Sugar

Magnolia

This evening in my new studio (monoprint)

Apples

Ptolemy

Selfie

Unlearning

As it turns out, even knowing how to break free of contours is very difficult. 

Some weeks ago, I had a studio visit from a fellow artist I greatly respect. She glanced wordlessly over a wall full of drawings until her gaze fell on a funny little mono-print I'd made. It's one of those I put up because I liked, but wasn't sure why. Everyone else who has seen it has said, what's that?

I say, oh, it's an elephant marionette, collapsed on the floor. Erm... that's the trunk, see?

The Fellow Artist I Greatly Respect didn't care what it was. She batted away my explanation, saying that it didn't matter what it was, it was the feeling that mattered, and she desperately wanted the drawing.

We arranged a swap.

But I wanted to just give it to her, because her gift had already settled over me like soft rain or a beautiful memory.

It doesn't matter what it is.

It's the feeling that matters.

When did I forget this? Slowly, slowly, form has overcome feeling, and even the word 'feeling' has become a mumbled apology. Feeling is not what matters. Ideas matter. Currency matters.

The words of the Fellow Artist effected a rushing release in my heart and mind.

That swelling yearning for a shift in my practice suddenly burst its banks, and it is this happening that has given me the energy with which I'm now working.

I returned to the little vase, yesterday. It all seemed terribly hard. Just how do I bypass the perimeters of the perceived object without pretension, without the affectation of naïvete? I had already experienced this struggle with the little bamboo boat: of what value is it to ignore the edge I can see perfectly well? I tried, anyway, and found that, while the drawing was not exactly successful, it still had the feeling and luminosity of the 'tighter' drawing, and possibly more purely - at any rate, I could see the potential, there.

So, with the vase, I tried again. Again, there is this problem of bypassing a particular ability I have in pursuit of another. All sorts of feelings of frustration and impatience arise. How does one begin, and where does one stop, when similitude isn't the object? 

I suppose the secret lies in attuning myself to feeling, and establishing a new standard for myself. It may mean stopping at a point where the image is still inchoate. It's going to be a difficult and interesting pursuit.

Here's where I stopped yesterday's drawing. It will do for now. I will get better.

Flux

I feel a shimmer of guilt whenever I succumb to drawing flowers. 

The Postgraduate Supervisor in my mind sneers, the Cool Kids shun me, the Galleries cough politely.

But lately I have been letting myself do it, anyway. And it turns out that, as with most self-indulgent pleasures deemed dirty by the powers that be, it is educational, deeply satisfying, and perfectly normal and healthy.

Here is today's offering:

On a more earnest note, I am pursuing a compelling idea at the moment that is giving me great energy in the studio. I'm not sure if I can even rough it out in words, but it has something to do with releasing form from the confines of a single moment or point of view (think Cubism, but madly beautiful, less brown and less boxy) and, most importantly, enabling the perception or implication of motion.

Oddly enough, each first attempt, so far, has resulted in the opposite qualities to those intended, as with the image above: meticulously observed, static and illusion-driven. There is a part of me that simply delights in drawing this way. I spent much of today in rapturous concentration at my desk, at one point discovering painfully that I had not uncrossed my legs for hours. 

I have always derived enormous satisfaction from conjuring three dimensions out of two, but right now I am chasing this other aspect - a shifting energy; movement; flux. I want the contours to break down, the light to spill out, the lines to quiver.

This fascination with motion may be reflective of my current state of being. In less than a fortnight, I will leave my happy, mostly peaceful home of three years, part ways with my wonderful sister, and start the adventure of living with my Beloved, his brilliant young son and their bouncy dog, in a house whose condition we fondly describe as a cosy squalor.

Even now, as I sit quietly in my tidy living room, the clock ticking gently, warm light spilling from the kitchen, I know that all the silhouetted forms of my furniture, so stable and sure, are really already in motion. This house has a new tenant arriving soon, the cleaners will be in, the keys returned. Everything is in flux.

All this stillness is only an illusion.

But, in the calm before the storm, I have some time on my hands. 

I have time, at least, to spend a day making a perfectly still image, an anchor, knowing that tomorrow I can return to the same vase of flowers and a new page, and discover what other possibilities are inherent in them, and inherent in me.

Playtime in the Infant Year

Studio Love

Sometimes the studio is a difficult place to be.
Right now, however, after a long Winter, I am loving this room of my own, and the freedom, security and nourishment it gives to me and my work. The monkey was a surprise discovery (and reward for looking up!) as I approached the studio today. The wildflowers (reward for looking down) were nearby, leggy and abundant by the railway fence.
Happy, happy girl.

Sugar's Catch

Sugar

This lithe being, a creature simultaneously intelligent and absurd in the extreme, is Sugar, the Hungarian Viszla. I have known her for almost four years, but only realised this week that that knowledge goes right out to my fingertips - what a joyous discovery!

An Unexpected Visitor

When something difficult happens, my mother encourages me to look for the gift in it.
I have lately been living in the company of sorrow, anxiety and doubt, and struggling to break free of them and return to my normally happy and peaceful state.

Am I normally happy and peaceful? Well, I think of myself that way. I didn't always. As a child reading Winnie the Pooh, it was the doleful donkey, Eeyore, with whom I most identified, not the bumblingly comfortable Pooh, nor the trusting, curious Piglet, nor the irrepressible Tigger.

But in recent years, some shift has occurred in me, and I am conscious of living with contentment and gratitude a lot of the time. I feel present, vital and resilient.  It isn't only circumstantial - even in profound grief, I have been surprised to find, at my core, an essential optimism. Looking for the gift in things has become part of my way of life.

Even so, the last weeks have felt heavy.
Oh, I could identify a number of triggers. For instance, a degree of disappointment in my exhibition, and the subsequent weeks of aimless pottering in the studio, trying to be present for a transformation I feel sure must come, but still has not. Or, for example, trying to remain chipper and philospohical about not winning art competitions, or - harder - not being short-listed. This latter wound I bore for my poor, overlooked cocktail umbrella. My pride and joy, shaken adrift even from its high perch in my impressionable esteem. I think these blows are actually easier when one does not try to be too chipper. I might have done better to curse and kick something hard, get it out of my system in a rush of disappointed tears.

The thing is, they don't feel like big hurts until much later, when I catch myself feeling contempt for my drawings and my ideas. And then, sensing an inhospitable space, new ideas and new drawings don't emerge. Finding what I seek through art requires faith in meanings and dimensions insupportable in rational terms - and not crying and kicking things hard demands rationality.

In particular, I have experienced something of a crisis of self-doubt. What is my value in the sphere of Art, and, while we're getting uncomfortable over that thought, what is the value of Art at all? Am I flailing toward excellence in a useless occupation? Here, my rational mind can be helpful, but my spirit falters.

So, that sort of thing, and other things, either too private or too complex to mention here, have sat darkly in my heart for some weeks, and I have felt too despondent to go searching for any redemptive gifts in them.

***

On Wednesday night, another sort of darkness entered my world with a crash.
I blinked open from deep sleep, and listened. My sister, who lives with me, has been having sleepless nights, and often makes a hot, midnight drink in the hope of soothing her galloping mind and restless body. I thought she must have dropped a glass, and I called out to her, "what was that, honey?"
To my surprise, she replied from her bedroom, "I don't know."

Sometimes I have wildly irrational fears. On this night, they did not even occur to me. I was not even mildly afraid. I hopped out of bed and padded out in my socks to see what had fallen in our kitchen. When I turned on the light in the living room, everything seemed normal. I peered towards the kitchenette, and saw nothing amiss. Then, there was another smash. Now, Ellie was coming up the corridor behind me. I walked towards the kitchenette. There was the sound of scrabbling - a sort of fevered scratching, such as the cat makes when negotiating the cat-flap - but then more splintering of glass, and the sound of a struggling creature in our laundry, which is a small alcove off the kitchen.
"I think an animal has come down the chimney," said Ellie.
I thought so, too - it has happened before. I advanced toward the sound, a little wary now, reluctant to scuffle with an anxious possum or startled bird.

What occurred next was so unexpected as to be at first totally impossible to comprehend.
A dark figure, very tall, stepped out of the laundry and stood facing us, without a word.

My first impression was madly illogical. The figure, who appeared in absolute, pitch-black silhouette against the window, reminded me, in height, build and posture, of my old friend, Julian. My brain was clearly seeking alternative ways of computing the facts before me. I was readier to believe that a friend had dropped in for a visit, climbing through our laundry window at midnight in the hope of a cup of tea.

But the figure was also unavoidably spooky. It didn't move, nor speak.
I said, "who are you?"
I heard my sister's voice, an echoing, "who are you?"
The voice seemed to come from the figure. Aha! said my grateful brain, It's only Ellie. I looked behind me - Ellie was still there.
Somewhere around this point, my brain relinquished the possibility of Julian, and coldly admitted, there is a very tall, strange man inside your house in the middle of the night. Dizzying waves of alarm washed around me. He either wanted stuff, or he wanted to harm us.

The next thought, clear as a bell, was for my parents. They must not lose us both.
"Get out, get out!!!" I barked to Ellie, running back towards the front door.
To my surprise, her calm voice said firmly, "It's okay." she hadn't moved. She is a primary school teacher, and usually her authoritative pronouncements are as effective on me as on her young charges. But not this one. I was at the door, "it is NOT okay. Run, get out, get out!!"
She was behind me now, and we ran out onto the empty street. I was ready to run all night in my socks and long johns, but she stopped and peered back through the house. "We're safe out here," she said.
Then I heard her say, "oh, no - he's coming!" and I screamed for help and started running up the middle of the road. Ellie banged on the door of our immediate neighbours. While we waited for an answer, our intruder appeared on our porch. I screamed for help again. It seemed he was indeed after us. What if no-one came? I kept apart from Ellie. I didn't want us to be trapped together. The man now looked towards me and took a couple of steps forward. He had a fine-featured, African face. I ran several paces, screaming, then turned to see him running the other way. Our neighbours were at the door now, and Ellie was explaining the situation in a rush. I watched the man sprint down the road and out of sight. A fine runner. Phonecalls to police, tea, neighbour's jackets over our shoulders. I noticed my little toe was broken.

When the police came, we went back with them into our violated little home. Both our computers were gone, and with them, countless hours of work, photographs, documents, memories and ideas. Ellie's handbag was gone, too. But mostly, our sense of safety in our own home was gone.

***

There is a Rumi poem that I like, called The Guest House.
It speaks of the feelings and thoughts that enter our consciousness like unexpected visitors, and urges us to welcome and entertain them all! even if they are a crowd of sorrows who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture...

Last night, a world away from the morning's adventure, safe in a warm cottage in the bush with my Mum, and lying in a hot bath, I thought of the crowd of sorrows lately troubling my heart, and I saw again that unshakeable image of the dark silhouette in our laundry, featureless and silent.

Sometimes, irrational thought itself is a gift.
In my mind, it suddenly seemed that the dark figure was for me - my crowd of sorrows, embodied in one looming form, living and breathing before me, scaring me for real. Some tiny spark of gratitude flickered inside. I don't fully understand the thought, but it slightly relieved both the terror of my recent memory, and the burden of my current struggle. Embodied, my inner darkness stood apart from me, and I could address it. And the intruder, made figurative, stood within me, and I laid a hand gently on his forehead, called him Habibi, and offered him a cup of tea.

***

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

- Jelalludin Rumi
translation Coleman Barks.

Ellie in Frannie's Hoodie

You've Read the Blog...

... Now you can see the show!

This Little Light of Mine

The Nest

Hard Truths

Yesterday was a big day, and I am struggling to dispel its heaviness.

My beautiful cousin, Francesca, would have been twenty-one. It’s impossible to encompass the sadness and sense of futility and loss attached to that day in words, or even thoughts, but my cousin Isabella came about as close as possible to it in her amazing birthday letter to her sister, which you can find here. 

Surprisingly, that anniversary was not what was most difficult in my day. It was the saddest thing, but not what left me the most troubled – Francesca's death is a grief we have lived with for almost two years, and in that context, her birthday was almost a ray of light: it marked the day she came into our lives. 

The outpouring of emotion, the renewal of memories and the emergence of unseen photographs were, in a way, wonderful. It was a relief to sit alone in the studio and cry my heart out, with no tissues: a copiously snotty animal in animal pain, released suddenly from all the cottonwool protection of philosophical thoughts.

For just a moment, I felt the whole, breathing, warm presence of the living Frannie, and saw the wonder of her existence and the full pain of her loss side-by-side. It may sound strange, but these two wires are rarely connected in my mind – the terrible shock that sparks when they connect is too strong to live with all the time. But to feel it on these rare occasions is also to be closer to Frannie again.

I didn’t get much work done.

I began a new nest.
The first one (below) has been cast aside for now – my week’s cross-eyed labouring over it served only to produce the one thing worse than a total catastrophe: a near-miss.

I felt that awful thing that I think all artists feel from time to time: am I actually any good at all?  

The work was clumsy, and solving it seemed beyond my resources.

I haven’t exactly given up on it, but I can’t afford to lose any more time at its service when I have only days left to complete all my work for the show.

But I have persisted, as is my way, and made two small nest drawings that are full of good things. I discovered a new way to approach them, drawing the twigs in heavy, thick black ink, then washing over them with water before their core is quite dry, so that it falls away leaving a delicious outline. I then layer paler washes of ink over the top, erase the highlights and negative spaces and repeat this process until there feels to me to be a vibration of sorts, and a good, dark depth between the twigs.

Yesterday I began a new large nest, full of self-doubt, and fragile from the emotion of the day. I did enough to feel it was underway, then packed up and set off for home.

At home, I returned a phonecall from a family friend and loyal supporter of my work. He had left a message to say he wanted to talk to me about one of my works. I imagined he wanted to buy one.

As it happened, he wants to resell one he bought about five years ago, and wanted me to help him. This is a difficult matter. The drawing, he explained, is riddled with unhappy associations to do with his own circumstances, and he can no longer bear to even have it in the house, much less look at it. He hates looking at it. He wants rid of it.

Notwithstanding the delicate and difficult circumstances that prompted his feelings, the assault on my spirits was quite violent. I feel heartbroken for the drawing. It meant a lot to me when I made it, as it was the work that marked the turning point of my three-year artist’s block. It is a brave, fighting, raw drawing, and somewhere in it is a part of myself.

The confrontation was a double-whammy. Not only was it surprisingly hard to hear of the work’s being so passionately unwanted, but I was also obliged to confront and explain the probability that it would be hard for him to sell it. It is hardly, after all, one of Picasso’s formative works!

As an early work of a still-emerging artist, its monetary value still lies in my potential. This shabby reality played some havoc with my sense of the work I am currently making, the purpose of it, and the uncomfortably complex issue of its value and the value of making art at all.

Mostly, I like to think my drawings are bought because they are loved. In that case, their value is not quantifiable – an artwork one loves is priceless.

But what happens when a work ceases to be loved?

The conversation was an awkward and painful one – a polite stand-off of sorts. I like this man, a usually softly-spoken and gentle person. He can have had no idea of the reverberation of his own pain and how it might play out in me. Short of buying the work back (which I can’t afford to do), there was little I could offer. He asked me to think about it.

And needless to say, I have been thinking about it ever since.

Wealth and Ambition

The three-minute ride to the studio yesterday yielded something precious.

The road runs along the railway line, and plane trees, already splendidly committed to autumn, line the road. These have recently been subjected to routine council pruning: an inelegant topiary necessary to accommodate overhead power lines. It leaves the trees in a comical Y form, and I always feel vaguely humiliated on their behalf.

Today I was arrested by the sight of the severed branches awaiting disposal in a tangled row beneath the trees, still in full leaf and mirroring their overhead counterparts. I felt drawn to cross the road, feeling there must be a gift there for me.

 

As soon as I had felt it, I knew what it must be, and almost as soon as I knew, I found it. A darker mass of twigs, tipped on its side, but intact: a displaced birds' nest.

I felt overwhelmed by its being there for me to find, by the marvel of its intricate construction, the touching bed of soft furs and fibres at its centre. 

It is amazing what wealth is contained in such a thing. To find it was to encounter ideas of skill without ego; care independent of intellect; endeavor without certainty; design more ancient than I can comprehend. In a moment, I felt all the inexpressible troublings of sorrow and courage, blame and inevitability, fragility, instinct, family, loss, guilt, privilege, tenderness...

This small, wild triumph, overthrown by the oafish plod of urban imperatives, was almost weightless in my hands. I understood all there was to understand in the breath-held flash of first encounter, and felt as though I had stumbled on a priceless bounty.

Of course, the only way I know to honour it is to draw it. And that is an immense task!

I have begun - and already there are problems. For instance: I have, so typically, let the drawing outgrow its frame. Will I fit in enough for it to look wonderful, still? Will there be enough information, even, for it to look like a nest? I will press on, rather than begin anew. There is too much already that is nice about it: the smoke-grey, textured spaces where the ink has been erased are beautiful, and there is a momentum in the composition that I like.

If I need more space, I'll divide this one in two and add a third panel. The important thing is just to trust, isn't it? To keep building, twig by twig, in the faith that it will come to completion and serve its function before any other forces come to cast it aside.

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