changing

Going under for a while

zc .

Paintings out there

My show is staying up for an extra week, i  settled in for the familiar pain. (  i've an image from a' lady bird book' of a gingerbread man , and the words : ' run run as fast as you can ,you cant catch me i'm the gingerbread man ' and if he doesn't run the fox will eat him , so  how he runs , and oh how  , in the past , me and my little sons have urged him to RUN .) And now i realize its not there ,that pain,  its run out .It must be a lot to do with the amount of people who have bothered to go and look , they cant all have been obliged , or hoping for a good party , I've had to begin to listen to them - a big broad listening -
     Most weeks i have to go to the butcher to buy Jonny a piece of meat , i look at all the different bits of bright bloody animals , and they wonder if i'd like that slice, or ,some of the other ,they touch the meat tenderly with interest , and i say i dont eat it, you choose  , and they apologize , and i apologize , and on we go go .The whole family , father, mother ,3 daughters , and 1 son work there , and they are all very nice people , so i gave them a card for my show , and saw it propped up with the meat orders .  On  my next visit , i heard 2 of them had been and liked it . I longed to eat one of their home made sausage rolls in celebration , cosy and grateful , but i couldn't .
   And as for  other friends and family, my sons, step children, daughters in law, grandchildren all going to  look at my paintings, let alone buy , it does  ,after all, feel as if ive stepped in ( i think that gingerbread man came to a stream ..........Oh dear was it a bad ending ? Yes , it was, i remember  : my eldest son when he was little , pasted paper over the end .  )  to a big warm pool of gratitude and reciprocalness .
     NO image .    Imagine an image - image an imagine    .

ridiculous to paint

This morning i went out early - head down - off to the sea - when i looked up , there was  a translucent blue turquoise gap in the clouds so beautiful  ,  that , it woke me right  up.  Then i thought painting it would be absurd . The very thing that moves me i dont even want to attempt . I wondered if my painting is only  therapeutic  -   amidst that longing -  something a painter friend i deeply admire is completely dismissive of ,  and i hoped i too had a grander vision . I haven't , as  what can be grander than that moment of sky .

  I was bothered all through my walk , an image of my  big messy watercolour lying on the floor wasnt encouraging , and  i nearly got cut off by the fast quiet sea , slipping up behind me. We , (Neddy and i)   were the other side of that water wanting to reach the distant  green buoy . 

(  The fence  i didn't like , for the seals protection, has gone, as have the seals , not even a single slither print left  in the sand .)

    

Red

Ever since the royal wedding i've had a red squarish blob in my eye , not an actual blob , but an after image. it was the colour of that soldier -red jacket Will wore . I didn't think I'd stared THAT much , but now red is startling me . I was sitting on a  sandy tussock very early yesterday morning looking at the wide  empty bay of Holcombe - the tide way away out , when i noticed 2 bright red butterflies on a blade of grass close to my feet  .I very gently pocked one to make it spread its wings , but it collapsed into an unfurled silky  heap of red and black .

     People ask - am i painting now , and i reply: " yes yes ," ( and sometimes add : " but only in my head , or heart .")  And this powerful  red is a good example , following a thread , could be pain,  beauty, a memory , a new uncoiling . I hope its not the ketchimyaku thread - the blood line of the Buddhas - I'm not strong enough for that intensity .

             This fresh  morning was a greener one .  Neddy and i (such a good NONhunting dog ) watched a hare in the sea of wheat , and i thought how similar to a seal it was , float - bobbing,  halting to look ,and bobbing again  through the green .

 Or at least quickly drawing it gave me the same sensation . The green spread each side has to be imagined until i get more computer skilled. 

earth

walking alongside the wheat field , i was sad to see that most of the flints are hidden,   and the earth when i put my hand through the green stalks , is hard and dusty dry . the underground angel is a wisp . And that large stretch of deep green wheat  above seemed uncannily strong .

 A wisp of a face .

          The other side of the path the dandelions were flourishing, I've never seen so  many pink stalks and fluff .

In the shade they still beam  yellow in flower , and will again . Dandelions were one of  the  1st flowers i noticed as a child . so i paint them .( The violets too are bigger and happier than ever this spring.)

I thought it was the 1st time i'd wanted to paint  the dry earth, and strong wheat , but in my studio i noticed  an old painting with the same sense . So ,I'm painting the same thing over and over and over  - in different ways but its all the same search  . One difference now though, is, since my show has opened its all going on one large bit  of paper , AND I'm blogging bits of it ,why and for how long i don't  completely know .

Afterwards

 when i think of my show, sense those images up there, i sink into an indescribable state.Nothing to do with success or failure , or any show label . yes a friend used the word weird , and yes depressed , but its unclear , except i know now, shows are not the route for me. .

 well ,there is always Mrs brown ,

this morning she was bustling by the gate , and pleased with her porridge and organic  - of course - layers mash . I stood watching as the plump blackbird arrived to join her . Mrs brown goes 1st , the blackbird waits , as she makes her special food enjoyment noise , and then she allows her tiny flock to share .

walking by the seals

There's an increasingly long fence on Wells beach that annoys me ,  and notices telling us to : ' help protect seals hauled out on the beach , and keep dogs on lead or under control .'  I know it shouldn't annoy me, and that i surely care about the seals - i do , but perhaps i care about the holiday makers more,  so much of the good strip of beach is taken from them . I'm surprised at my attitude , maybe its just notice boards put in the way of me and the sea.

       I was out early and they were there , the seals ,  safely fenced off, glowing eyes , and simultaneously  doing an anxious slither when they saw Neddy , but when they realized how harmless he was ( obsessed by his ball), they continued to lie on the sand . I'm constantly drawing them , and today i only had a clumsy pen .

   I quickly drew a horrible speed boat going out to sea  , with their fishing rods placed in the front like spears , well they are spears as far as the fish are concerned , and the hunters standing proud as the boat wallops the water .But for a quick drawing i needed  to know more than i saw then , that combination of aggression and pleasure - their stance on the boat - the shape of it , all went by  too fast .

     Neddy was swimming , returning with his ball while the boat went past .

    I wondered about swimming too, but i haven't quite got the real swimmers attitude , and anyway all this, all this blogging, and drawing, and growling at notices , is to distract me from the pain of  my show  coming soon , and to get into that grey green chilly sea might leave me too raw . Unless someone was there safe with a warm towel and hot tea and biscuits .

     I've  the beginning of a swim i did last summer on a 4ft high canvas , to finish one day after a different sort of golden swim .