Answers received
Below is a list of suggestions sent to Sally.
The comfort of knowing that I am loved.
The air I breath, the fresh green grass, the little bit of stillness I know is there deep inside – shaped by the surrounding vibrant world.
Every moment I live and breath: My family, partner, friends, mentors, enemies, passions, books, music, tv, hopes, fears, films, trips and trials.
Striving to recreate, as an unrepeatable physical object, the layered depth of images produced digitally.
Preserving the past through stories and precious objects, but also finding time to live in the present – not easy!
I am made by my curious and never sleeping eyes. They like to see everywhere ..through and inside.
I never want to stop learning and discovering, and when I’ve stopped lazing, being creative.
The way I perceive good/bad happy/sad right/wrong. And how I use this in every decision; how I treat people, how I value myself, how I work, where I work, and who I love…
My tenacity and all the people I love.
I’m afraid what makes me me is a perpetual profound loneliness consoled by the delusion of work and a pathetic accumulation of hours spent organising stuff for other people in the hope of appreciation!
Black and white films, spicy food, a campness and attraction to theatricality. Countryside and a huge love for my boys. Overly verbal!
My raised eyebrow (but I’m sure I don’t do that anymore)? Tripping over my own deadlines. Freedom to do things when I want and how I want. Enjoy new and risky things …. Mmmm
Living with the realisation that we are all one and the same inside and being allowed the gift of life by the Universe.
An enduring sense of wonderment and curiosity, a sociable if sometimes cheeky disposition and an optimistic outlook :)
My love of Welsh rock music, of my friends, of standing on my own two feet, & an idea of a more just world, starting here.
An incurable curiosity with life’s more surreal moments (and a pet budgie and a bunch of tattoos)
Being titchy, an innate sarcasm gene, kicked cancer twice, and more comments on my smiley nature than any other feature
Its off-key and wonky but I know it when I feel it.
I am me because of the DNA that was past on to me from my parents and which I have passed on to my children.
The drive to do things, create things and be in a critical society…
Music and beautiful scenery, I like to help others and listen and support where I can. I have always been a caring person, nursing and healing where I can.
A combination of atoms, gases, liquids and minerals
Earl grey tea, multi vitamins and sheer bloody minded determination!
A bundle of awkwardness and Sussex & London genes and uncertainty and optimism
The fact that I always see through things. (This is rather different from seeing things through! )
Curly hair, an appreciation of life’s rich tapestry and a love of pigeons.
I am an organic machine. I have a brain that computes. I move by hydraulics. I am fuelled by everything. I am driven by my heart.
Driving fast, walking fast, seeing fast, thinking fast, talking fast … and giving myself time to process all this as I emerge from sleep everyday.
Lego
My bloody-mindedness
Seeing and feeling connections between people and things around them that others often dont ;-)
Always Looking. Painting, Love, my kids & all the stupid little things in life. From NZ (distant longing). Never satisfied.
I wonder at all natural creation and that I exist as part of this. I want to show somehow, my awe and thanks for this to all who are part of the same existence . We are given so much to demonstrate this in our precious gift of time here, to share and explore all that we have without taking away and destroying. Just to be is all you and I need.
Being real, in every way I can, as often as I can, as fully as I can.
Being me, where I am, when I can
ME!
My vulnerability, inquisitive nature, courage and cowardice: a heady combination.!
The gene pool soup that made me are the ghost who live within me…
My apparent ability to advise and comfort many
My love made me truly me..he was the missing part. Had found everything else that made me happy & fulfilled. Art, teaching,
I am all the tings of my past. I try to show my insides by what I wear on my outsides
Curly wurly hair Long luscious lashes Bright red lipstick Sparkly sprinkles
My cottage garden of hollyhocks, foxgloves and bees
Humour, affection, empathy, ability to understand, resilience, articulate
I am a sympathetic person to anybody who needs me and have a strong personality. Love family life and babies.
I am skin and bone muscle and hair and typically miserable man only happy getting his own way but I can be very caring
Kind, a bit scatty, traditional but like to try new things and always enjoy company
All my experiences good and bad up to the present time
The choices I have made for the past 70 years. Some wise, some foolish, some bad. They made me who I am and I like who I am.
Time place I live and my happy life – my amazing wife and children – freedom to express myself
My values –equality, peace etc My environment – lovely Leicester My world – family, friends community
My girt My sense of humour My smile My degree of fact
Determination and a massive passion for design
It was the recent Mothers’ Day that I noticed How angry I was about these fabricated “celebrations’ of one’s emotions. I would like to institute an international shut up about your feelings’ Day but I keep very quiet about it and just got on with my life as privately as possible
I’m interested in how we are all connected in some ways what makes meme is what connects me to other people and what connects me and other people to the rest of the word, the universe and everything else
My sense of adventure
Pure Bloody mindedness!
Friends, Beliefs, Experiences, DNA Electrons
My Mummy, Daddy and little sister…and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Fascination with horses for 60 year
Feeling what my mum used to call my ‘Bolshevik blood’ rise every time I hear about what the Masters of the Universe are up to now.
Singing, smiling and loving my family :-)
My soul, my outlook on life and the people around me.
Single parenthood, a lifelong love of A-ha, copious amounts of tea, music, art, love, God :-)
Home / Blue skies & Sunday afternoons (at least that’s the pretty version!) :)
I make me me. Everything I am and everything I do – I made the decision.
My love for food!, the idea that anything is possible, but most importantly my Mother and upbringing.
Those little braincells given by my parents.
I am the best Barrista in the world….and maybe Europe :) i also like Pizza
I really can enjoy the moment, the presence of my surrounding, the steady flow of reality. And of course a piece of cake as a steady presence in my personal geography.
Hopeless romantic, desperate for love
The imbalance between being a complete workhorse in my professional life and a bit of a lazybones in my personal one
How I see the world, through my watermelon shaped, hopeful, and free, vegetable loving eyes.
My senses and chance
My positive love of activity, people and smiling as much as possible with everyone around me :-)
seeing the funny in every situation, and loads of love
Introverted extrovert, map maker, fun lover of life, all things quirky, passionate public speaker.
Being brought up to realise that we do not need to fit in somewhere or with someone else’s ideas, its okay to have your own – and then surviving open heart surgery
The need to share and distill my experience of looking at the natural world into mesmerizing images and poetic objects.
Behind me the branches of a wasted and sterile existence are cracking, Gustav Mahler said it for me.
The coming together of atoms, genes, neurons, etc in a contingent and (for me) fortuituos way at a certain point in eternity
Fun and Laughter all the way …
My family, and other animals…
Big bones, nice hair and a lovely personality
Every record I hear that reaffirms my belief in love, hope, and romance. And single malt.
My loved ones, and my annoying laugh
Me, reflective and careful, aware of the limitations life brings and concerned for the wellbeing of others.
Art, digital, intense, not serious, daft, thoughtful, communication, factoid, knowledge sponge, questioning, talks a lot
I am a lazy perfectionist
Creating things by hand, a love of detail, walking in open green places and sharing a good meal
My funniness
All the people [and other animals] I have loved.
Having ancestors from Tug Hill,
My parents and my environment.
My love for American literature, my ambition, my passion and the support I get from my friends and family.
My obsession with Eddie Stobbart trucks, bad movies and love for Cockles and Winkles.
Juggling all the conflicting pressures of day to day life.
A cliché I suppose but my two sons make me what I am today. They are different but the same. I hope they know how much they mean to me. They are my salvation, my joy and my raison d’etre. Before them I was timid, reluctant to be part of the bigger picture. But now in middle age I have confidence: I have found a love of writing; a love of creativity; courage to make new friends and courage to combat my over sensitivity. I hope I’m not a clinging mother!
My life’s up/downs experiences, being/ seeing things as an artist, ever optimistic, knowing that’s a joke.
My big frizzy curly blonde hair. I like to think that it’s a distinguishing feature and encompasses some aspects about my personality that I like: being light and bright and bouncy and a bit unpredictable. I dyed my hair brown for a little while and liked it but was surprised at how much I didn’t feel like ‘me’.
1. Conscience, 2. Sense of humour, 3. Love, 4. Genes, 5. Music, 6 Lists, 7. Inability to tag
My parents
Carbon, mostly
Wine!
My family, my friends, making art, being partially deaf, my socialist politics & principles
Friends, family, drawing, respect for others who seek to create…+ guitars, pinstripe jackets & the Grateful Dead!
The environment around me; I am very sensitive to my surroundings
A library of friendships, transformed hopes, a mistrust of dreams
Working hard, playing less hard, family friends, watching films all the time
My marriage and dreams above and beyond my ability
My choices & actions, my work, my relationships with ppl I love, respect & laugh with. Learning new things
Doubt
I’m clumsy, forgetfull, quirky, ditzy, I try not to give up and learn from my mistakes. I’m me because Im far from perfect
Nature and nurture.
Family, friends, curiosity (constant), ideas (having lots), enjoying the little things in life, & big ideas
Eating biscuits/hiding from biscuits/inviting friends for tea and biscuits/running off the biscuits
Playing with the boundaries of ‘not I’
A floating point in the co-op of one hundred trillion assorted cells that makes me up.
Hmmmmm, lots of things, but I make people laugh, so I will say my wicked, macarb sense of humour…
What takes place inside? and aside from DNA, living on an edge of yes and no
Being in Love. Being tall. Being able to make Art.
My boundaries around fact and fiction are a hazy mist lost in time’.
Having (and mostly maintaining) a natural instinct to be naughty, secretive, interested and imaginative.
History, biology and geography – even when I didn’t realise it – but now that I do…
Smashing paint and junk on my head, for freedom.
Life’s experiences, the more highs and lows you have, make the most interesting story.
Schizoaffective disorder
At 3 and a half years old, during the 2nd world war, my first ‘conscious’ thought – “the world is mad!” as planes bombed a railways station nr where I lived – followed by 2nd conscious thought, observing grown-ups, “they do not know what they are doing!” ..now years later accepting what happens, just let it be..and often seeing the humour in what happens.
Passion
Me!
Gritting my teeth and seeing the funny side and working hard to realise that this isn’t it and it really doesnt matter
ONE LIFE TO LIVE!
Paintings
I know I am a product of society, yet I feel I am unique, I see, hear and am told what is right and wrong. Yet I do what my inner voice says.
Me me!
Aww. I stared at this simple but complex question… Makes one think… No Structure is built alone , no road holds a single footprint, it begins in the womb the most Intimate relationship that will ever be! Faceless and nameless but all the same The structure is forming. Cells and D an A …. From that moment on , you are touched by man kind , good and not so good … You are becoming “you” drinking up the pain from others, is the greatest shape of the making of “you” Called compassion… In Sorrow strength is born… Running through your blood as water runs through a river, it just happens. One becomes from others. :) ” I smile about the outrageous life I have had… some would not believe the episodes of diverse events and lifestyles I had in such a short time! Some good, some bad and some extremely dangerous but always no matter what has, Art has always been the core of my love and passion. Even today, I was daydreaming of what a bizarre book I could write. However, I have to remind myself my adventure has not finished yet its just another chapter about to begin xx
Me
An infinite ability to find joy in the ordinary.
My temper, my impatience,my no tolerance for mediocrity,my search for new opportunities, my imagination and myself makes me me.
A wicked sense of humor gets u thru the day, for sure…
My ability to interact with people and to learn from the past :-)
Nature, nurture, history, the culture and time period I was born into, the people and opportunities I meet
Dealing with all the shit that I have gone through
The morning light that comes through my window, that makes me realise I have a brand new day ahead of me, to make other people and myself smile. :)
My upbringings, environment,application of learning experiences you (own and learned experiences of others ).To know the difference between right & wrong.Also to realise that nobody is perfect and apply tolerance to situations or people who I might not agree with.
Ability to talk to anyone for hours, but mainly my friends and family and the laughs we’ve all had, and hopefully are yet to have.
Always looking for the next adventure and challenge, striving to do more, striving to be more and experiencing life to the fullest. I’d rather say tried and failed than I had a safe life. The future is what you make it by trying new things, the people you meet along the way and the experiences you have are what make you who you are and make you interesting.
The constant conveyor belt in my mind that substitutes compliance for happiness :)
My relentless thoughts and the head that houses them. The amazing and beautiful people around me who help to validate that this is me and let me know that I am not alone.
The people, places and physical experiences that I meet and imagine.
All out defiance x
I think that what makes me is my need to reach balance and how that influence the world, my beliefs, my values, my away of life
Fleeting thoughts, random doodles but mostly scribbles
Learning how to build a museum is making me me. And it consumes all my time and focus.
Keeping the mystery alive makes me me… of course.
Allowing myself to feel… Goosebumps, the awe of fireflies, the smell
Magnolias, the sound of the night
You, yes you make me, because I’m Art, You are Art and the art makes me happy
I am battling failure in a perpetual fight for World Domination.
What makes me me is a complex mixture of emotional triggers and memory… thats it.
This specific arrangement of atomic structure and biological arrangement.
Constantly evolving although inside I am sometimes still 17(an age I loved), I find that forever learning about life and individuals has improved me,I feel like a tree at times,sometimes branching out,sometimes moving with the breeze,sometimes resting and sleeping,sometimes reaching for things way out of my reach. Where life was once scary,scary scary, it is now scary and interesting,a sort of new adventure is beginning, and I realise life is not out to get me but I now have to go grab life! It has taken me 40 years to realise this. :)
A collection of x & y’s
Many years of maturing
A dollop of culture
A dash of chaos
A wealth of experiences
and finish off with a huge splash of dreamer.
Imagination…
A virile appetite for life
Yoga, veganism, deep respect, compassion, unconditional love and strong family bonds….not in any particular order
Fluidity!
I stole smiles of women
Answer: ME!
The way of treating people make me me I try to respect them
Lifetime of being connected to nature. Being alone in the wilderness or remote rural locations has been where I felt safe and at home.
Through geometry, find the mode of expression that most identifies with my thoughts and my ideas…
Adventurousness, thoughtfulness, moral code…..encased by secrecy!
A love of routine and fine wine with a wry look of life. Our sadness is unique, nobody feels our feelings.
“motivation in all aspects..” and “i love unconditionally..”
Tiny full of northern bluster, I just want to make everything right.
Loving, living, creating and grabbing hold of what covers my way with enthusiasm.
Inquisitive grasping what turns up always looking at what can entertain, inform and involve me.
Firm belief that happiness is a solid and joy is a liquid and sticking to it.
I’ve been pondering this and as I’m ‘water’ in the Five Elements acupuncture, I ‘always find a way’!
i.am.what i am ..no more..no less..just me..
All that’s gone before, I was born complicated! I believe its not how many times you get knocked down , but How many times you get up! I love seeing all the art on the internet, but I not I’m not particularly talented! I think that it would be a picture with a lot of swirls & movement colors that are medium to light! It could have hard work, love and fun involved. One of the most important things in life is foolishness!
A sense of a future that I once imagined myself into, where the present might have been very different, and which I still hold out a hope of seeing achieved before I’m finished.
Slugs and snails and a lot of prescription medication.
DNA from my ancestors, with my own questioning, curious, unique character, shaped by experiences and influences past and present – as Suzanne Cleminshaw says on page 88 of her novel ‘The Great Ideas’ – “mirrors are full of everyone who ever looked in them”………… (I used to ask my mother unanswerable questions like ” If I hadn’t been ‘me’ would I have been someone else?” Meaning, would I still be the same soul in another body, or just not exist at all…she was never able to answer this.)
A rich tapestry of memories – a mad, surreal cartoon show in the mind!
Talking to people
The ups and downs, withdrawing and reaching out.
The pain the joy the desire to do better.
Extreme worry mixed in with some Essex girl tendencies, a vague fear of Shoreditch types and an education from Goldsmiths. Not to mention my odd family and two guinea pigs Dev and Crumb. Named after Coronation characters – a staple in my early years.
Here at Chutney Preserves we are un-making each me/you, blending together into a chunky tasty spicy Chutney. x
Living life and understanding that I know nothing
My experiences
Love, striving, trying to learn, reading, creating, sleeping a lot, worrying about people and the world, believing in God…
Everybodies raised differently, even among siblings
My family, my heart, hot cross buns.
The universal power to choose expressing itself through my DNA and my experience of life.
The bleakness of a dark day and the joy of a good day
My constant fear of being misunderstood
I have always struggled to understand God, and often wonder whether I really have any faith at all, or whether the Object of my faith is even real. Yet I have realized recently that I cannot conceive of myself except in relation to this Other – real or not – this struggle to know what is beyond me. The knowledge that I cannot be any other than this, that endless searching shapes me and is essential to who I am – this brings its own kind of restless peace.
Everyone has a story to tell; some of us tell it quietly, some of us tell it loudly, some of us keep much of it inside.
Big eyes, a happy heart and a love of animals… especially cats!
Art, real ale, research, history, football, books, the joy of a job you love and my Black Country heritage
My boyfriend brings me out ♥ I can be myself ♥
Cheer is wat makes me me ♥
Love given and received, lives touched and inspired and, yes, my experience of cancer which makes me cherish every day, every experience.
Imagining new possibilities, believing and working hard to make them happen
My smiles my babies
A unique set of experiences/memories
Far more nature than nurture
My relationship with others
Video Games
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Compassion
I think my genes, my experiences and my decisions, makes me who I am. What makes me an Artist? All of these things.
Unsurprisingly unexpected with a focus on supporting the underdog
My humour, my loyalty & above all my love for my babies
Wish I knew, then I could stop with all the self-analysis
DNA + experience
My love for the people that surround me