Yesterday I saw the first design ideas for The Unwinding. There’s more about that here: I love what Alison has done here, how the space sits so right in the eye. Today began with reading, then walking at the beach in Abereiddi in search of stones. I left behind a riverstone from Dulverton, gilded, placed in water. The storms have changed the beach there so much and soon there will be nowhere to park, and the sea may claim the houses. But for now it looks so beautiful, wild, and flooded. So much rain! The golden reeds looked beautiful. I found stones, brought them home, including on ..read more

When I was in Wigtown at their festival I was on stage with Ben and Beth Porter of The Bookshop Band. The festival have commisioned them to write a song to go with The House Without Windows. It is beautiful. When I was in Dulverton Chris and Davina made a beautiful film with me painting at Two Rivers Paper Mill and Roadwater in Somerset. Theirs is the paper I use mostly for the ink work I do. Now I can share both of these films with you. The first has the track as an instrumental piece. Jackie Morris – The House Without Windows from Number Seven Dulverton on Vimeo. The second is a ..read more

Busy weeks. When I am away I can’t paint. When I am home I need to paint. But there are other things afoot too. This week has been one of phone calls and conversations, of reading and painting, of quiet times by the fire and friends, of feeling calm and being overwhelmed. One day I emerged from my studio to this scene. It’s not possible to do anything other than smile and the perfection of it. I’ve been working on The Unwinding, talking with Alison, who now lives in Australia. She is the amazing woman who designed The Lost Words and the hospital walls for the ROH. There’s more about that on ..read more

Letters to the Earth publishes on Thursday. It is a collection of letters, brought together by four women and the book is a catalyst for conversations/ inspiration/ new ways of thinking about the planet on which we live. Of all the collaborative books I have worked on this one has touched my soul most deeply. For the past four weeks, every Friday at 11 am I have stopped work to gather with people to read from this book, to talk about how we feel, to talk about what we can do. This week I was in Crickhowell in Book-ish where we gathered around coffee, tea and kindness. Passing the book from ..read more

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Home for a few days before heading off to Crickhowell to work in a school, and also do an event for Bookish in Crickhowell, one of my favourite bookshops. For the few days I am at home I am trying to catch up with admin and push forward with The Unwinding as well as working on the ‘secret project’ that is challenging my painting skills…… So, first thing I will be doing is Letters to the Earth for an hour, 11-12 in the cafe upstairs at Bookish. This is not an ‘event’ but a gathering. I will be reading from Letters to the Earth, probably from Nick Drake’s poem from the Farewell Glacier, also ..read more

Outside, rain. Inside, a pile of sleeping cats. And what is beautiful about the rain when it lashes down so? It makes the red berried on winter branches shine. There are flocks of birds in the sky. Always it is so in autumn. Already the odd redwing is here. There’s a music to rain in the wind, a pattern to how it textures the air, blurs the windows. I don’t think Barbara Newhall Follett was a fan of rain. She talks of sunshine and snow in her book The House Without Windows, but not of rain. Today I read for an hour at TYF in their cabin, offered for shelter as the rain lashed t ..read more

I’ve been home for a week, in which time I have finished the first draft for The Unwinding, written a proposal for a book, been interviewed by an MA student and BBC Radio Devon and written a piece for a magazine in Australia. Before that I was on the road for five weeks, travelling from Plymouth to Wigtown, talking about The House Without Windows, and The Secret of the Tattered Shoes. I have to go away again tomorrow to Exeter, where The Lost Words exhibition has sprung up at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum. I will be painting, playing with gold leaf, speaking spells, maybe reading a bit ..read more

With the campaign for Geiriau Diflanedig now at 82% from 136 backers it still needs £3010 to reach the target, and so I am auctioning a special edition of the Spellsongs cd. This is the second pressing, with new cover of much elegance. I have doodled on the title page and can sign for the winner when the auction is done. The cd carries the music of The Spellsongs, and the rest is a wonderful photo-documentary of the whole adventure, showing how the book, The Lost Words, became the music, The Spellsongs. There are also new paintings, and all the usual things like lyrics etc that you wo ..read more

The dragon auction continues and keeps making me laugh with the bids that seem random but aren’t. If you wish to bid you will need to go to the dragon blog post and leave your bid as a comment. As the crowdfunder nears the end I would like to offer more otters. These are tiny tags, in sumi ink. Please email me to secure, jackie@jackiemorris.co.uk with Tiny Otters as subject title, and top 1-6; bottom 7-12 ( or fox). They are £45 each, or £560 for the lot. No 1, No 3, No 5, No 8, No 10 and Fox are now sold. All money will be donated to the Crowdfunder for the Welsh Language edition of Tell ..read more