KALEIDOSCOPE

We call them the Mother’s Gar­den cre­atives. Mother’s Gar­den is the name of this lit­tle farm that sits on the fringe of the farm­land butting up to forested crags of the Serra de Llaberia. The cre­atives are the artists, mu­si­cians, film­mak­ers, writ­ers and pot­pourri of peo­ple from around the world who have made their way to our Pri­o­rat door and brought their light.

Some of our local friends laugh­ingly talk of us as hip­pies. We want a clas­sic VW camper­van, that’s for sure, and may even paint flow­ers on it. We are long-stand­ing mem­bers of Green­peace. I will walk about with­out shoes (or san­dals). Live music and voices often rip­ple up the val­ley to the vil­lage. We are wor­ried sick about the planet and the dire human propen­sity for con­flict.

But we are just a fam­ily and all that means, one that hap­pened upon a place where, whether talk of a cross­ing of ley lines is to be be­lieved, there is a pal­pa­ble en­ergy, an in­spi­ra­tion to be cre­ative and re­source­ful. Such a sense brings re­silience which is no bad thing. It is pro­foundly worth the risks.

Mem­o­ries are jammed with re­fresh­ing sounds, colours and words, mo­ments of in­deli­ble hap­pi­ness.

Back in De­cem­ber, a young film crew de­scended again, to shoot a music video on bit­terly cold morn­ings and late into the dark, for the song CAN­VAS by Cata­lan artist RØ. It is a short (just five min­utes) drama about male vul­ner­a­bil­ity and has just been pre­miered.

Other friends:

The first album by band MOR­GAN­WAY is about to be re­leased, with jus­ti­fi­able men­tions of a Fleet­wood Mac vibe. They are fly­ing now.

British pi­anist Jonathan Plowright is halfway through his Brahms se­ries at the Wig­more Hall in Lon­don and his ex­tra­or­di­nary per­for­mances and record­ings are being widely feted.

What shines is the drive, the de­ter­mi­na­tion to press on for years and years, to find the will when often there does not seem a way. Suc­cess is such a small part of the whole story.

Across the kalei­do­scope of cre­ative arts there is much to feed the spirit, both of the cre­atives and those around them. Hence, we open our door to all.

The les­son is pro­found. Depth in an in­creas­ingly shal­low world, pas­sion, be­lief and com­mit­ment to ex­plore and ex­pound who we are when it is by far the most dif­fi­cult path.

The pres­sure to com­ply, sup­press and get on with a for­mu­laic life is re­lent­less. Yet we only have to think what is joy­ful and sus­tain­ing – where we turn – to know the im­mea­sur­able value of the arts, in all its glory, whether you are into the Rolling Stones, Miro, Hem­ing­way, Schu­bert, Kubrick, Ma­tisse, Ruiz Zafón ……

The world needs to feed the cre­ative in every child. And it is never too late. I’m think­ing of tak­ing up the sax­o­phone.

Po­ten­tial abides in all. I pre­fer to won­der at this and not at how many un­ful­fil­ments there may be.

Enjoy your local fes­ti­vals and cheer on the artists.