more of my work at www.facebook.com/purkyproducts

And a quick view from the inside of the shop!

How lovely, hey?

Off to play video games and chillax with my neighbour and my amazing cat.

Have a great weekend everyone

Captain Purky xxx

One Year Ago

My heart was broken and I was rather scared. Losing the man I loved was terrible enough but I would have to find somewhere to live, gather my belongings, avoid conflicts..Could I afford it, was I clever enough to find somewhere?

The answer, one year on from the heart break, is Yes. I am struggling but I have a rather cool (if cluttered) apartment that I share with my beloved Phileous Mogg. (insert Meow here) I have rediscovered my inner artist

I was also, one year ago, working on Droma and writing daily. I want to return to that state of productivity. Currently I am working 12 hour days at my physically demanding job which is leaving very little space for my purkiness. However, writing can be done in tiniest snippets and those snippets can be woven together on the quiet days.

My three dimensional creativity and my writing are intrinsically linked. I love making real world artifacts from my stories, the dragon hatchlings being a case in point.

So what was the point of this post then? Really to reflect upon the positive things that have happened in the last year.

Moving into Purky Towers, Retrieving Phil, Trading successfully at the Chocolate Festival - Cads & Bounders - London Steampunk Market - Hogswatch - Discworld Spring Fling - Pop up Chocolate Garden, Discovering Gearpunk, rediscovering my love of Cyber, Meeting so many new amazing people.

It is Wednesday morning and I have already clocked in 33 hours at work this week. The grand plan is to work myself into the ground over summer to build up some financial momentum and use it to do something special.

I have so many exciting ideas and though my internal well is rather empty at the moment, a few days of resting will top me back up.

Best be off, time to go to work :)

Much love Purkites

Captain Purky xx

Hello June

Ahoy there folks, its been mental here, as always and I have a furious backlog of blogs and pics and such to get up here.

However, I have been thinking a lot and there are many things to say that are both positive and inspiring. Lately I have been mired by my own negativity and that needs to stop.

This is me, Captain Purky trading at the pop up Chocolate Festival and it was a really lovely day.

Proper return to bloggage is coming folks

Big hugs

H
xxx

Red Letter Daze

Hey folks, are you enjoying my prolific catch up blogging?

Mystified by the post title? Well I am being sent so many red letters at the moment, asking me politely to pay bills that I simply do not have the money for.

The deficit of winter combined with the upkeep of my car and some financially dissapointing trading events has left me...well. I am not quite sure how to rectify the situation. I feel like a bit of a failure on one level. My aim was to prove that I can live an artistically fulfilling and honest life whilst maintaining some sense of financial stability.

Realistically though, I know that things will get better. I also know that I am doing quite well on the whole, I am not equating my first world tribulations to a third world where children die every day from being hungry. I may lose some weight or have to sell some collectibles....not that big a deal really, hey?

I am approximately four hundred pounds short for paying bills this month, and I only got paid today. The bill estimation does not include expendables such as food or petrol. Happily Phil will be fed, the moglet need not worry about his tummy being empty. Captain Purky on the other hand shall be eating further reduced rations! (I am starting to quite enjoy tvp)

The very real possibility of spending a month being hungry is presenting itself.

Next weekend I am performing and trading so hopefully between the two of those enterprises I will have some of the dreaded paper stuff to deal with my creditors.

Make no mistake, I have no interest (geddit?) in not paying my way. To succeed in my own terms I simply have to make this work and every penny borrowed or owed must be repaid.

Once upon a time I would have decided I had to bury myself in work and deadly levels of overtime and that my chosen vocation was a fools errand.

At the moment, I believe that I have to work where I can, keep my dayjob ticking over, the bread and butter income. My rent will be paid from my wages, so I will be able to stay in my home. I also need to increase the revenue my company is taking and find a way to cut back my overheads further.

Also, I truly believe that the work I am producing is of the highest quality to have ever left my studio. If Purky is going to make it, then I cannot afford to back down now. I signed up for this.

Thankyou to everyone who supports me,

this ride is starting to get bumpy,

best be holding on

xx

A Mica tutorial

Ahoy there chaps and chappettes, this is a quickie tutorial for you all.

I used to be very fond of mica powders, these are powdered pigments usually formed from mineral mica. They have a metallic sheen and come in dozens of colours. A few different brands exist.

I use pearlex mostly and have had the same three pots for around four years so they do last rather well with average use.

In a local craft shop - Yandles at Martock I found these beauties!

£12 for each packet of powders with a spray bottle and blending brush, bargain! I pretty much just splurged on them.

So, first mica lesson.

Condition your clay, this is rolled out on the thickest setting of my clay machine

Then for this version, trim your sheet and apply the powders

When your powders are fully applied blend :)

Pick your stamp

This one is an old favourite, I don't use it often  now for items I am making to sell, gotten a tad ocd but only using my own textures on commercial items.

However, imprint your stamp/texture plate  firmly into the mica sheet. It is then ready to use however you want, for the purposes of these three tutorials I trimmed them up into rectangles and cured them.

Part two coming soon :)

Purky love

H
x