Hello Everyone,
photo: a new tiny portrait - one of seven coming to my shop today (see shop news below).
I hope you are well and have enjoyed a little sunshine this week. It has been especially busy for me and I am attempting to pace myself, as ever.
I want to thank you for all the supportive comments and emails I received following last week’s notes. If I have not replied to you please know I have read and am catching up with soon. Your kindness and understanding is appreciated, especially as I was anxious about sharing such a personal piece of writing. I am giving us both a break from this series of personal insights this week - and will share part two ‘Reinvention’ some time soon.
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A few weeks back I began work on a new small artist book - the pages are simply folded vintage postcards that I have sewn together to make a booklet. I thought I would share here several photos of pages that have come together. There is still plenty of work to do - I am making time at the beginning or end of my painting days.
Photo: showing how I have added pages into the original booklet. Layers of brown and found book pages, with drawings in gouache.
So what began as simple becomes more complex - with interesting perspectives - here you can see a cat on a windowsill
I hope to share a video of this book, once it is complete - which I hope will be soon. Then it may be easier to explain all the layers and added pages - but for now I hope you might enjoy seeing how the book is evolving.
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Shop News
photo: a new tiny portrait - one of seven coming to my shop today
Thank you to everyone who has made a recent purchase from my shop. I am now pleased to say my April/May postcard club is available - whilst stocks last. I am still very busy with painting lucky dip orders. Please allow me 4-5 working days to have your order ready to send. I am especially grateful to everyone!
Today I have a group of seven tiny portraits going into my shop at 7pm UK time
Update: Sunday 14th April 7pm UK time - with preview from about 5pm
Following this - my next planned update will be Sunday 21st April at 7pm UK time.
I plan to begin work on a new collection of embroidery portraits some time soon. Possibly the collection will be available at the start of May? That’s still to be confirmed by Margery, my sewing machine (and my schedule/imagination). Thanks for your understanding. I do not have hidden stock of embroidery pieces - though people often ask me. I look forward to sharing more as and when and will let you know here first.
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A few small stories
(note: to new readers/subscribers - this section of my studio notes features small stories I have written especially to share with you here. I am working toward a book of small stories - that is a long term plan. These may be considered auto-fiction, or biographical, observations from my world. Thanks for reading. I am also considering making a podcast of me reading a selection of stories - watch this space.)
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Jane Eyre
I admit my mind often wanders to near and far places. I am painting the blossom on a tiny tree in a tiny landscape when a question presents itself, without my knowing quite why. Had I been thinking of Jane Eyre? Not particularly, but here I am trying to remember how Jane’s parents die. Her orphan status is the catalyst for her story-journey. And I have for some time rated Jane Eyre, the novel, as one of my top favourites. So why now do I feel deep shame in not knowing. I continue to paint. It will come to me. I rinse my brushes and decide a tea break is needed. There is a temptation to reach for my phone and find the answer. But I am attempting to reach for my phone less these days and allow the answer to come to me, eventually. It is not that I need to know right now. Having any answer in easy reach is such a distraction. I fill the kettle and my mind is blank. Of course, of course I can let my brain slowly process through the great detritus of literary thoughts and scribbled memories. Of course, I can remember how your story begins, Jane, I say aloud, for I often feel Jane is almost a real woman and not a fictional character. She has become real through the retelling of the story, over and over. She is remade, re-cast, re-fashioned and no doubt one day soon there will be an AI Jane Eyre in a town near you.
And how did Jane’s parents die?*
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Never Knowingly
Gone are the days when you can simply sling some clothes on and leave the house, a woman declares to her two coffee-drinking companions. The woman continues: years ago it was different, it was easier. Now you have to put false eyelashes on just to go to the supermarket! The other women shake-nod their heads as if agreeing and disagreeing in equal measures. I can’t be doing with all that, the woman with a pierced nose and long grey hair says. I’ve never knowingly worn false eyelashes in my life! The women laugh together. Well, the third woman says: when I was younger I never knowingly brushed my hair or my teeth for weeks on end! There is a silent moment as if respecting a past that cannot be spoken of in easy, happy snatches of conversation. Yes, the first woman says, we all have our own experiences.
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Peter Rabbit
I see ahead of us two large rabbit ears. A security guard is escorting Peter Rabbit through the busy lane of shoppers.There’s a person inside a Peter Rabbit costume - I have to tell myself this - a person is inside. I am suddenly afraid to get too close, for I have never felt comfortable around actors, especially the kind that are overheating inside bulky costumes. I always feel embarrassed for them and at the same time ashamed that I don’t have more respect. A picture book character made large is somehow scary for me, even as an adult. I cannot help but feel Beatrix Potter would be outraged by the sheer size of this Peter Rabbit - for he is at least five foot eight tall with ears on. How, how and in which wise universe is this plausible, I say to my daughter but she simply takes my hand. It’s not for you, Mum, it’s not for you.
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Birthday
It is my daughter’s birthday. She is the age I was when she was born. There must be a special term for this - at least, it has a nice Maths and poetry about it. She is exactly half my age. When we stand together she is much shorter and I can rest my chin on her fair head. She will always be my faery child.
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£3-something-an-hour
My sister and I are reminiscing, riffing our memories together, mostly to do with the various jobs we have suffered through for the sake of £3-something-an-hour. Feeling my age, I remember the time I worked in a job that would not exist today: filing clerk. It was just a temp job but I do not forget those rooms and rooms of metal filing cabinets. I worked for British Airways and my task was to do filing for the personnel department. It was semi-interesting seeing the old photos of air crew, but not daring to read too much. I was on my feet all day but kept busy. Compare that to working in a shop with no customers coming through the door but a hopeless sales target - both my sister and I had that.
Later, I think of us as little children playing shop: stacking tins from our grandmother’s larder, or making shop displays of random objects: fancy glass paperweights and fabric flowers. How life was so much simpler then. Granny popping in and out of the kitchen to buy her own cigarettes back from us.
And what now? We have both been fortunate with making work for ourselves. Somehow, despite everything, and as much as I sometimes feel people were generally happier back then, I am glad to be away from the filing cabinets and petty cash of the past.
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*Oh dear, the answer is just simply: typhoid. But you knew that already, possibly!
sketchbook pages from 2010 featuring drawings inspired by Jane Eyre! Seeing these drawings again makes me want to get a moleskine and start a dedicated pencil book of drawings dedicated to favourite book characters etc..
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Thanks for reading here, for all your kind comments and likes. I appreciate you spending time with me most Sundays. If you would like to buy me a coffee this is always welcome.
Thank you for another wonderful newsletter. They are always filled with creative goodness and beautiful stories :)
NOTE: No spoiler here, so thank you for answering "the question." Otherwise, I would have had to visit Google this Sunday morning.