ART from My Heart - Artworks

I find it bold to say I’m an artist, it takes courage to own that noun. For me, art making is an ongoing experiment in self-expression. I love to use a whole mix of medium, from collage, to water inks, to acrylics, to words – sometimes trying to capture a moment I’ve seen, other times to express a feeling I have or even to catch a dream before it evaporates. That’s why I also use reflective writing as a response either to the image or ahead of the image, as another route into self-expression. These art forms are part of giving my inner world form. I notice that I can’t do without vivid colours and lean towards whimsical ways of portraying the world around me.

Meaning making with art ...writing in response to an autumn walk 

Into the Woods

 

Guardians, smooth limbed, majestic in the light, elegantly standing.  High above, their delicate canopy of leaves, greens, orange, brown – pearls catching the light of that late afternoon sun.  Filtered sunlight lightly playing in their branches, reflected on their carpet weaved from a thousand leaves.

 

As we walk, we do not know, my love, who will be the first to pass the thin veil into the next life.  The trees have seen us all before – our mortal lives kissing beneath their graceful limbs, our child, our youth, our greying mortal steps.  

 

Their presence continues for hundreds of years; solid, grounded, with velvets of moss cosied around their root tops. Standing vigil to our mortality.  Swaying gently to their music of the wind, responding with the dance and murmur of their leaves.  Beneath the rich moist soil, their roots touching, passing unheard messages, forest secrets between them; maybe knowing who will join them first.

 

Be not afraid, be not saddened, to join these guardians will be our most treasured gift, to spin like small leaves on the forest breeze, as ghosts, to dance on the leaf-held sunbeam. We will meet each other there.

 

 

Melissa Purchase, 2026

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