BY NICKY SCOLTOCK
Inspiration for the creative journey sometimes comes from unexpected places. For me, it came directly from my family line!
I met Aunty Peg just twice in my life. She was my grandmother's sister and lived in England, where my mother’s people are from. She had a great, beaming smile and was wonderfully eccentric.
When my brother and I visited her as children, the family laughed at us calling her Aunty ‘Pig’ with our thick Kiwi accents.
Aunty Peg was a nature lover and devoted sketcher.
Recently my Mum was sent her sketchbooks. I already had my own love of creativity, art and especially Green Sketching – paying close attention to the natural world with paper and pencil in hand.
I was amazed to discover this same love passed down to me from one of the beloved women in my family. The legacy of her creative practice reached across the decades at just the right time to encourage me on my path.
Creative practice as solace and medicine
Her sketchbooks are a kind of botanical love-note to the natural world.
Pressed flowers, careful pencil sketches, and beautifully written notes capture the wild flowers she would have seen on her walks around Shepshed, Leicestershire - the village she lived in. They connect me to my own whakapapa, reminding me of walks taken with my Mum, Uncle and Grandparents in Bradgate Park; the smells, the feel of the bracken, the rabbit holes.
To notice, to be with and especially to respond creatively to a place, is to build relationship, to belong.
I imagine the sketchbooks keeping Aunty Peg company in times of transition in her life, as she left her teens and entered early adulthood.
I notice the dates and know the Second World War was raging in Europe and that she held responsibilities in the Home Guard. I am reminded of the solace and medicine creativity can offer in times of distress and turmoil.
Notice what brings you alive
I feel her presence in my own studio, copies of her sketchbooks hang on my walls. I can only imagine what her creative practice was, but when I see the detail in her drawings and the descriptions in her handwriting, I know she spent time noticing and following the observations that brought her alive.
Feeling her presence helps me to make sense of my own creativity. As many creatives know, there are many voices that show up to challenge my need to create - ‘not good enough’, ‘wasting time’ etc.
Aunty Peg’s sketchbooks are a tonic. They remind me of the value of creativity and how it invites us to celebrate the small and everyday joys in life.
A creative practice helps us to slow down, and is as valuable, if not more valuable now, as it was in the 1940s.
Her devotion and creative attention spur me on, encouraging me to keep looking to the Sacred Wild for sustenance.
So put down your phone, let go of your to-do list and your sensible adult life and go outside. Be in relationship with the land and nature around you.
Go joy spotting and notice what makes you feel alive.
I promise you’ll be glad you did.
Nicky Scoltock is a contemplative artist, Green Sketching guide and Soul Companion living in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. Inspired by a deep connection with the Sacred Wild, she explores creativity, grounded spirituality and our relationship with the natural world. You’ll often find her wandering the shorelines and bush trails near home with Asha, her trusty walking companion — or back in the studio making art, with good coffee and her Mary Oliver poetry book close by.