oh, she dreams in gold

she dreams in gold - I

oh, she dreams in gold, 2015

 

I’m working on a little series of golden, composite images on the theme of reverie, and I’ve just added this one to my artfinder shop. I’ve posted this one before here, but needed to make a few tweaks before I was entirely happy with it.

 

© images and words by Emily Hughes, 2015

blackberry treats

“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

I love this quote, and try to remember it every year when the leaves tumble into crunchy piles of a thousands shades of amber. Every new season always feels like an opportunity for renewal, but especially autumn, when the cooling, crisp winds which make us reach for our jumpers and hats breathe a haze of rich, gold-infused light over the heavens. And especially this year. Maybe because it came at the end of a wonderfully long, heady summer, or maybe because I have taken on new challenges and my brain is whirring as it learns new things. Or maybe it is because, as I head into my own autumnal years, I feel more of an affinity with this season which I have previously always approached with a sense of loss and longing, and am finding it can energise me as much as the sprightly newness of spring, or the carefree, lazy days of summer.

The children always love this time of year because for them it signals the start of the season of treats, fun and indulgence which starts around Halloween and peaks with Christmas, of course. They find the chilly days and dark nights exciting in a way which I, as one who worships light, have never really understood before. Even bonfire night usually fails to ignite a spark of excitement. However this year, the quiet, mellow joys of this mature season have infused my heart and pooled into its chambers with a surprising, juicy burst of delight – just like that first taste of freshly plucked sweet-sharp blackberries.

blackberries

yellow leaves

Felix and Flo picking blackberries

blackberry in hand

Felix and Florence on gate

red leaves

Flo eating blackberry

Felix at lake

© images and words by Emily Hughes, 2015

these watery things

My life is going through a lot of changes at the moment. These are changes which I have instigated. Things are shifting. It is exciting, but extremely unsettling, and there are times when I question my motives for stirring up the waters. I question why I am constantly compelled to confront what is real and safe and solid. Sometimes it helps me to express these feelings with my images and sometimes I write words too, which I cannot call as substantial as poetry or prose, but…. well, they are just something.

***

In these moments, when the frayed ends of a tightly wound skein begin to unravel. When the warm, solid earth beneath my feet seems to shift. When I look up, and even the clear blue sky wavers and shimmers, teasing like a mirage in the temperate desert heat. Watery things are playful things; beguiling and dissembling. They steal the light and scatter it joyfully like pebbles, skimming this way and that. Dodging and darting here and there.

Impossible to gather in my arms.

Every time I look, things are different… as if my eyes are shifting. A pair of aqueous orbs.

Every time, it is new.

Don’t confess your secrets to those watery things. They will suck them in greedily and and then spit them out like polished cherry stones.


sometimes I daydream3sometimes I daydream...sometimes I daydream2

 

© images and words by Emily Hughes, 2015

Give me light

Give me light before gold2

 

I made this picture a few weeks ago. It was a perfect sunny afternoon – one of those first precious ones of early Spring which you just want to soak up slowly, deliciously. I was sitting at my desk working and listening to Tell Me by Troubadour Rose (if you don’t know the band you should check them out – Bryony’s lyrics are just gorgeous). Sometimes a line in a song just gets you, and sparks something. Anyway, I put this together and posted it on twitter and the band tweeted me back just an hour or so later to say they loved it! You hear many negative things about the internet these days, but really it’s a wonder – such a powerful tool for communication.

 

 

 

 

© images and content Emily Hughes, 2014

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