The lighthouse wave

Stepping into the weekend on a wave

Riding the high knowing the low

That's the thing though, isn't it

Waves know how to constantly reinvent themselves 

Reshape

Regroup

Stay true to the task

Hard fluidity

Identifiable but never the same for long

Confucius like

An ocean of habits

Of emotions

Of rituals 

Shaping praying pluralising

It's like that

Horrifically predictable and not at all all at the same time

This is how I painted this lighthouse

I knew the lighthouse

I knew the waves

I knew the blues

I knew not what it would look like

But here we are

The lighthouse of my dreams

Ink on paper

£255

Mounted not framed

DM for more information

#sussishappyartproject #bluemind #bluemindart

#kunstwerk

#kunst

#danskkunst

#danishart

#ilkleyart

#ilkley

#homedecor

#art

#instaart #contemporaryartist #contemporarypainter #worksonpaper #exhibition #artforall #naiveart #holiday #affordableart #doitfortheprocess #thecurators #summer #contemporaryart #interiors #artiststudio #studio

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cw7PioTscU9/?igshid=MmU2YjMzNjRlOQ==

The Horrors of Yellow

 

*The Horrors of Yellow*

It is not a little thing, the scream of certain yellows, not to me

Neither is 'that' green I can't even say the name.

This is the flip side of being a person and artist with #synaesthesia 

Some colours give me severe nausea, they both smell and sound like... Primal disgust

It is not fear per se

It is not just disgust

It feels molecular

Made husband dig out bush in garden, by back door. It made too much noise for me to exit or enter without more than courage. I have enough to spend my energy on, this yellow had to go 🤣🤣🤣🤢

And no I am not crazy

Not because of the synaesthesia anyway 😜

But as I was doing some @bethkempton work in @londonwriterssalon this morning - being a badass #fearlesswriter I accidentally flicked on to a page in my notebook from April last year 

A poem about the need to be carefull with yellow. Double FF'ed

Full of carefulness

And I thought... Don't be afraid to change this

Rewrite

Explore how I feel now

Well well

Top picture is today's crawling yellow scribbles

Pic two, below, is the one from last year

I have come a LONG way

And nowhere at all

Ha ha ha

#illustrator

#artbysussilouise 

#notthatyellow 

#yellow #damnyou

#ndbrain 

#neurodiversewriter 

@ellemcnicollofficial by the way is an AMAZING nd writer go buy her books for your kids.

Frayed and Fixed

 

#sussithepoet

#nottheGREATpoetbutapoetnonetheless

One of my very earliest lessons in creative living was from my mother. She was an incredible creative. Always exploring, developing, trying and learning.

And she was harsh in her teachings... No matter what age, if she didn't like my painting or story I'd know about it. I both learnt to take criticism and to fear it ha ha ha. 

HOWEVER

When a total stranger does I appreciate it for what it is - criticism from one's closest is another matter. When I say one's 😜🤣 I mean me. It rips at me and I have to swallow pride along with elephants and stuff NOT to jam myself into a sticky messy old pattern of mum related resistance. And I do that by awareness, I see it, i recognise it, I own it. It's not that I like owning it. It's just... I'm getting old guys, my edges are rounding like my back is and I have learnt that some patterns - they don't leave, better try and live with them. 

HOWEVER 2

She also taught me this... If you do the best you can - at that exact moment then at that exact moment that is the BEST. Don't be ashamed of a #workinprogress there is no such thing as perfect - just hard work, play and best at the time. 

So.

I give you 'Frayed and Fixed'.

I might give you a better version later. But right now, this is it. A stream of thought that came to me walking Alnmouth beach at dawn.

Kærlig hilsen

Sussi

#imperfectionROCKS

All Experience

All experience is part of the path/food for the soul/sparks in the dark/lessons in matter

And we all matter even when we are not/if we are not/as we dissolve/after the meaning went

Meaning can be such a fickle thing/senseless thing/tricky thing/yet sometimes a certain thing

Things are rarely what they seem/how/look/the shapes they form around our tongues/not chaos

Chaos is part of the path/all the paths/winds/promises in motion/unsteady hearts

Hearts in roars/murmurs/songs/waves/oceans

And we all have oceans/we are all oceans/aren’t we

Aren’t we conches/echoes/seeking horizons/chasing horizons/wet

All the ebbs and flows are part of the wave/path/paths/journey

#Sussithepoet

I didn't say GOOD poet, famous, successful or even ok - poet

but a poet nonetheless.

Some things can not easily be expressed in fully formed sentences, all buttoned-up logic and sense, not by me anyway. The point of human life experience is one such multiplicity, it always astounds me how it then can also be so goddamn BORING. Maybe it is just me. It's probably me.

Will you be my jelly?

I am an immigrant, not a real member of the club. A pre-brexit interloper. 

I hail from a former fishing town in Denmark but for romantic reasons moved deep into the Yorkshire Dales in 2015. Apart from the insane (!!!) amount of rain and tragic lack of saltwater (I suspect I’m part Selkie/Kraken, if you ask the husband) I do love it here. Yorkshire humour is very Viking.

HOWEVER

Seeing as I am a grown axx woman making new friends and building up a network is not as easy as it was when I moved to Germany when I was 19. I already had friends ... Friends I loved more than life, back in Denmark. Over the last seven years I have slowly but steadily met women (mostly, a couple of men too) who I know over time will be to me what my oldest friends are. Funnily enough two of them are Danish. And it is not because they are Danish we are friends, but because they are incredible human beings. 

I have become the 'auntie' to five children, and the 'sister' to one. 'Seasister' to another. I am blessed. By wonderful human beings who have taken me into their lives and entered mine too. But I'm still an interloper. And that is ok. I get it.

Sometimes I get lonely and want to cuddle up with friends and my grown children in Denmark. Feel that complete hygge where trust is so ingrained in the relationship, no talking is needed.

But then I feel ungrateful... I should be super happy for what I have here. And I am. But I can't show up unannounced and just hang out. Maybe I am too old for that. Is that it? Or is it just a matter of cultural differences?

Anyways. A while ago I met a woman I instinctively knew I would love to be friends with. And I didn't quite know how to go about it. Plus I am 50. Basically I could die of old age any moment now (a quote from my best mate Bruce who I sadly lost during covid) So I needed to speed things up.

Hence the note

How do you make new friends?

Can I come to your house and just hang?

Am I being a fool?

Will you move to Denmark with me?

#oldashouses

#friendships

#femalefriendships

#love

#gratitude

#willyoubemyfriend

#hygge

#hygsomt

#immigrant 

#sussilouisesmith 

#theenglishare...

#yorkshire

#danishgirlinyorkshire

#writingcommunity 

#shewrites

The Bleeding

 

#thebleeding by @johanagustawsson 

Probably the best thriller I have read the last few years. Intensely addictive, complicated, appealing and surprisingly educative. Oh and with that glorious dark humour we have come to know and love from Johana.

We follow three different women in three different centuries each with their own agenda. Each agenda more relatable/and/MAD than the other... There is a fire in their bellies 🔥 and it is not ready to be tamed ... From the Belle Epoque in France to 21st-century Quebec we are eloquently bewitched and keep turning pages until dawn.

I cannot recommend this book enough. And it is a FABULOUS translation by #davidwarriner 

Now I live in Yorkshire I truly appreciate a man who can speak anything other than #yorkshire 🤣😂

If you're not afraid of losing sleep, like a grizzly story so well researched you can find no flaws that stop your reading flow, in a language that pulls you in... Buy this, get a signed one. . . Keep it. It is the start of a classic series. Bloody #dexter meets #agathachristie and has a threesome with @kelleyarmstrongauthor

and we're in the front row.

#buybleeding #readingisasuperpower #orendabooks #johanagustawsson

#crimewriter #crimefiction #crimenoir

Karen at @orendabooks has GOT to be proud. I know I am. Can't wait to see you @capitalcrime1