ISOLATION ARTIST BLOG - DAY 39 (DAY 43 of LOCKDOWN)

The painting today is from my new series of work called "Travelling"

As we can't travel at the moment my new series of paintings is about Travelling. Part of my artist's life relies on being locked away for hours on end in the studio. The other part is travelling and taking trips out, gathering inspiration and creating brain space on the way. So that's on hold at the moment but gives us other opportunities like spending much longer weeding the garden, putting pieces of art on the wall that have been sat around for almost 3 years, dusting the skirting boards, doing four different types of cooking in one day, clearing out paperwork, sorting out receipts, being pleased that there are less receipts now, reading more books than usual, doing my own yoga and pilates class, semi tidying the studio, getting rid of hordes of hoarded magazines and finally going to give a blood donation. 

After we went to the village in Aphrodisias we travelled on up to Pamukkale (meaning Cotton Castle in Turkish), a town in western Turkey that is known for its white travertine terraces and thermal springs. Here we met our soon to be friends, Grant and Cindy who are from Oregon, USA and they were travelling extensively, like us. We spent several weeks together and one night Grant decided that he was going to camp out (without a tent) in some remote area, renowned for having Bears roaming around. I thought this was such a brave thing to do, something I wouldn't dream of doing myself and very exciting indeed. Poor Cindy understandably didn't feel the same as me as she feared for her husband's safety but didn't ask him not to go. We all went with him in a taxi and dropped him off in the middle of nowhere. That evening we took Cindy out to dinner to the aptly named, Sunset Restaurant as it was positioned at the edge of the Lake (we were now in the equivalent of the Turkish Lake district) and faced due west. I remember being extra jolly and feeling very responsible for Cindy. Grant arrived back safely the next day, he hadn't seen any bears and had thoroughly enjoyed his adventure. We all breathed a huge sigh of relief.