Encouragement Files
(22-2025) Field Notes for Curious Minds
This is the 22nd Edition of ‘The Encouragement Files’, our weekly chance to celebrate words, ideas and creativity, We hope it will be an encouragement to you; some people to connect to, inspiration for your creative practice; and somewhere optimistic where spirits are lifted, a counter to what we are exposed to in this febrile and uncertain world.
If you have just found us, welcome … you’ve missed a bit but not everything. The thing about weekly letters is that there is always more. New (and old) articles to discover, amazing new creative folk to find, stories to tell, and people to celebrate. So, if you like this week’s offering there is plenty more to come (and much more in the archive - click right here).
What Are The Encouragement Files About?
curation
/kjʊˈreɪʃn,kjʊəˈreɪʃn,kjɔːˈreɪʃn/
noun
1. the action or process of selecting, organising, and looking after the items in a collection or exhibition.
2. the selection, organisation, and presentation of online content, merchandise, information, etc., typically using professional or expert knowledge1
Collectibles
Other folk’s curations are such a good way to catch up on what we missed, or to see taste - that indefinable way we flavour our subjective preferences - from a different end of the telescope. Here’s a celebration of some favourites:
- is a fine writer so when he murmurs “wish I wrote that”, there’s a chance the bar has been set high. His ‘Peripherique’ also includes mixtapes, tunes that have been catching Ed’s ear.
Mixtapes from
too … he has a keen ear, but also a discerning eye as his June ‘Compendium’ proves once again. Seasonal flavours are celebrated to the full; who can resist sweet and sour apricots? Not us.I am on a secret mission to engage more with
(mm, not very covert now!). I love the way they declare themselves to be ‘a print journal celebrating our connection to place - a longer, slower read’. It is a beautiful celebration too, of the words of others, as this collection proves.Thank you to
for popping into our eyeline as we are relishing her ‘Friday Finds and Feelings’.
Beyond Substack
2 + 2
Inspired by plans for our rail tour of Europe, we are in Budapest for elegant spirals that make you stair (sic). We’re hoping it’ll be a fairytale visit to Odense to see how this design for the Hans Christian Andersen Museum turned out
Never heard of Greek island Kynthos? Nor us. But we’ve booked ourselves a few days of relaxation Cyclades-style. There may be no shape to our travel plans but we will make up for it by guiding your eye to pattern-maker Patricia Shea.
Listen with curiosity. Speak with honesty. Act with integrity. The greatest problem with communication is we don’t listen to understand. We listen to reply. When we listen with curiosity, we don’t listen with the intent to reply. We listen for what’s behind the words.
― Roy T. Bennett The Light in the Heart
A R T
We are taken by these sculptures created by Matt Wilson from recycled utensils.
The Sound of the Sun
(© George Bradley)
It makes one all right, though you hadn’t thought of it,
A sound like the sound of the sky on fire, like Armageddon,
Whistling and crackling, the explosions of sunlight booming
As the huge mass of gas rages into the emptiness around it.
It isn’t a sound you are often aware of, though the light speeds
To us in seconds, each dawn leaping easily across a chasm
Of space that swallows the sound of that sphere, but
If you listen closely some morning, when the sun swells
Over the horizon and the world is still and still asleep,
You might hear it, a faint noise so far inside your mind
That it must come from somewhere, from light rushing to darkness,
Energy burning towards entropy, towards a peaceful solution,
Burning brilliantly, spontaneously, in the middle of nowhere,
And you, too, must make a sound that is somewhat like it,
Though that, of course, you have no way of hearing at all.
Turning a Page
What is on your Summer reading list?
We love that
recommended The Summer Book (by Tove Jansson) to who conjured up this fabulous book review.- is reading a real mix for 2025 in a celebration of books first published in 1965, leavened with an eclectic list of contemporary titles.
We miss
whose reviews are works of literary excellence every bit as astonishing as the book most recently read and considered. As we are missing too, this review of ‘The Cure for Sleep’, one of our favourite books, feels appropriate.
A D V E N T U R E
A cracking adventure written up for Sidetracked Magazine as the Patagonian Fireflies tackle a 1000-kilometre gravel route, braving wild Chilean weather.
PS
Meanwhile, Barrie has been reflecting on his own cycling adventure and how memory captures and processes the thoughts, milestones and daily details:
Back next week, same time, same place.
Barrie and JoJo
We are fully prepared to accept that we are neither professional nor expert. You can 100% guarantee we are sharing the stuff we adore, written by people we like. Or we gather things up from places we trust about subjects that interest us. Occasionally, you will be able to detect that nothing more than incorrigible curiosity guided us. So, expert, not-so-much … but curious, always.
Thanks for including Friday Finds and Feelings. I love writing these posts and happy you've discovered them!
Somehow, I've never read The Summer Book, despite being a huge Moomins fan. I must set that straight this season. I'll be looking at my spoons differently today. And if you visit Ljubljana, you'll want to check out the staircase in the old "skyscaper" Nebotičnik .