You have an art project, and you work away at it, full of enthusiasm and – ideally – passion.  You push on through to its completion or at least to a stage when your little inner voice says stop, or perhaps, pause for now and then reconsider.

You may or may not have a specific destination for the project – perhaps an exhibition or a commission.  At other times, if you are in a way fortunate, you have time to push out new frontiers, to experiment and try fresh avenues of expression, perhaps with different media. And I say fortunate, as artists are always keenly aware of the uneasy relationship between earning a living through art and creating art and at the same time, not needing immediately to gain financially by its creation.

Then, almost inevitably, there comes a pause.  Perhaps you can change gears and move on to another envisaged project. But perhaps not. 

Then what?

I used to panic as I cast around for another avenue to follow, concerned that I had reached an artist’s block, just like the writers’ block.  But slowly over the years, I have learned that that little inner voice, my best friend, has its own programme.  When you least expect it, you will suddenly find another source of fascination and beauty, another conversation to have – in my case – with a humble piece of paper and styli in silver, gold, copper or other metals.   And off you go again, down a path of trial and error, of learning and enrichment.

A superb and highly interesting artist, Francesca Marti, tells a story which reminded me of these gifts of serendipity in art. Peacefully drawing one day in her studio, she began to be irritated by the buzzing of a fly against the window. Soon the fly hit the glass again and this time, fell into the red pigment with which she was working.  It finally struggled out, clad in red, and began to crawl across her paper, leaving an interesting trail of marks.  That fly led to a whole new series of artworks, beautiful, evocative and highly original. The epitome of a serendipitous happening!

I think it pays to have one’s antennae up and to try to be flexible in one’s intuitive thinking when it comes to creating art.  I remember one of my first fortuitous moments – long years ago in Portugal, I was walking amongst wondrous cork oaks, peering up into their crowns; I almost tripped on a log lying on the ground and as I looked down, I saw the bark peeling back from the log.  It was the most fabulous tracery – a version of nature’s lace.  Those initial drawings of that bark set me off on a long ‘conversation’ of years with cork oaks, their ecological importance, sophistication and wonderful history. Again, a serendipitous gift of a new artistic direction.