DRIFTWOOD STUDIO is a collective of artists, educators, writers, trainers and coaches. We are committed to building a more creative world for positive change, healthy and productive relationships and a good amount of fun.
You can read more about Driftwood at the end of this Newsletter.
We would like to welcome some new members of the Driftwood Directors Group. This group was the start of the whole collective. Initially it was set up for those who were going to be the directors of a new Community Interest Company. However, we have shifted our business model so the group became a place for sharing and supporting one another as artists, makers and changologists.
If you would like to join the Directors Group then please email David Nixon at info@driftwoodstudio.co.uk and make the subject “Director’s Group.”
Feature
In the news last week we gave a mention to our very own Maddie Howard who is currently on a 6 week tour of Japan. From Tokyo to Kyoto and Kongobuji Temple in Wakayama Prefecture, from where this feature article comes. As I write this Maddie is somewhere towards the Southern most part of Honshu Island, the largest of the Japanese islands.
Enjoy.
Temples, woods
In Kongobuji temple, there is a room marked by the fact that a daimyo (a lord of samurai) committed ritualistic suicide there in 1595 when he was 27. It is named the Willow Room. I feel it rude to linger. Some places in Japan are like that: heavy in a way I cannot penetrate.
In a large barn-like room at the heart of the building a little girl spins round and round.
“Mommy, mommy!”
Her mommy doesn't want to listen at that moment. She is reading the information and looking at the objects, and she tells her daughter to be quiet. The little girl hushes but continues spinning, arms outstretched, over to where I am standing looking at three large wooden tubs. I ask her what she thinks they are for: we settle on rice. We are in the monks’ enormous kitchen and their hearth for the long cold winters up here in the mountains of Koya.
“Tonight I am sleeping in a temple,” the little girl informs me. “But tomorrow we are going to Tokyo and it’s a day all for me.”
“Ah, so you've got to listen to your mummy and be quiet now, if tomorrow is your day,” I advise her conspiratorially. She grins and nods. We put our fingers to our lips.
It is good to be quiet in Japan, unlike in Europe. In Europe if you go to a bar alone you are generally the odd one out surrounded by rowdy chattering groups. Here, the country is built for loneliness, for better or worse. You shouldn't speak on public transport; you can sit in your own both in restaurants. People get on with things without comment. Even in the shoals of Shibuya crossing there is a feeling of silence, even in the loudest part of Tokyo. Do you know what I mean?
The next day I breakfast on soft cake, light as air, fresh fruit and cream. Then I hike the Women's Pilgrimage route in the forested hills around Koyasan, so called because women weren't allowed to enter the temples until recently. Female pilgrims to this heartland of Shingon Buddhism made do with circumnavigating the site, glimpsing its grandness through the trees.
Down in the temples the monks contemplated illustrated scenes of nature. The beautiful painted screens in Kongobuji Temple show blooming peonies and vast rooted trees to symbolise life's dual transience and continuance. The pictures are pristine: the sign says “No photos. No sketching.”
I discover along my route the sites of small temples built by women, entirely ruined now. Not a trace remains. But up in the woods you can see the misty mountains and catch the rain, see the wind and rub the scent of umbrella pine, cypress and cedar onto your fingers.
I reflect that the bird's eye view can be a wise one.
And in the woods, bears are. A sign at the entrance warns me they have been seen but some mixture of fear and awe draws me creeping up the path. I find myself entirely alert, watching and listening for movement at every step forward. There is wisdom in this too.
I take a meditation session led by a Buddhist monk in another temple. The room is full of Westerners trying to zen out. We all kneel on cushions and breathe and imagine our thoughts as no more than tiny pebbles in a garden. Afterwards, an American woman is asking the monk what to do when she meditates at home and ends up always falling asleep.
“I just really wanna stay focused,” she says earnestly.
The monk tells her it's good that she has made herself so relaxed.
When I pay with a 10,000 yen note, the monk in the temple office dutifully counts out nine 1,000 yen notes in front of me for my change.
“I'm gonna trust a monk,” I say to him, and he chuckles.
Reflections on art
In Japan life is a picture.
My meals are a riot of colour, a carousel of tiny confections. A health-giving clear soup tasting of pepper. A perfect pot of chicken broth topped with buttery pastry. Sashimi, pink and white. Golden tempura with white pureed radish. A rectangle of the creamiest tofu sitting in sesame broth. A trio of strawberry desserts. Delicate tea and cakes. Apparently, they do Italian food better than Italians, winning at other people's cultures as well as their own.
June is quiet season, and before the rains come sunlight sparkled on the rivers. Koi and trout swim lazily, often suspended motionless in the current. In the river town Gujo, every wooden household has a red fire bucket hanging from the rafters above the front door to collect water. Rivers and bridges.
Ukiyo-e is a genre of visual art that flourished during the long Edo period, where Japan “lived alone” as I like to put it. Ukiyo-e translates to “the floating world”: the world of everyday life, of fisherman, geisha and shopkeepers, Kabuki actors, sumo wrestlers. I become enamoured with it after visiting the Oda art gallery in Tokyo. The perfect cartoons of life, so carefully carved into wood and printed in vivid colours. I see the inspiration for the Studio Ghibli films in this earlier mirror of Japanese culture: Kabuki actors are transformed into anthropomorphic cats, cats themselves metamorphose into the shape of koi, the faces of poets become twisted and strange. It's all a picture, but it's also real.
Thanks for reading Driftwood Studio! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Getting Connected
We are a collective. Driftwood Studio is built on relationships. We have not created this group around a product or service, we have simply made solid connections and allowed everything else to emerge from that. Of course the underlying them to that is ‘Creativity,’ but we think you will agree that is pretty broad.
The connections we make are extensions of the stories that we both tell and embody. In the early days of my development of the Kawa Model, I remember seeing the world as a magnificent network of interconnecting rivers and streams. Each one a story. Every person, every thing, has a narrative attached, and this narrative flows backwards through time, connecting and intersecting with other stories.
Connection is not something we need strive for, it is a reality. When we feel disconnected what we are experiencing are barriers to those ‘narrative flows.’
Do you ever feel that block?
Do you get that sense that there is a world of meaning passing you by and you are simply cut off?
It’s not uncommon.
This is one of the reasons for Driftwood Studio.
On the 19th of this month, myself and David Brown will be meeting with local authorities to explore a new relationship with Bury Council. This is a new opportunity that we have been developing for a few months now. Andy Croft and I were at the first meeting. But these things take time to come to fruition; the story has to be told before we can understand the tru meaning.
This is the nature of Driftwood Studio:
We are not just a creative entity, we develop according to creative processes. In this way we become what we are.
Being - doing - becoming - belonging.
Remember those four words.
At the end of the month I will be delivering a series of talks on these four stages of creative development at the Bury Involvement Group. More of that to come.
So get connected - connect with us, connect with your neighbor, connect with those you have lost touch with, connect with your environment and the things that bring you happiness, love and joy. Most of all, connect with you.
Because you are brilliant.
Big love.
David Nixon.
NEWS
The Coming of the Bullshit Detective - Woohoo, it’s finally happening. Dave Brown, our very own Bulshit Detective, maker of ball based sculptures and my podcast pal is coming to Manchester. We are planning a social event in Manchester on Saturday evening and we would love to see you there if you are around. Details can be found at the end of this edition of FLOW.
‘Exclamation’ by Dave Brown
Andy Croft on the Campaign Trail - Yes The Troubled Photographer has been joining the press pack to document James Frith’s election campaign in Bury, Greater Manchester, UK. James Frith is the Labour candidate and as I understand, an all round good chap. Andy was invited to join the campaign as a freelance photographer. Andy will also be covering a number of PRIDE events this summer. You can book Andy for your events, for head shots or to peruse his back catalogue at www.thetroubledphotogrpaher.co.uk
Unfortunately, for legal reasons we can’t bring you any of the campaign pictures, but we can show you some pictured from Bury Comic Con.
Artists Social at Aviva Studios - At the beginning of June Andy and I visited Aviva Studios for their Artists Social. This was a great event, to me it felt like a home coming. Being surrounded by actors, painters, designers, musicians, directors, architects, makers, writers, photographers, videographers, dancers and so much more was delightful.
This is a growing tribe so if you are in the Greater Manchester area and have not yet connected with Aviva I suggest you do. This is the most important creative hub in the region right now.
I was so impressed I told them so:
Some fool gave me a microphone.
Erica In Paris - Maddie is not the only Driftwood member to be traveling. Erica Pham, mixed media artist, has been in Paris. You can see more of Erica’s work at www.ericapham-art.com. Erica is especially inspired by cultural themes, so we can expect some great work to come from this trip.
Bon voyage Erica.
DRIFTWOOD STUDIO
Supporting the arts and artists
We are building a collective of artists, creatives, educators and trainers.
We are using digital platforms such as Whatsapp, Substack and LinkedIn to facilitate this, as well as planning live events in Greater Manchester.
Developing creative communities
We want to work with VCSEs, Local Authorities and freelancers to deliver project that enable communities to achieve health, happiness and prosperity.
Driving a Purposeful Economy
Our aim is to create a suite of high price ticket training and coaching events for delivery in the private sector to support our social responsibilities.
This is an inversion of the CSR model.
To support Driftwood you can…
Building our reader base is vital to keeping people updated about the developments we are making and providing you with all kinds information, insights and reflections on “The Life Creative.”
You can also support the studio by making a donation. Currently all our content is free to access. We want to keep you connected and therefore we ask for voluntary donations where you see value.
FLOW #6 - Connected
FLOW #6 - Connected
FLOW #6 - Connected
Welcome to FLOW
The monthly newsletter for Driftwood Studio.
DRIFTWOOD STUDIO is a collective of artists, educators, writers, trainers and coaches. We are committed to building a more creative world for positive change, healthy and productive relationships and a good amount of fun.
You can read more about Driftwood at the end of this Newsletter.
Enjoy.
In FLOW this month:
Our Woman in Japan
Getting Connected
The Wellness Project CIC
In the NEWS:
The Coming of the Bullshit Detective
Andy Croft on the Campaign Trail
Artists Social at Aviva Studios
Erica In Paris
Share Driftwood Studio
Update
We would like to welcome some new members of the Driftwood Directors Group. This group was the start of the whole collective. Initially it was set up for those who were going to be the directors of a new Community Interest Company. However, we have shifted our business model so the group became a place for sharing and supporting one another as artists, makers and changologists.
Our new members are:
Derek Thompson - Professional Writing Services
Lucie Prince - Actor
Mo Fox - Community Artist
Marie Graham - The Wellbeing Project
Welcome to the Studio guys.
If you would like to join the Directors Group then please email David Nixon at info@driftwoodstudio.co.uk and make the subject “Director’s Group.”
Feature
In the news last week we gave a mention to our very own Maddie Howard who is currently on a 6 week tour of Japan. From Tokyo to Kyoto and Kongobuji Temple in Wakayama Prefecture, from where this feature article comes. As I write this Maddie is somewhere towards the Southern most part of Honshu Island, the largest of the Japanese islands.
Enjoy.
Temples, woods
In Kongobuji temple, there is a room marked by the fact that a daimyo (a lord of samurai) committed ritualistic suicide there in 1595 when he was 27. It is named the Willow Room. I feel it rude to linger. Some places in Japan are like that: heavy in a way I cannot penetrate.
In a large barn-like room at the heart of the building a little girl spins round and round.
“Mommy, mommy!”
Her mommy doesn't want to listen at that moment. She is reading the information and looking at the objects, and she tells her daughter to be quiet. The little girl hushes but continues spinning, arms outstretched, over to where I am standing looking at three large wooden tubs. I ask her what she thinks they are for: we settle on rice. We are in the monks’ enormous kitchen and their hearth for the long cold winters up here in the mountains of Koya.
“Tonight I am sleeping in a temple,” the little girl informs me. “But tomorrow we are going to Tokyo and it’s a day all for me.”
“Ah, so you've got to listen to your mummy and be quiet now, if tomorrow is your day,” I advise her conspiratorially. She grins and nods. We put our fingers to our lips.
It is good to be quiet in Japan, unlike in Europe. In Europe if you go to a bar alone you are generally the odd one out surrounded by rowdy chattering groups. Here, the country is built for loneliness, for better or worse. You shouldn't speak on public transport; you can sit in your own both in restaurants. People get on with things without comment. Even in the shoals of Shibuya crossing there is a feeling of silence, even in the loudest part of Tokyo. Do you know what I mean?
The next day I breakfast on soft cake, light as air, fresh fruit and cream. Then I hike the Women's Pilgrimage route in the forested hills around Koyasan, so called because women weren't allowed to enter the temples until recently. Female pilgrims to this heartland of Shingon Buddhism made do with circumnavigating the site, glimpsing its grandness through the trees.
Down in the temples the monks contemplated illustrated scenes of nature. The beautiful painted screens in Kongobuji Temple show blooming peonies and vast rooted trees to symbolise life's dual transience and continuance. The pictures are pristine: the sign says “No photos. No sketching.”
I discover along my route the sites of small temples built by women, entirely ruined now. Not a trace remains. But up in the woods you can see the misty mountains and catch the rain, see the wind and rub the scent of umbrella pine, cypress and cedar onto your fingers.
I reflect that the bird's eye view can be a wise one.
And in the woods, bears are. A sign at the entrance warns me they have been seen but some mixture of fear and awe draws me creeping up the path. I find myself entirely alert, watching and listening for movement at every step forward. There is wisdom in this too.
I take a meditation session led by a Buddhist monk in another temple. The room is full of Westerners trying to zen out. We all kneel on cushions and breathe and imagine our thoughts as no more than tiny pebbles in a garden. Afterwards, an American woman is asking the monk what to do when she meditates at home and ends up always falling asleep.
“I just really wanna stay focused,” she says earnestly.
The monk tells her it's good that she has made herself so relaxed.
When I pay with a 10,000 yen note, the monk in the temple office dutifully counts out nine 1,000 yen notes in front of me for my change.
“I'm gonna trust a monk,” I say to him, and he chuckles.
Reflections on art
In Japan life is a picture.
My meals are a riot of colour, a carousel of tiny confections. A health-giving clear soup tasting of pepper. A perfect pot of chicken broth topped with buttery pastry. Sashimi, pink and white. Golden tempura with white pureed radish. A rectangle of the creamiest tofu sitting in sesame broth. A trio of strawberry desserts. Delicate tea and cakes. Apparently, they do Italian food better than Italians, winning at other people's cultures as well as their own.
June is quiet season, and before the rains come sunlight sparkled on the rivers. Koi and trout swim lazily, often suspended motionless in the current. In the river town Gujo, every wooden household has a red fire bucket hanging from the rafters above the front door to collect water. Rivers and bridges.
Ukiyo-e is a genre of visual art that flourished during the long Edo period, where Japan “lived alone” as I like to put it. Ukiyo-e translates to “the floating world”: the world of everyday life, of fisherman, geisha and shopkeepers, Kabuki actors, sumo wrestlers. I become enamoured with it after visiting the Oda art gallery in Tokyo. The perfect cartoons of life, so carefully carved into wood and printed in vivid colours. I see the inspiration for the Studio Ghibli films in this earlier mirror of Japanese culture: Kabuki actors are transformed into anthropomorphic cats, cats themselves metamorphose into the shape of koi, the faces of poets become twisted and strange. It's all a picture, but it's also real.
Thanks for reading Driftwood Studio! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Getting Connected
We are a collective. Driftwood Studio is built on relationships. We have not created this group around a product or service, we have simply made solid connections and allowed everything else to emerge from that. Of course the underlying them to that is ‘Creativity,’ but we think you will agree that is pretty broad.
The connections we make are extensions of the stories that we both tell and embody. In the early days of my development of the Kawa Model, I remember seeing the world as a magnificent network of interconnecting rivers and streams. Each one a story. Every person, every thing, has a narrative attached, and this narrative flows backwards through time, connecting and intersecting with other stories.
Connection is not something we need strive for, it is a reality. When we feel disconnected what we are experiencing are barriers to those ‘narrative flows.’
Do you ever feel that block?
Do you get that sense that there is a world of meaning passing you by and you are simply cut off?
It’s not uncommon.
This is one of the reasons for Driftwood Studio.
On the 19th of this month, myself and David Brown will be meeting with local authorities to explore a new relationship with Bury Council. This is a new opportunity that we have been developing for a few months now. Andy Croft and I were at the first meeting. But these things take time to come to fruition; the story has to be told before we can understand the tru meaning.
This is the nature of Driftwood Studio:
We are not just a creative entity, we develop according to creative processes. In this way we become what we are.
Being - doing - becoming - belonging.
Remember those four words.
At the end of the month I will be delivering a series of talks on these four stages of creative development at the Bury Involvement Group. More of that to come.
So get connected - connect with us, connect with your neighbor, connect with those you have lost touch with, connect with your environment and the things that bring you happiness, love and joy. Most of all, connect with you.
Because you are brilliant.
Big love.
David Nixon.
NEWS
DRIFTWOOD STUDIO
Supporting the arts and artists
We are building a collective of artists, creatives, educators and trainers.
We are using digital platforms such as Whatsapp, Substack and LinkedIn to facilitate this, as well as planning live events in Greater Manchester.
Developing creative communities
We want to work with VCSEs, Local Authorities and freelancers to deliver project that enable communities to achieve health, happiness and prosperity.
Driving a Purposeful Economy
Our aim is to create a suite of high price ticket training and coaching events for delivery in the private sector to support our social responsibilities.
This is an inversion of the CSR model.
To support Driftwood you can…
Building our reader base is vital to keeping people updated about the developments we are making and providing you with all kinds information, insights and reflections on “The Life Creative.”
You can also support the studio by making a donation. Currently all our content is free to access. We want to keep you connected and therefore we ask for voluntary donations where you see value.
Support the Studio
FLOW is from the keyboard of David Nixon - Founder of Driftwood Studio and self certified Chaos Engineer.
I help people explore, develop and understand their own creative flow.
I work by developing trusting and productive relationships.
Here’s what you do next:
Send me a message. We have a conversation. Then we explore.
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.