We are still only little and learning as we go. All we ask is you share if you wanna and subscribe if you’re feelin’ it.
So here we go…
This month’s FLOW is from the keyboard of David Nixon - Founder of Driftwood Studio and self certified Chaos Engineer.
“Its complicated keeping things simple”
Artist and maker Sue Walpole said this to me some years ago, and it remains an important piece of advice for me. These days I think of ‘simplicity’ as ‘refinement.’ The more we work with a concept, the more we simplify and refine it, the more elegant it becomes.
How is it that LS Lowry can capture so perfectly the forms of workers in the industrial North West of England, but if I do it, I simply make a childish mess - or worse, an adult mess. Why? Because Lowry started out as an anatomical illustrator, he had a detailed knowledge of the human form, and so, as his work was refined, he expressed more with less.
How is it that Hemingway could say so much with so few words? Because he trained as a journalist and worked with limited word counts. As a result he gave us the literary ‘ice berg theory.’ Hemingway is also credited with what is recognized as the shortest story ever written:
These six words have a beginning, a middle and an end. There is a character. There is context and meaning. The plot however, is implied. The emotional response to this micro story comes from a place of nuance. It is simple, but it conveys something deeply complex.
We are still in the process of getting our SubStack site finalised. We will keep you updated via FLOW. We will be creating premium and founder content in due course In the mean time we would like to say thankyou to all our subscribers. If you are visiting the page then please hit the free subscribe button to stay updated and support the development of Driftwood Studio for a Life Creative.
The Fool and the Oak Leaf - a true story.
In the car park, outside the place where I now live, there is an oak tree, It is quite a beautiful oak, and is protected at its base by a ring of hawthorn. Beneath it is a wall, and on clear mornings I sit and have my morning coffee and contemplate the day to come.
On one such day, late last summer, I noticed a leaf angled in a different direction from all the others. This leaf leant to the North, whereas all the other leaves looked South, toward the wide, flat vale of Greater Manchester. For some reason this caught my attention and each morning I would come out, sit with my coffee and meditate on this leaf.
At first my mind was drawn to the concept of difference.
My word how this resonated with me!
I have felt like an outsider on many occasions. This is my tribe: the outsiders, the roustabouts, the alternative thinkers, the mavericks and mis-fitters. I made this little oak leaf a metaphor for my tendency to look in the other direction, to not align with the rest of the leaves.
As the year rolled on, August was surrendered to September and as October came around the leaves began to rust and fade. I imagined seeing the tree over the decades, growth coming and going in rapid succession each year. This beautiful oak tree was a machine for the creation of foliage. As I mused on this cartoon like image - leaf upon leaf, autumn after autumn - it occurred to me that this leaf; ‘my leaf’, would soon fall. One day soon, my leaf would detach and become mulch on the tarmac of a small town car park.
I began to fantasise that I would be there when the leaf fell. I pictured myself being there at the moment when it finally dropped to terra firma. Then one day, late in October, I came out to sit on the wall under the tree to contemplate on ‘my leaf’.
But it was not there.
My leaf had dropped.
Alas, I was de-leafed, defeated and deflated.
There was nothing there but the stubby end of the twig from which it grew. The node now blackened and old appeared a sad and lonely promontory on the boughs of this old oak tree.
However, I did not give up. I looked for the leaf. Perhaps I could find it, amongst all the other identical leaves lying on the ground around me. I very quickly realized this was an utterly futile task. My connection with the leaf had been about difference, now it was just the same as the rest: a rotting piece of organic matter which had lived its life and was now spent, little more than food for worms, if worms were to frequent this concrete plateau. I felt saddened by this loss; a tiny grief washed over me. This leaf had become a metaphor for some deeply held value that had now become an empty space. The uniqueness that I had brought to the world had died and fallen to the ground, now indistinguishable from all the other decaying things. In time only the tawdry conformity of plastic matter would remain.
Just as I was thinking this, I heard a faint ‘pit’ noise, I looked down and saw that an acorn had fallen at my feet. My spirits lifted, the meaning was clear: renewal, re-birth, a newness yet to come once the death of winter had passed. A sign of spring and hope for the future. What a wonderful thing I had finally learned. My leaf had not been me, but an expression of some prelude to the true me that would emerge from some tiny seed. I was to be reborn, let the choirs sing and praise the joy of living.
What an arrogant fool.
I sat on the wall once more and felt extremely content and pleased with myself for having made myself the centre of a story invented by me. I had spent so long meditating on that leaf, crafting its existence into an expression of my own self perception. I had worked hard to project all my needs and fears and mortal anxieties into its existence. I had been persistent and consistent and learned to resist less the teachings that life provides. How clever I felt. But then I heard a familiar noise: ‘pit’, then again ‘pit - pit - pitpitpit.’ I looked around and everywhere acorns were falling. So what made my acorn so special. Once again I had been robbed of my individuality - my ‘specialness’ taken from me.
Then a pagan voice from deep in the earth began to rumble through me. Dryadic wisdom in the modern tarmac world vibrated the ground and I was held in ancient fires where heathens danced and naked flames torched the midnight sky. The spirit of the Oak tree spoke:
“You sit under oak trees in Autumn and think it unusual when acorns fall at your feet? You’re a fool.”
The voice was inside me and all around. It was a voice without form, but yet it held such presence as to stun me into an understanding so simple and yet so profoundly complex, and utterly beautiful:
I am here, and this is now.
FLOW is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support the work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
The Life Creative
Developing a creative life is about refinement. Finding your flow is a process of exploration, dead ends, problem solving and redirection. To establish your creative flow there are four distinct modalities:
Being - Doing - Becoming - Belonging. We will be exploring these further as the Driftwood Studio project continues to grow.
But for now let’s start with BEING.
The story of the oak tree tells us something about the nature of being, and the ‘beingness’ of nature. Nature provides the most useful metaphors because nature is not comprised of constructs. Nature is reality, actual. Nature is adaptable, agile, integrated, complex and simple all at the same time. In short nature is the true artist. In the story I created a narrative around the leaf and the tree itself. But in doing so I missed a very simple truth - that the narrative I created was coming from me.
‘Being’ is non linear. Being is play. Being is without judgement or prejudice. Find your space and be.
So the journey begins.
You are reading the May edition of FLOW - the monthly mailout from Driftwood Studio. Sharing is caring.
Without a doubt this is the biggest step. Finding freedom of thought is fundamental to establishing ‘The Life Creative.’ My revelation with the Oak tree was an event that came as a result of several months of contemplation. But when that freedom came, it was un-looked for and arrived in the most unexpected way.
Over the coming months we will begin adding premium content to our SubStack environment. The first will be a new series of podcast from myself (David Nixon) and Dave Brown, the erstwhile “Bullshit Detective.” These podcast will look at a whole host of themes connecting to and supporting creative process and creative endeavor. From creative spaces to anxiety and tension, relationships, money and audience. We want to dig deep into what it means to establish a life creative.
I will also be setting out the content for The Kawa Poetics in a blog form. This publication explores the poetic language of rivers and how this remarkable framework from my time in occupational therapy can be used as tool for ‘optimising flow’ by identifying barriers, resources and opportunities.
Look out for more posts from Driftwood Studio and updates on our activity.
For now we wish you a peaceful and productive May.
Driftwood Studio is a collective dedicated to “The Life Creative.” No one is an island and we need to engage and support one another in these times of change.
We are:
David Nixon - Writing for performance, visual arts, creative coaching & training
FLOW #4
FLOW #4
FLOW #4
Welcome to FLOW
The monthly mailout for Driftwood Studio.
We are still only little and learning as we go. All we ask is you share if you wanna and subscribe if you’re feelin’ it.
So here we go…
This month’s FLOW is from the keyboard of David Nixon - Founder of Driftwood Studio and self certified Chaos Engineer.
“Its complicated keeping things simple”
Artist and maker Sue Walpole said this to me some years ago, and it remains an important piece of advice for me. These days I think of ‘simplicity’ as ‘refinement.’ The more we work with a concept, the more we simplify and refine it, the more elegant it becomes.
How is it that LS Lowry can capture so perfectly the forms of workers in the industrial North West of England, but if I do it, I simply make a childish mess - or worse, an adult mess. Why? Because Lowry started out as an anatomical illustrator, he had a detailed knowledge of the human form, and so, as his work was refined, he expressed more with less.
How is it that Hemingway could say so much with so few words? Because he trained as a journalist and worked with limited word counts. As a result he gave us the literary ‘ice berg theory.’ Hemingway is also credited with what is recognized as the shortest story ever written:
These six words have a beginning, a middle and an end. There is a character. There is context and meaning. The plot however, is implied. The emotional response to this micro story comes from a place of nuance. It is simple, but it conveys something deeply complex.
Share
We are still in the process of getting our SubStack site finalised. We will keep you updated via FLOW. We will be creating premium and founder content in due course In the mean time we would like to say thankyou to all our subscribers. If you are visiting the page then please hit the free subscribe button to stay updated and support the development of Driftwood Studio for a Life Creative.
The Fool and the Oak Leaf - a true story.
In the car park, outside the place where I now live, there is an oak tree, It is quite a beautiful oak, and is protected at its base by a ring of hawthorn. Beneath it is a wall, and on clear mornings I sit and have my morning coffee and contemplate the day to come.
On one such day, late last summer, I noticed a leaf angled in a different direction from all the others. This leaf leant to the North, whereas all the other leaves looked South, toward the wide, flat vale of Greater Manchester. For some reason this caught my attention and each morning I would come out, sit with my coffee and meditate on this leaf.
At first my mind was drawn to the concept of difference.
My word how this resonated with me!
I have felt like an outsider on many occasions. This is my tribe: the outsiders, the roustabouts, the alternative thinkers, the mavericks and mis-fitters. I made this little oak leaf a metaphor for my tendency to look in the other direction, to not align with the rest of the leaves.
As the year rolled on, August was surrendered to September and as October came around the leaves began to rust and fade. I imagined seeing the tree over the decades, growth coming and going in rapid succession each year. This beautiful oak tree was a machine for the creation of foliage. As I mused on this cartoon like image - leaf upon leaf, autumn after autumn - it occurred to me that this leaf; ‘my leaf’, would soon fall. One day soon, my leaf would detach and become mulch on the tarmac of a small town car park.
I began to fantasise that I would be there when the leaf fell. I pictured myself being there at the moment when it finally dropped to terra firma. Then one day, late in October, I came out to sit on the wall under the tree to contemplate on ‘my leaf’.
But it was not there.
My leaf had dropped.
Alas, I was de-leafed, defeated and deflated.
There was nothing there but the stubby end of the twig from which it grew. The node now blackened and old appeared a sad and lonely promontory on the boughs of this old oak tree.
However, I did not give up. I looked for the leaf. Perhaps I could find it, amongst all the other identical leaves lying on the ground around me. I very quickly realized this was an utterly futile task. My connection with the leaf had been about difference, now it was just the same as the rest: a rotting piece of organic matter which had lived its life and was now spent, little more than food for worms, if worms were to frequent this concrete plateau. I felt saddened by this loss; a tiny grief washed over me. This leaf had become a metaphor for some deeply held value that had now become an empty space. The uniqueness that I had brought to the world had died and fallen to the ground, now indistinguishable from all the other decaying things. In time only the tawdry conformity of plastic matter would remain.
Just as I was thinking this, I heard a faint ‘pit’ noise, I looked down and saw that an acorn had fallen at my feet. My spirits lifted, the meaning was clear: renewal, re-birth, a newness yet to come once the death of winter had passed. A sign of spring and hope for the future. What a wonderful thing I had finally learned. My leaf had not been me, but an expression of some prelude to the true me that would emerge from some tiny seed. I was to be reborn, let the choirs sing and praise the joy of living.
What an arrogant fool.
I sat on the wall once more and felt extremely content and pleased with myself for having made myself the centre of a story invented by me. I had spent so long meditating on that leaf, crafting its existence into an expression of my own self perception. I had worked hard to project all my needs and fears and mortal anxieties into its existence. I had been persistent and consistent and learned to resist less the teachings that life provides. How clever I felt. But then I heard a familiar noise: ‘pit’, then again ‘pit - pit - pitpitpit.’ I looked around and everywhere acorns were falling. So what made my acorn so special. Once again I had been robbed of my individuality - my ‘specialness’ taken from me.
Then a pagan voice from deep in the earth began to rumble through me. Dryadic wisdom in the modern tarmac world vibrated the ground and I was held in ancient fires where heathens danced and naked flames torched the midnight sky. The spirit of the Oak tree spoke:
“You sit under oak trees in Autumn and think it unusual when acorns fall at your feet? You’re a fool.”
The voice was inside me and all around. It was a voice without form, but yet it held such presence as to stun me into an understanding so simple and yet so profoundly complex, and utterly beautiful:
I am here, and this is now.
FLOW is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support the work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
The Life Creative
Developing a creative life is about refinement. Finding your flow is a process of exploration, dead ends, problem solving and redirection. To establish your creative flow there are four distinct modalities:
Being - Doing - Becoming - Belonging. We will be exploring these further as the Driftwood Studio project continues to grow.
But for now let’s start with BEING.
The story of the oak tree tells us something about the nature of being, and the ‘beingness’ of nature. Nature provides the most useful metaphors because nature is not comprised of constructs. Nature is reality, actual. Nature is adaptable, agile, integrated, complex and simple all at the same time. In short nature is the true artist. In the story I created a narrative around the leaf and the tree itself. But in doing so I missed a very simple truth - that the narrative I created was coming from me.
‘Being’ is non linear. Being is play. Being is without judgement or prejudice. Find your space and be.
So the journey begins.
You are reading the May edition of FLOW - the monthly mailout from Driftwood Studio. Sharing is caring.
Share
When the mind is free
Without a doubt this is the biggest step. Finding freedom of thought is fundamental to establishing ‘The Life Creative.’ My revelation with the Oak tree was an event that came as a result of several months of contemplation. But when that freedom came, it was un-looked for and arrived in the most unexpected way.
Over the coming months we will begin adding premium content to our SubStack environment. The first will be a new series of podcast from myself (David Nixon) and Dave Brown, the erstwhile “Bullshit Detective.” These podcast will look at a whole host of themes connecting to and supporting creative process and creative endeavor. From creative spaces to anxiety and tension, relationships, money and audience. We want to dig deep into what it means to establish a life creative.
I will also be setting out the content for The Kawa Poetics in a blog form. This publication explores the poetic language of rivers and how this remarkable framework from my time in occupational therapy can be used as tool for ‘optimising flow’ by identifying barriers, resources and opportunities.
Look out for more posts from Driftwood Studio and updates on our activity.
For now we wish you a peaceful and productive May.
Driftwood Studio is a collective dedicated to “The Life Creative.” No one is an island and we need to engage and support one another in these times of change.
We are:
David Nixon - Writing for performance, visual arts, creative coaching & training
Dave Brown - 3D clay work, coaching & training.
Erica Pham - Mixed media artist, tarot & wellbeing.
Madeleine Howard - Writer, performer & education.
Andy Croft - Photography, printing, web building & SEO.
Michelle Ayavoro - Textile artist, inclusion & diversity, facilitator & arts in health.
Denise Bradshaw - Facilitator, educator & creative wellbeing.
Are you an artist, creative, writer, performer, trainer or creative coach?
Would you like to get involved with Driftwood Studio?
Contact the Studio