The Blackbird Sings

Good (but sort of bad too...)

Well, it's been a strange week and a half since I last popped my head above the parapet and said hello to all of you out there in Blogland, Internetsville.

* It has been incredibly creative. (I've made so much new work even I can't quite believe it).

* It has been busier than I've ever known it to be when it comes to selling my art, which I am hugely grateful for. (I made another trip to the Post Office today and took NINE parcels with me. The ladies behind the counter at the PO were friendly and lovely as usual, and didn't seem to mind that I had so many parcels going to several different countries plus customs forms to fill in. They're absolute stars).

* It has been frustrating and scary and disappointing all rolled into one because I have been suffering from ANOTHER hideous migraine attack. I am so sick of these I cannot tell you. I had been feeling 'not quite right' for most of last week (vague headache/face-ache, blurred vision, slightly giddy and nauseous every now and again - all warning signs of a migraine) but I was functioning. Then on Friday it became so bad I couldn't continue, and I had to spend the next two days in bed. I slept and slept. And do you know what? Sleep seems to be the number one thing that really helps these attacks. (That, and painkillers...). Anyway, long story short, I'm much better now but I've postponed the trip to Paris until next week as I have an appointment to see the doctor here on Thursday. I also had no idea at the weekend whether I'd be ok to travel this Tuesday as planned, so we cancelled our plans. I am mightily peeved about this, but what can I do? I hope the docs can get to the bottom of what's causing these attacks and somehow help to prevent them...

We're Almost Home 1 & 2

Acrylic on deep-edge canvas. 8x8"

© Natasha Newton 2012

SOLD

By the way, these paintings were made last week and they're part of a new series, so expect to see more - hopefully soon! They both sold within a day or two of sharing them with the world, and they went off to their respective homes today (Seattle, USA and Norfolk, UK). I've also been adding several new things to The Blackbird Sings shop, but they keep selling before I have a chance to show you! I'll try to be quicker about posting them on the blog in future.

I hope you're all well, and as always thank you for your support and the brilliant comments you post on the blog. I really enjoy reading them!

Copycats Are Dirty Rats

Firstly, I must just thank ALL of you who left a comment on the last blog post or wrote to me personally with your words of comfort and advice about my migraine attacks. It's been so helpful for me to hear your experiences, and when I get back to the UK I'm going to investigate the cause of the attacks and try to get the help I need to hopefully prevent them - or at least stop getting so many. This particular one has dragged on (on and off) for two weeks and I think I'm almost completely over it now, but it has been truly horrendous. There were times when I was in tears and fretting that I would never feel well and be like "my old self" again. When it's bad it's completely debilitating, and effects my mental as well as physical well-being, so your help has been invaluable.

Secondly, I'm going to pepper this blog post with some Instagram photos I've been taking with my iPad this week.

Self portrait in the apartment. 17.01.12.

Cute shop in the Pigalle district of Paris.

Thirdly - before I tell you the main story - I've been getting mightily pissed off over the past couple of weeks with the amount of people making work that is uncomfortably similar to mine. I'll come up with a new idea that I haven't - to my knowledge - seen anywhere before, I'll post the new piece(s) on the blog or Etsy, and then a few weeks later I'll start seeing other Etsians making 'copycat' pieces. I'm not going to name any names, but my boyfriend actually came up to me the other day after receiving the Etsy Finds daily newsletter in his inbox, asking me whether I'd seen a certain item they'd featured because it was so similar to my work he actually thought it was mine! It's a strange feeling and has happened numerous times, but I try not to let this kind of copying play on my mind too much. I have actually contacted people in the past when I feel they are ripping off my work too closely and I'll politely ask them to stop, but often I just shrug it off and try to stay one step ahead in my own work. After all, they can try to copy my work but it will never be my work. Also, we're all influenced by the images we see and it's normal if you like the work of another artist to be inspired to try your hand at reproducing the same subject matter, colour palette, or whatever - some people just take it too far.

However, this week I've been dealing with copying at an entirely new level. This particular problem isn't just someone taking my ideas and making uncomfortably similar work, this person had the gall to take this image, claim it as their own work, and make money from it too! This is a case of blatant copyright infringement.

The only reason I found out about it is because I was contacted by a Twitter friend telling me she'd seen work that looked very similar to mine in a shop in Yorkshire. She became curious and looked at the reverse of the work, only to see the name 'Natalie'. She and her boyfriend took a photograph for me and then asked the shop assistant some questions relating to the work. I won't go into the details here, but when she emailed the image to me, it was an exact copy of the piece I've linked to above, called Try To Sing Your Own Song (ironic, huh?). I sent my friend the same link to the Flickr image so I could show her it was actually my work (I'd uploaded the image to Flickr about three and a half years ago, so there's obviously no question the image is mine) and she couldn't believe the audacity of this Natalie person.

To cut a long story short, I've since contacted the shop to tell them what is happening, and provided them with evidence that the copyright to the image belongs to me. I received a reply this morning telling me that they had no idea the work wasn't Natalie's, and that they've removed the work from the shop and informed Natalie. They've also asked her to contact me, so we'll see if she does.

It's a very odd feeling to know that this has been happening. I have no idea how long it's been going on, and I'd still be in the dark about it if my friend hadn't happened to visit that particular shop. Thank goodness I have people out there who are looking out for me! I'm very grateful to her (and her boyfriend!) and also another Twitter friend in the area who went back to the shop to investigate further.

I'll keep you updated on this story...

In the meantime, enjoy a few more photos of Paris and have a good week! x

Photos taken in and around Montmartre on Sunday afternoon.

© Natasha Newton 2012

Oh, what a week...

Well, here I am, resurfacing from what we'll call the 'twilight zone'. Since I arrived in Paris on Tuesday evening (3rd Jan), it's been an incredibly difficult week. My worries about possibly not feeling well enough to travel after my flu were unfounded and I made it here feeling really quite good, despite the long journey. I was so glad/relieved to see Leon at the Gare du Nord, and I felt positive and happy and better than I had for a whole month.

That lasted for about three hours.

Later that evening, I started feeling very tired and 'off'...just a little odd, really. By the time I went to bed I was starting to feel as if a migraine was starting, and indeed it was. I slept very little that night, feeling dizzy and weird, and unfortunately kept disturbing Leon too. Leon went off to work in the morning and I finally managed to sleep until late morning. I woke up feeling quite a bit better, and pleased that maybe I'd been able to stop it before it really got started. No such luck. It came back that afternoon and I spent the rest of Wednesday on the couch feeling really awful. Oddly, when I woke up on Thursday morning, I was a lot better and I had a pretty good day, just relaxing and pottering around the apartment (I've learned from experience that I must always take it easy after a migraine attack). We went out on Friday morning for a few hours, which was my first trip outside since arriving. While out, my head started throbbing and I noticed I was sensitive to light. I also felt somewhat weak and a little off balance. When we arrived home later that day, it hit me with full force.

I couldn't do anything. I felt dizzy, nauseous, sensitive to light and experiencing blurred vision and white flashes, accompanied by an incredibly painful headache and other bizarre symptoms. I guess that quite a few of you reading this will have experienced migraines and will know how it feels. If you haven't, you may be under the impression that it's just "a really bad headache". I can tell you that I've had many really bad headaches in my life and a migraine is a different beast entirely. When it's at its worst, you literally can't do anything. It's incredibly scary and you honestly feel as if you might die. I actually find that the pain is the least scary symptom. It's the dizziness, sickness and vision problems that fill me with fear. I feel incapacitated and as if I have no control over anything. I can barely eat, and despite the fact that sleep seems to be the one thing that helps, I find it hard to sleep as I can't relax enough, nor lie my head down without feeling dizzy and nauseous - not exactly conducive to good sleep!

Anyway, it got worse and worse, but I somehow managed to sleep a bit. But I then woke up at about 3:30am and completely freaked out. I felt worse than I ever have, and I was genuinely terrified that I was about to die. It sounds melodramatic, but if you've experienced migraine at its worst you'll know what I mean. It's hard to believe that you'll ever feel 'normal' again, or that you're not dying from a stroke/brain tumour/mystery illness. Leon tried to calm me down but I was so ill and so scared that he called the emergency doctor (something he'd been wanting to do all evening but I'd stopped him as I didn't want to have to deal with a doctor - it sounds silly given that I was so ill, but I just wanted to be left alone).

So at around 4:30am, a young French doctor with a brilliant grasp of English arrived and performed a multitude of different tests on me, including some quite bizarre ones! He confirmed I was indeed having a migraine attack, but other than that I was apparently neurologically 'ok' and didn't need to go to hospital for a CT scan (?) - I was ok to stay at home and just 'ride it out' with the help of some medication. He also examined my neck and apparently I have a problem with the muscles on the left side of my neck, which he believes are partially the cause of my attacks. I never knew about this, but it makes perfect sense - my migraines are almost always on the left side of my head. (He didn't know this fact until after he discovered the neck problem, so I'm inclined to believe he's right).

I finally started to feel better on Sunday, but even then I slept for about five or six hours during the day! I feel drained and even now, on Monday, I'm still not 'right'. But I'm taking it easy and trying to get well again - I've also been researching as much as I can about this condition, and came across this interesting article which really struck a chord with me, as I believe that my migraines are also related to anxiety, and it's no secret that I've had anxiety (or panic) attacks in the past (I'm 'holding' a lot of the tension from this in my shoulders and neck). I'm going to see my own doctor when I get back to the UK and try to get to the bottom of this once and for all. I need to address the underlying cause of the migraine and I hope we can do that. I have to remain hopeful and try to be positive even though I'm scared and feeling pretty down right now.

I hope that by writing about this and sharing my recent experience, it will maybe help someone else out there too and you'll know you're not alone. If any of you would like to share your experiences with migraine or any advice you have in dealing with them, I'd love to hear from you - please feel free to leave a comment below. Thanks. x

*Just so you know - I've changed my mind about the frequency of the blog posts and most of the time I'll be posting just once a week instead of twice. Twice a week, every week, is going to be too much for me. It's already shaping up to be a busy year - more on that soon! - and with my work schedule and current health problems, I want to be a bit kinder to myself. I'll try to post regularly, at the beginning of every week.

Nature Set 1 (and slightly strange happenings...)

I'm back from my trip to Paris (I returned on 1st October), and also back to work after my little vacation last week with Leon. We spent the week in a gorgeous holiday cottage here in Suffolk, just a short distance from my mum's house. There's an interesting story behind all of this and I'll tell you about it in a minute, but first I'd just like to share something new with you...

Nature Set 1

Set of 3 pebbles with hand-painted designs.

© Natasha Newton 2011

(I made these stones before I left for Paris in early September but didn't get the chance to share them with you - they're available from the Serena Hall Gallery in Southwold, Suffolk.)

Anyway, here's my slightly strange story...

As you may or may not know, I'm currently living in my mum's house since separating from my boyfriend of several years in early 2009. I owned a house with him and it was a huge step to leave the home we'd made together - and my studio - to move back in with my mum, and into the little room I now use as my bedroom AND studio (no, it's not at all practical and I need to find a new solution soon!). For the past year and a half, I've been dividing my time between Paris and Suffolk, as my new boyfriend Leon is based there. So at the moment I'm in a kind of limbo, but I try to make the best of the current situation.

To cut a long story short, Leon wanted to come to Suffolk for a week - he's never been here before and it was a great opportunity to meet my family and friends, and for us to have a proper holiday. It's been a stressful summer to say the least, and we needed a break and some time to relax. Wanting our own space away from my mum's house (and also because of a lack of room there at the moment) we started looking for a cottage to rent for the week. Then one day my mum mentioned that a little one-bedroom cottage just a minute from our house was being renovated and was going to become a high-end holiday cottage. There are two strange things about this scenario:

1. The fact that the cottage was just what we were looking for and was so unbelievably close to our house.

and...

2. I have actually been inside the cottage several times before because I was a close friend of the lovely old lady who used to live there - her name was Ollie.

Ollie sadly died a couple of years ago, and apparently she died in the house, asleep in her armchair in the living room, which slightly freaked me out at first but then I realised I was being ridiculous - after all, she died peacefully in the home she loved at the age of 92 - there's nothing strange or spooky about it.

Anyway, we rented the cottage for the first week in October, and turned up late on Saturday night after the somewhat lengthy trip from Paris. I had mixed emotions about entering the house for the first time since her death - a small part of me was wondering whether I really would be too freaked out. When we stepped through the front door I was astonished by what a beautiful job the new owners had made of the renovation. It was completely different to Ollie's style of decorating (which involved lots of pink, lots of knick-knacks, and a lot of brass). :) It looked so different that it didn't feel too odd being there at all. Everything was fresh and new, and the house was decorated in a simple yet luxurious modern country style. The bed was incredible - like sleeping on a cloud!

Then one day (I think it was a couple of days after we arrived - certainly no more than that) I was walking up the stairs when I was hit by an incredibly strong floral smell. I went up and down the stairs a few times trying to work out where the smell was coming from, but every time I moved from that exact spot (maybe a metre or two) the smell completely disappeared. A few steps down the stairs and the living room smelled of nothing but new carpets and furnishings, and a few steps to the top of the stairs and on to the landing and it smelled of...well, not much at all really. The only thing I could smell there was, again, the faint smell of new carpet and the fresh smell of whatever products we'd been using in the bathroom earlier in the day.

I was so shocked by the strength of this smell that I called Leon and asked him whether he could smell it. His answer was something like, "faintly, but it's not a strong smell." To me, it was like walking into a wall of scent - a very definite smell and incredibly strong, and it was nowhere else in the house apart from this small space on the stairs. It hadn't been there before, but I knew what it was. The moment I smelled it, so many memories came back to me. Because it was Ollie's smell. A combination of her perfume (or whatever products she used) and the way the house smelled when she lived there. I'd forgotten all about this particular smell until it reappeared.

Oddly, I didn't feel freaked out (probably helped by the fact that Leon was there with me), and I set about trying to find another reason for the strong scent. I couldn't find one. I searched the house for those plug-in air freshener things, just in case it was that (it wasn't - I couldn't find any), and I was at a loss to explain it rationally. It wasn't a 'normal' scent or smell that gradually fades away when you walk away from it. It was there on the stairs - and incredibly strong - yet if I moved one way or the other just a few steps it was gone. It was contained within a tiny area.

This isn't the first time that something like this has happened to me - I have repeatedly smelled the distinctive scent of my grandmother since she died over 20 years ago. We were very close, and the first time it happened was just a few weeks after her death. My mum smelled it too, when I called her into my bedroom (the room my nana always used to stay in at Christmas when she visited us for a few days) saying, "It smells like nana!", so I know I didn't imagine it. It has happened several times since, even in the house I used to live in with my ex-boyfriend, but this is another story that I'll possibly tell you someday.

Whatever you think to this, I'll just end by saying that over the next few days and nights in the cottage last week, whenever I went up or down the stairs, I would breathe in deeply and try to detect the smell again. It never reappeared. I never smelled anything like it again. That section of the stairs just smelled of nothing. Leon asked me if I thought it was Ollie, maybe just "paying us a quick visit". I said I thought it must be. I have no other explanation.

It wouldn't surprise me. Ollie loved her little house (and was incredibly proud of it), and for years we were very close. She told me some amazing things and was always full of stories about her life, and oddly, she also repeatedly told me she was convinced that I was "going to be famous one day". (Well, I guess we'll wait and see if that comes true!). She often had premonitions, and she was also very religious and had a total belief in life after death.

I'm not quite sure what to make of all this, but I know that I can't wait to stay in the cottage again someday. We had a really wonderful week.

Ten things that are making me happy this week...

I honestly haven't posted new blog entries as often as I'd hoped during my time in Paris and there have been many reasons for this. But - inspired by my twitter friend Fritha's post on her blog - I thought I'd make a quick list of ten things that are making me happy this week.

Issey & Ruby

(Footnote: I chose the photo of Issey & Ruby to illustrate this post because it's so damn cute, and then realised that Fritha did the same with hers, featuring her cat in a very sweet pose. This part was unintentional (but maybe subliminal?), as I'd forgotten that she had chosen a cat photo too!)

Ten things that are making me happy this week...

1. The fact that I seem to have finally kicked my migraine attack into touch after suffering from various nasty symptoms on and off over the course of the past week or so.

2. We're leaving Paris tomorrow, and although I'm sad about this, I'm incredibly happy that Leon and I are travelling back together this time (this has never happened before!) because he's coming to stay in Suffolk for a week. He'll be meeting my family and many of my friends for the first time, and we've rented a beautiful cottage which is just a stone's throw from my mum's house. We can't wait for our week of relaxation! And it gives me a chance to be a 'tourist' in my home county, because we'll be out exploring the area all week.

3. I will finally see my little kitten Issey again tomorrow! She has three and a half weeks of hugs to catch up on! I've missed her so much. Mum says she's grown quite a lot, so I'm sure I'm in for a surprise! I'll also be sure to give little Ruby (Issey's sister, and my mum's cat) plenty of love too. I've missed them both.

4. Leon and I have the use of my brother's little sports car for our week in Suffolk. Thanks Cris! I only hope I'm able to drive it ok..... ;)

5. My beautiful ring from Leon. You can see a photo in this post.

6. I sold another two paintings at Snape Maltings gallery this week! This was one of them: In The Air 3. They also want more work from me which is great.

7. I am very excited about an upcoming solo show the gallery have asked me to do in the Autumn of 2012. I have a meeting with them next week to discuss the details!

8. Fresh watermelon. My new favourite fruit and packed full of vitamins. I can't get enough of it - the watermelon is so good here.

9. We're planning a trip to the city of Norwich next week! One of my favourite places.

10. The imminent arrival of my Hotel Chocolat Chocolate Tasting Club box of chocs. Heaven.