Photo: Recent Sketchbook pages
Hello everyone and thank you for taking the time to read my weekly notes. I hope you are keeping well. I have been thinking of friends in snowy places who have seen true winter arriving at their doors. We have had frosty bright days and are now bracing ourselves for a windy storm.
Another very busy week has gone by, one with so many things going on from stitching to painting, an interview with a magazine (I will tell you more when I can) and making time for my own personal projects in the evenings. I want to share some of my ‘for home’ stitch projects in the near future.
Now I am living here in town the churchyard over the road has become my adopted garden. Be assured, I do not dig or plant here but I do feel quite content to walk about the old stone paths, sit in the sun on one of the various benches and listen to the birds. I am looking forward to watching each season here. A thriving churchyard might seem like a strange, oxymoron-ish phrase, but in a well-tended and thoughtful yard there is so much more to see beside headstones. Of course ‘my’ churchyard has an ancient yew tree with sprawling limbs. There are shrubs for wildlife to nest and old brick walls that must be teeming with insects. I’ve been looking for signs of spring flowers but they are few. It is just January, I tell myself, but I am hungry for warmer days and spring inspiration.
Dreaming about the days ahead, I have painted a couple of works on paper. These will be offered for sale in my update later.
Photo: Crow in the spring churchyard - gouache on paper (21cm x 19cm)
Photo: Lady Blackbird in the spring churchyard - gouache on paper (21cm x 19cm)
Both paintings are about looking at ground level, or even looking up slightly. Whilst neither feature headstones, I hope they capture some of the peaceful, slightly wild at the edges feel of the place.
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I began work on a new concertina book - here’s a photo showing you glimpses at what I hope will become quite a multi-panelled book. Not sure how wide I want it to be. As I am working on watercolour paper, I need to think about thickness of paper and how it will eventually come together physically as well as aesthetically.
Photo: A view of a concertina book in progress. I am thinking of it as not a continuing moment but glimpses of time within a place. I will be working on this piece over time and will share more progress with you.
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Shop News
Here are notes on my future updates.
Sunday 21st Jan - 7pm UK time - I will be adding to my shop new tiny paintings and also the two new spring paintings on paper. Preview from 5pm. This is when you can see all the new artworks before they are available.
Wednesday 24th Jan - 8pm UK time - I hope to have a further selection of embroidery portraits. Preview from 5pm.
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Photo: sketchbook pages from July 2018 - surprisingly wintry!
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A Few Small Stories
The old fashioned chemist shop reminds me of my childhood and I don’t suppose there are so many around these days. It sells a little of everything, from perfumes to bath salts, old and new remedies. The pharmacist is especially kind and takes time to get to know people. I go and collect my repeat prescription, hoping I am not too early for it to be ready. I tell the pharmacist my name and she looks at me carefully with her beautiful brown eyes. She repeats my name. Are you her or picking up for her? She asks me. You are not the face that matches in my mind with the name. Eye drops? No, I say, not eye drops. Are you sure you are her?
Now that is a question. I hesitate. I look away from her kindly eyes and for a moment doubt myself. Am I sure? I take a moment to inspect the nasal sprays. How sure can one ever be? I am sure, I say, though with a slight hesitation. The pharmacist looks again at her computer and sees my medicine has just arrived. All is well. There must be more than one of you, but not such a common name? Indeed. Somewhere out there. Another.
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Most of my immediate neighbours have feathers. Many are pigeons, some wood pigeons but others are - well, who are they? Some are pale, with pink tinged feathers and others have the more distinctive street pigeon colouring. No matter their exact appearances, the pigeons are a part of my daily life and often interrupt me, in their own gentle ways, when I am working. Back in the ‘old place’, as we now refer to it, I would often hear my human neighbours sweeping their paths with a broom, in an almost obsessive way, throughout the seasons. I have missed this sound which had become a comfort.
Up here in the attic there is a ledge, deeper and wider than a windowsill, just below the windows - and this is used as a pigeon chasing circuit. I hear a bickering and ruffling of feathers. The cooing and almost sigh-cooing of pigeons. This on/off commotion throughout the day makes me smile. The pigeons also congregate on other parts of nearby architecture: there’s a lovely old chimney pot, not in use. Roof tops with their own microcultures of moss, lichen and insects provide snacks. I love my feathered neighbours but am sure I could not ever trust them with a spare key. If, when it is warmer and I have the windows open, if one decides to pop inside and ask for a cup of sugar, I will try to be neighbourly and put their health first, though just thinking of a bird sitting on my work table brings me so many mixed emotions.
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In the supermarket: are we still talking about the fish? The man asks. The woman glares at a packet of biscuits. The woman mutters: We moved on from fish three hours ago Ricardo! I look at the gentleman, this Ricardo fellow with his ageing small features and thinning red hair. Not a Ricardo, no, how can he be? In my mind, a Ricardo has a Shakespearean flourish about him, he is tall and olive-skinned with a sword in his belt. That’s the thing: you can’t judge anyone by a name alone. We shall never ever, the woman says, talk about fish again. Not for today, anyway. They move on down the aisle. It seems fish is a tetchy subject.
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Thank you always for reading here. Thanks for subscribing and especially thank you to everyone who has bought me a coffee to help support my writing- so grateful to you.
Hi there, Cathy. Was wondering if I could share you story about the chemist in my Substack. Would like to include your blackbird paintings as well. Will include a link to your Substack and to your shop. I write about spirituality and art and want to use your story as part of an exploration on “is it me? Am I sure?” Thank you.
Strangely, I know a Ricardo like the one you describe. Was he Scottish by any chance?