Sometimes new concepts just grab you by the throat and you “get” them without any need for further instruction. For me, a journey stick is one such thing and I LOVE the idea that you take a stick, start at one end and tape to it all of the interesting things you meet on your journey, whatever that journey may be.

The journey on this stick starts at the far end of the image but as it reaches its conclusion, it includes writing implements, some gloriously colourful leaves that have fallen from trees on campus, some berries and a holly leaf that proved to be impossibly prickly, a piece of warning tape, a lump of stone, a dandelion, some rose petals, a daisy, some feathers and some more leaves. All-in-all a journey stick that could be applied to many lives.

It got me thinking about PaD. It’s crossed my mind more than once over the last few weeks that I should knock it on the head again because of the predicament I find myself in work-load-wise. BUT I look at the year and although it clearly has highs and lows in many different senses, artistically and emotionally, it’s still a wonderful metaphoric journey stick for this year, as the earlier PaDs were of my life. So, I press on and continue to add things that are important to my PaD journey stick, even if their importance is no more than that I’m drowning in work or I’m lost on a sea of anti-creativity.