My beautiful friend Susan Dye, from Hitchin, came to visit. We met last year when she came to my open studio and we made a very easy creative connection, talking about bees and hedgerow dyeing and indigo amongst other things. Since then we have met up a few times and she always leaves me inspired. I feel she is a bit brighter than I am but our interests meet here and there, so today we had an exciting day of chat and "show and tell". We talked politics and psychology and art, of course, and flowers and life and she showed me the work that she is doing for her city and guilds course and I showed her the work I am doing with the Recovery Through Art group that I help with and also the proposal I made for the Waveney River Sculpture Trail.
One of the wonderful things about with talking to other artists is that we share a language, an understanding. It's hard to describe, but art, like any skill, is a trade that has to be learnt. And in learning our trade we become able to pick up subtle nuances in another's work, to identify where it is weak and where strong and how to move it forward. In education when trained professionals do this to our innocent work it can feel painful, and sometimes cruel, but stepping out of that environment I have found that it is something I quite miss. Sometimes the comments are not so much the meat as the what gets noticed in a portfolio of work and how the potency of unfinished work is seen. 
Art also involves a fair whack of determination and wilful pride. These carry you through the times when it feels like you are going backwards or the lack of money makes you wonder how long you can live off fresh air and daisies, especially in winter when daisies are scarce. It's nice when someone understands why I have chosen to be poor and passionate over safe and sensible. The understanding is like honey in the cupboard set aside for those rainy days when artist's blues threaten to get the better of me.  
So all in, it was a day of light and plenty. Good company, warm sunshine, birdsong and, once again, bees.