Friday 31 December 2010

New Year Ramblings....


It’s that lovely reflective time of year, but let’s face it, I reflect every five seconds so this is no more different than usual. I’ve looked over some of my diaries for the last year and a lot has changed and yet some things in my life haven’t budged an inch. Or I feel they haven’t anyway. I just have no idea what’s next for me. I know clearly what I want for the next year and I’m very much looking forward to the things I have planned but today is the day where I make a bet with myself. How brave will I be this new year? In 2010 I did something I haven’t done in a very long time, I opened my heart to someone. He’s held it beautifully and does everything he can to make sure that the love we are creating together is growing and evolving and I’m doing my best to do the same.

In terms of music I have a few ideas up my sleeve this year and I’m looking forward to exploring loads of them but my main focus is simple. Gig more, gig often, and gig further away. I love Swansea and I love playing here but I’m just feeling the need to stretch my wings a little and find some new faces and new places. I’ve banded together with a couple of musicians and we are planning an onslaught of the UK in mid to late February and I have all my fingers crossed that it all goes to plan. I have more music to record, an acoustic piano EP to sort out and a few other side projects to invest some time in but my main focus cant change. Gig more, gig often and gig further away.

I feel in a lot of ways over the last few months I have begun to lose touch with my “inner musician-ness”. That optimism and drive has seemed to dwindle. The passion and desire to create never shifts but my focus has been blurry. I have meditated, read the cards, found my centre and am making a new start. Re heating the fire in my belly. I don’t think I’m quite there yet but I will be very soon. I’ve been journaling my ass off and getting clearer and clearer of the flavour of life I want to experience next. Maybe I get too caught up in the “How will this happen?” side of things instead of looking to find a creative solution. Well, maybe that can be something to explore this new year, I’ll put that on the list ( oh never ending lists ).

I do want to say though, to all of you out there who listen, watch, support and are there at the end of the phone, at the click of a text message or listening to my late night ramblings online, THANK YOU! You’ve helped me a lot, when I’ve questioned and doubted myself, when my confidence needed lifting and especially through every drama riddled artistic trailer door slamming toys out of the pram throwing unashamedly flamboyant hissy fit having moment I’ve had, YOU lot have been there and I’m grateful for that. Really.

Now without too much to say, I want you all to put your glad rags on and make a big bright toast to a new year. Just be sure to have FUN!

xxx

Thursday 16 December 2010

Weekly doodle!






Well here is my weekly doodle! I decided to do Illustration Friday this week although as much as I love doing it I can never seem to find the time to actually paint up my drawings! Never mind though, Christmas is swiftly on my tail and I’m sure I’ll get some down time to catch up on a few paintings. This weeks word was “Phenomenon”, which stumped me a little but I thought maybe some sort of mythical creature would be fun. I actually sat down to draw a dragon but for some reason a mermaid appeared on the page! Ah well I guess she fancied saying hello to the world! I so desperately need an A3 scanner though so I can start getting better quality digital images of my work. My camera is crappy and right at this moment I cannot for the life of me figure out how to transfer photoshop from my old laptop onto my new one, if anyone can help I can bribe you with cookies!

On the tour front it’s just at the waiting game stage. Everything is good to go it’s just waiting for some of the venues to confirm, I have more or less finished the Album design to have it printed and hopefully I’ll shift a few copies. The itunes sales are going ok but I want them to be better. I only have one gig left for this year and it’s at a comedy night in Cardiff (The Promise Bar, 22nd Dec), it’s a venue I haven’t played before but it should go ok, so, as long as there’s a PA I’m there!



I also dragged my bum to the cold beach this week to work on a project that I’d never tried before. Making a small video to go with one of my songs off the album. I went to the place I wrote the song and just took my camcorder and tried to make some interesting shots of the sea while keeping in mind the song. The humming within the song was inspired by me watching the sea and its rhythm so it seemed the most appropriate place to go. Ill put it below so you can have a peek. It’s inspired me to work on some more, i’m just waiting for a creative idea to pop into my head and then I’m all systems go!



As for the writing! Yes I have FINALLY started my new book. I’m not going to hammer at it, just chip away bit by bit until it’s done! It’s not a spiritual book because that kind of writing doesn’t like me right now! So, I’m just allowing the creativity of the characters in the book to flow through my head and I’ll just see where it takes me!
That should be it for this week! Ill try and squeeze in another blog before Xmas!

Ryan xx

Sunday 12 December 2010

Creativity and lack of sleep....



It’s some silly hour of the morning and to be honest I’m sick of staring at the ceiling wondering why I’m not asleep yet so I thought I’d sneak out of bed and come sit by the fire on this bitterly cold winter night. Yes, sneak out of bed. My boyfriend is officially moved in. We.ve unpacked till we cant unpack anymore and well, there’s still more crap to go through! Boxes of stuff! The end result is all worth it though, to watch him sleeping next to me, mumbling at the ceiling and kissing me in his sleep. He’s so adorable.

It’s that time of year again. Not Christmas! Not new year! Virgo Review time (lol). Time to take stock of everything and see what needs mending, and what needs celebrating. It has been a big year, with big life stuff happening. Both my grandmas passed away, I met a man, fell in love and moved in with him, released an album, started planning my first ever UK tour. Lots and lots of things happening and yet a part of me has seemed ill-content unless I have a problem to chew on. The only problem I have in my life right now though is accepting happiness. Stillness within happiness. Living with all this good feeling. I’ve literally not had this before and I’m watching as parts of my character try to mess it up and fail consistently each time. But something has been changing in me that I didn’t expect.

My creativity. I have dedicated the last five years of my life to healing. Healing everything about me. My past, my present, my spirit, my Self. And I’m not stupid enough to say that all the healing is done but I can say, with certainty, that I am long past the worst of it. The self hatred, self doubt and internal criticism have all stopped and my life changed because of it, my creativity has changed because of it. My music has always been an emotional release, a cathartic exorcism and while it still can be and at points still is that, I am getting moments of something else. Expression Absolute. No pain, no hurt, just creativity at its purest nucleic point. An energy that is a close likeness to my spirit. Vibration interpreting itself for the sheer fun of it. There are projects I am entertaining now that I would never have considered before. Projects that before my ego would have totally pooh pooh’d because how dare I do something for the fun of it. But here I am. And here I go.

I’m not quite sure what I have planned for next year. There will be a time for lists and goals, things to manifest and things to bring into being but for the winter, I am just going to throw myself at my writing. I’ve not been inspired much over the last year in terms of getting all these book ideas I have off the ground but lately they have been getting restless in my head. Earlier in the week one book idea starting jumping up and down begging to be born onto paper ( which isn’t something you expect while scrubbing a Bolognese stain at the kitchen sink ) and tomorrow morning I think I shall make a start. I’m also thinking of resurrecting my old video blog. .. ideas ideas ideas... we shall see.
Well that’s all I have to share with you for now!

Much Love!

xxx

Friday 10 September 2010

New album and the big three oh.....

It’s been a while again, and with so many changes that have happened and so many things that I want to happen it’s a good time to catch up.

I turned 30. The BIG THREE OH. It seemed to pass like any other day, I was expecting some sort of Im-not-where-I-want-to-be freak out but it never happened. I made it. Thirty is a point where you sit back and think about your journey and mine has been long, and tough and at points harder than I thought I could handle but I’m here. Im the happiest I’ve ever been and that probably is the reason I sailed through the transition. What I have asked for is present and the universe and I are on good terms again. I gathered the troops and we went out Prehistoric Style and danced till our feet hurt and the room swayed, we had a few drinks at my house first and I took a look around my home, little things like paintings on the wall and instruments nestled in birthday present wrapping paper littered my floor, spilled beer, laughing, my friends and sitting next to the man I love, and in that moment it hit me. I am living a creative life, I am living the life I always wanted to. No pressure, no crappy jobs, no arguments, nothing bearing down on me, no I-can’t-breathe, just fun, creativity and love. All things present. Not bad at Thirty Mr James, not bad at all.

It helped alot that my ALBUM :RIVER OF BONES is released and out there. Nine months of hard work and it’s finally ready to be shared with the universe. To find the people it can inspire, to inspire me, to seek it’s place within music and to pave the way for me to find more moments of joy, more moments of clarity and more moments of inspiration. For those of you that have’nt heard it it’s at www.myspace.com/ryanjames. There’s a billion links all over the internet if you want to buy it but it can’t hurt to have one more so here....

River

...and to add some icing to the cake, to put a cherry on top and light the frikkin candle I am also planning a tour. A tour with a musician I have respected for years and we are banding together, pooling resources, thoughts and ideas and we are taking our music all over the UK. I can’t wait to explore the rest of the UK and see some new faces. I love playing Swansea, it’s just once you’ve played everywhere twice it begins to feel a little flat. And this year I played the UPLANDS MUSIC FESTIVAL. As exited as I was to get a spot, my spot was 1230 on a Sunday morning, I played to three people ( not including my friends ) and it’s the most disheartening feeling. To be sat there slugging your drums out to an empty room. I took it as a sign, time to leave, time to find an audience that will enjoy what I do. So that’s my focus right now, all the fun stuff, gigging, sharing music, doing my other projects and learning again.

I wont leave it so long next time.

Much Love
xxxx

Tuesday 24 August 2010

Thursday 22 July 2010

Jihad in my Kitchen....

Jihad in my kitchen

It happened again. I thought my enemy was defeated and this was passed but I was wrong…. sooo wrong…..

I walked into my kitchen and there it was looking right at me. It must have found another way in. We have fought many wars over the years and sometimes… I have won and sometimes I only thought I did. Oh the sneaky bastards only let me think I’ve won but when my back was turned there they were again. Laughing.

The slug looked at me with its slug eyes and mocked me with it’s slug soul as it smugly sauntered up my kitchen bin toward slug nirvana. It can kiss my ass. The last two days I have woken up to a slug trail in my music room which was getting dangerously close to my drums and there’s nothing worse than feverishly hallucinating to the point where a slug trail reads “Fuck You Mammal!” all over the music room floor.

I leapt across the kitchen floor in a Crouching-Tiger-Hidden-Homosexual-Fury armed with nothing more than a tissue and some mental instability… it made a run for it, but luckily, slugs are quite slow so it didn’t get far. We wrestled. I screamed. It screamed (well I felt it scream from it’s soul) and I cast it out to the garden. Where it waits……and waits…

I’m sure it’s telling it’s story in the slug barracks today of the great battle of Yellow Bin whilst plotting and scheming of it’s return. We will meet again slug. We will.

Monday 14 June 2010

Pot Noodle Madness and Falling in Love....

It’s been a while hasn’t it. I’m just finally finding a moment in between uploading video’s and rehearsing to sit down and write again. I miss doing this. So, what’s been happening? Well, you know those times when everything seems to happen at once? Yep, that’s been me this last few months.

I prayed for change and it came as quickly as the words had left my mouth. My business went through the roof, I’ve been gigging constantly and…wait for it… I’ve fallen in love. Yep. Me. In love. Who’d have thought?! Theres a special someone out there who is in my thoughts constantly and now curled up in a special place in my heart. I’m not going to lie, it’s been a loooooong journey for me to become this open and vulnerable again but I’m here and ready and grateful that the universe has brought someone so loving into my life. X

As for the music, yes THE ALBUM IS DONE!!!!! It’s been a long nine months getting this thing crafted and polished and sounding like I do on stage with only a few studio magic buttons and tweaks it’s here and I’ve started to fall in love with it. It really has been a manifesting dream right now! Ray Davies has been absolutely incredible throughout this journey and I’ve left the experience not only with the knowledge that I’ve met an amazing producer but also that I’ve made a new lifelong friend. Go check out the music @ www.myspace.com/ryanjames .

I’ve been in a haze for the last few weeks, it’s a weird feeling after you’ve achieved what you want. There’s a sort of gratitude that it’s done but also mixed with a sense of shock?? I guess? I don’t know the right word but I have time this week to process it all and put things where they should be and put my head where it should be and get my focus again! It’s time now to PUSH the album and SHARE the music! But in the meantime…..




Love to you all!

Ryan xxxx

Thursday 1 April 2010

Ryan Harris Loves Joanna Billiness 1994





Don’t worry Joanna, written on the front cover of my 1994 diary was also a confession of my deep love for Nadine Weaver and I think it’s safe to say it’s in the past! Haha

I was sitting in bed a few days ago scribbling away in one of my new journals and I just kept looking up at a shelf in my bedroom with a bag that contains every diary I’ve had since I was about 13. It’s weird to open a page of a diary and be right back there remembering the details of when you wrote it. The small things that you think are lost your memory calls to place. I could oddly find the “feeling” place of that diary and I could remember the blue bedspread I sat on to write it, the school timetable I had blue-tacked to the wall to map out my lessons ( it was all colour coded of course ) and the oversized file I would drag to school everyday. The table next to my bed, the position and layout of my old room and the hundred and one imaginary places I had created to escape. My deep love for Joanna Billiness and Nadine Weaver aside, it’s no secret that school was not a fun time for me. It was years before I learned that being different is a strength and that finding strength in that is a life lesson I would never take back.

The sanctuary of my imagination is what got me through that time; and because of that time I never lost the ability to play, the ability to create, the ability to dream. Little did I know in those years I was building the foundations of the life I have now. I was imprinting within myself the building blocks of a creative life. I would lock myself away and play piano, draw, make, create, think. All of these things that I suppose were initially ways for me to occupy my mind have now become the most enjoyable part of my life experience. As an adult I create albums, I create paintings, I create “stuff”, I imagine, I dream and I think. I suppose in those years of solitude there were parts of me that didn’t grow up, with no one around me I didn’t have to. So part of me has always remained that creative child, that playful force and I love that about myself! I love that I still play, that I’m covered in paint, glue and lyrics on a regular basis. I love that when I see something beautiful or feel something powerful I want to create and make and mould.

I guess what I’m saying is that, after looking through my old diaries I never really took stock for how important my imagination is to me. How it began. How it exists today in my life. I hear people say all the time that “I’m not creative” or something similar and I think that’s impossible. We were all children once, we all played, we all did make believe, we were all giants and monsters and princesses and heroes and I think we would all be happier if we never let those parts of ourselves wither. If we could find within ourselves ways to know when to be the grown up and when to be the child. Doing things “just because”. Loving things just because. Doing someone a painting and not caring how good it is. Making someone a present out of a washing up liquid bottle and some pipe cleaners and FULLY enjoying yourself during the process! Being brave enough to be the imaginative, creative, inquisitive child within you.

Being brave enough to play.

Love and Crayons,

Ryan xxxx

Friday 5 March 2010

As is.

Not quite sure what Im feeling right now but something is coming to the surface. HUNTING. That’s what has been happening, I know this and it’s not a problem but hunting for what? For that feeling. Locked on again to a notion that I can get it from an outside source. There. That didn’t take long. Hoping that something will come in and fill me with this feeling. Fill me with a sense of love, peace, completeness. Oh my little ego you crafty bugger you.

I am self.

Whole.

Complete.

As is.

But I have been receiving whispers from the ether lately and the word “celebrate” keeps coming into it. But how do you go about celebrating life? I’m not really one to dress in linen and dance around a tree. For me I figured this would entail me to be doing the things that fill you with that sense of life. Doing things that bring you into the space that is you. Music does that for me. Art does that for me. But being my usual obsessive rigid virgo list filled self, Ive managed to turn all my hobbies into possible career avenues. So everything I create now is lined with purpose! Which I know is good from a whole time management perspective but when I did I stop creating for the joy of creating? I need to spend some time getting back to that. What I do is enough whatever that is. A doodle, a painting, half a song. The drive is to create, not complete. Not sell. Not market. Not manage. To Create.

To create.

I am enough.

Thursday 18 February 2010

Illustration Friday : Adrift



Hey Guys!

Here's a little something that turned up in my sketchbook this week done for the theme "Adrift"! Hope you like it! May do a colour version soon!

x

Monday 1 February 2010

Insomnia....




I just feel a bit weird. Disconnected yet emotional. Solitary yet part of everything. My head is tired and my body is weak and I feel… ready. Ready for expansion, ready for my life to be different. I don’t know. This blog might be nothing more than a rant, or a mash of random words and experiences, or at the very least the pathway to some sort of emotional conclusion.

I am SO ready for things to be simpler. Not having to think all the time. I swear Im driving myself crazy. I’m not lonely, I’m not feeling unsuccessful, I’m just ready. READY READY READY. Something or someone NEW please. Give me “that” feeling. I can imagine it within myself. I can dream it within myself. I can feel it within myself now if it can just turn up that would be great thank you very much. But I feel that AND also want to sleep for the rest of my life. So…very…tired!

Tomorrow shall begin with lists of things to do, use this Virgo Moon to my advantage. What do I need? Consistent reminders. Mood boards. Things. Plans. Strategies. Designs. Websites. Finished paintings. Ideas. More Ideas. I need focus.

But that’s tomorrow. Tonight I’m just going to sleep.

Tuesday 26 January 2010

Happiness in every corner...




Since when did I become so Happy-Phobic? It’s been such a weird journey these last couple of months. I’ve been reading and re-reading, listening to videos, reading blogs, believe me if it’s had a self help title to it I’ve read it and to be fair they all pretty much say the same thing. Be happy. Get Happy. Follow your joy. Find your bliss. There’s a billion and one exercises on how to do it and what will help and when and some of them I’ve used and some of them I haven’t; but all inner workings, all personal development is just that, it’s personal. Only you can perceive the workings of your own mind from the inside out. People offer you perspectives, reflections, opinions but generally you move when your ready, grow when your ready, flow when your ready.

I’ve not been happy for a long time. I haven’t been depressed or down or anything like that but happiness? Not so much. The closest I would get to it is on stage at a gig or writing a new song or playing a song for the first time. These things have been few and far between and yet I’ve not allowed any other gigs or things to take place. I have manifested, created a huge tonne of things to stop me from doing the things that make me happy. Yet right now, happiness is on the cards, finding my joy is here and I’m watching my subconscious using everything it has to keep me in fear. Fear of love, fear of success. Fear of happiness. Parts of me are fighting for survival, but I offer them nothing but love and nothing but transcendence. I finally understand the difference between KNOWING what makes you happy and being an active participant within it.

I’ve watched my life change recently. I’ve learned to just not dwell on the negative and the shifts in my life have been amazing. I’ve met new people, new kindred spirits and gotten some new perspectives on life as a whole. I cant even say I’m moving towards what I want because it’s already here in a way. My polarities are shifting, my emotional scale is rebalancing, I am becoming lighter, free and yes happy. Yet I see myself using every old trick in the book to keep myself involved in that old negative self loathing vibration.

Earlier this evening I caught myself looking into the mirror thinking about how “ugly” I was. Thinking about how “unloved I feel”. It literally only lasted a moment. It almost felt like an old self had crept in for a surprise visit. I actually laughed when I recognised the thought. I could never be ugly, all of existence is contained within our spirits and we are made out of a substance that feels like falling in love and I KNOW that to be true. We may not all feel it, but there it is. My body is different yes, but ugly? Nope, not a chance. I’ve manifested weird emails, strange conversations, strange meetings based around pretty much all the issues of my past that have usually sent me running for home where I draw the curtains and hide away. But not any more. I realise these things are happening because I am changing. Because I am recognising them I see their impermanence. I see my life loving back towards a place I used to love. Back to LIFE. Back to actively participating in joy. Back to Happiness.

Much Love

xx

Friday 1 January 2010

A reflective step forward....


It’s always wise to take a small look back before a big step forward and right here right now I’m taking stock of this year.



I have learned inner silence,



I have learned faith,



I have learned to love myself in ways I didn’t know I could.



So I am doing what most people do this time of year, reassessing. What is it that I want? Nothing on that front has changed in terms of music, art, writing, love, friends, spirit and evolution, but I do know that this year I want more JOY. More FUN. This year I am allowed to give myself a break! Give myself a pat on the back! Give myself some time to reflect on my successes and pursue more!



New years began with all my friends bundling together and setting off these beautiful “Prayer lanterns”
.



Of course though… mine got stuck in a tree. It didn’t burn it down, so that’s always a plus. Many, many, many drinks later it’s morning time and we’re all back together having a new years dinner loving prepared by Sue (who, bless her heart, has probably had enough of cooking for a while) and then a stroll down the beach to walk off the hangover. A quick dismantle of the tree and here I am, in bed writing to you. Sorting through lists and lists of lists and lists about lists. It’s a time to plan. To change things a little, maybe a lot. I am going to spend some time getting clear and carefully choosing the projects I want to explore this year, this blog being one of them. ART, MUSIC, LOVE, WRITING, FRIENDS, SPIRIT, EVOLUTION, all these plus the ability to WISH should make an interesting year!