The research professor, author and podcaster Brené Brown, says “When we look for confirmation we will always find it, because we have made it our mission”. So seeing red? - easy!

Red phone boxes, red robins, red warning signs and many more.

A change of plan, a new direction. The plan for this project was very different to what you see you before you. But I discovered I was not ready for what this brought up and suddenly procrastination became a form of self-protection, it is all too raw, redraw. 

Red - my favourite colour.
The colour of the rowan leaves the autumn that we moved into our house. that rowan leaf red that I painted the hall in our home. The Red Love heart sweetie I painted on the kitchen wall for our first anniversary. The small painting beside the kitchen table, saturated in red after a months residency in London. 

It is through this project that I realised that my confirmation bias was now associating red with danger and negativity, this may be a cultural thing - absorbed without any conscious thought - in Britain stock market losses are shown in red, the cost of living crisis is red, the red top newspapers are, more often associated with gutter-press sensationalising stories, creating a "them and us" state. Living through this has become a constant state of unrelenting stress and negativity.

However, I now recognise I need to reframe my way of seeing red, a change of thought pattern, a new direction, and to see red as luck, prosperity, positive energy and strength, to recognise that we all have red blood in our veins, have similarities and differences but are human. It has also made me question my love of bright red, and realise that, currently, I am seeking quiet spaces, calmer colours, places with a connection, places that ground me and soothe my soul, where I can paint on red boards and express my experience.

 
Like the threads in the Scottish linen, all these thoughts can create tenuous connections between what I have read and what I am thinking and creating. Through this process of creating more connections may be made (or not).