Hello Everyone
photo: a spring robin - landscape painting - gouache on paper
I hope you are well. We are now in the spring zone - sun is forecast for the next several days and people are dressing in an ever-more confused fashion. Take a walk in my neighbourhood and see the flip flops mingling with padded jackets. I love to see how people dress to express themselves - there is no wrong way of doing this. When I draw and paint figures, I tend toward a strict dress code of my own imagination. You may have noticed I tend to dress ‘my people’ in simple, timeless clothing that might belong to the past - but a past that is quietly eclectic and not fixed. There are elements of Victorian and Edwardian fashion in my artwork, because this is what I instinctively draw upon. I always have. I collect antique photographs and have these on display, rotating faces and dresses. I like black and white clothing. For myself, I love to wear black with just a little colour. Over time the people in my paintings have quietly whispered their influence into my own wardrobe.
Photo: a tiny spring painting
Now it is spring, I have spent the past week painting - people and rabbits, and flowers, and trees. As I find a new figure in a landscape, so I know she will have a dark skirt to contrast with the light-filled greening of the world she stands within. I have enjoyed discovering stories in paint this week. I have painted tiny figures and not quite so tiny figures.
photo: forget-me-nots - a landscape painting (spot the rabbit)
The rabbits have definitely arrived, at least on my work table if not in the neighbourhood. I found myself painting this rabbit, who wanted to visit the churchyard. As you may know, the church yard across the road from where I live is my adopted back garden; I go there to sit or just wander about.
photo: a rabbit in the churchyard - gouache on paper
I love to paint and draw rabbits, but they must be my own, with a folk art feel about them. I could reproduce a photograph portrait - but why? No, I want to say something more, to give character, a hint of a personality beyond the wild.
photo: a group of tiny rabbit paintings
There will be a good number of tiny paintings in my shop today and several paintings on paper. You can preview all of these now. They will be available from 7pm UK time - Please note: clocks changed here in the UK - we are now on BST one hour ahead - so please check the time difference if you are not in these isles - thank you!
There is a link to my shop at the end of these notes.
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Reading Notes
I have read a good dozen or so books so far this year. 2025 is the year of reading non-fiction for me, but I am allowing myself some fiction too. If I am interested in a book, I will give it a try - more than ever I don’t care what genre or if the author is someone I know. I am finding great enjoyment from reading recently published books and also authors in translation.
Some highlights so far this year then:
I picked up Hollow by B. Catling - from the fantasy and science fiction section of my local library. I don’t usually stray into those realms but decided let’s see. I am so glad I did as this book was superb, absurdly wonderful. Inspired by the paintings of Bosch and Bruegel, the novel tells a story of a journey - less-than-holy mercenaries are conveying an ‘oracle’, a religious relic/entity to a monastery several weeks' journey away. Their travels take them into a hellish, complex landscape of impossible terrain and ridiculous, insane creatures. If you fancy getting lost in the absurd worlds of Bosch and Bruegel, with a strong female character also playing a part in the narrative, then may I recommend this book. Yes, I read it in bed before sleeping and yes it did make my dreams ever more interesting.
The Bone Chests by Cat Jarman
This non-fiction book is subtitled: Unlocking the Secrets of the Anglo-Saxons. I found it enlightening and also quite tricky to follow - but no fault of the author - all those kings called Ethel-something! It was a complex time, with so many kingdoms, fracturing and invasion, Vikings and Normans, the early establishment of Christianity in England, noble women as concubines, trade and slave routes, land grabs and war taxes (life never changes that much). The bone chests are several, to be found in Winchester cathedral. During the seventeenth century civil war, less-than-respectful Parliamentarian soldiers forced their way into Winchester and vandalised, stole and desecrated graves. There is now uncertainty surrounding just whose bones are in these chests and they are still subject for debate. But the stories these chests offer us are many and that’s why this book, using the chests as their focus, is so illuminating.
Other books I have read and would recommend:
Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck - translated from German by Susan Bernokfsky - a short fiction work (a little longer than a novella perhaps).
Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife - Hetta Howes - non-fiction - explores the lives of medieval women and the challenges they faced. A very good read especially if you are not familiar with the subject or want to read more on it.
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Sketchbooks / artist books
The small book I showed a glimpse of last week - here are more pages for you to see. I am already putting together bits and bobs in a box ready to make another book. It is my intention to make several small books over the spring and summer months. These will be sketchbooks, of a sort. Nothing is precious, everything is available to be cut up and reinvented. Making these small books allows me the space to work in a more abstracted way, perhaps, but also I simply enjoy cutting, sticking and finding possibilities.
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Small Stories
These stories are inspired by my day-to-day creative life and should be read as small fictions.
Unwritten
Life’s what you see in people’s eyes, writes Virginia Woolf in her short fiction piece: An Unwritten Novel. I am thinking about this today as I make my way through the crowded street. The warm weather has encouraged people to dress up but also to hide their eyes behind sunglasses. The little boy in a pram, his bright eyes looking about, gives away nothing less than innocence. He is thrilled to be here, sitting up to watch the shape and clatter of people, the mingling of colours and flighty children jumping around. He does not see into anyone’s eyes, cannot doubt, or try to second-guess. He is always thinking, without thinking about thinking, and makes sure his mother is near.
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Visit
I often think of how it will be when you come to visit me. I will meet you in the street, by a shop just round the corner. You will know me because my heart will be beating extra-fast and I will have my hand open, ready to greet you. We will walk through the courtyard and to the tucked-away door. At the foot of stairs to the attic I will ask you if you will manage the two steep flights. Just take your time, I say, and you will insist it shall be no problem at all. Once upstairs I will open the door and you will do what every other visitor has done - you will sigh and wander around and say: yes, yes, this is cosy, this is you, I understand now. We can have tea together. We can look out of the window at the budding horse chestnut tree. Or we might watch the jackdaws playing on the fire escape. When it is time for you to leave, I will be looking for that tiny something I must give as a gift, a thank you for visiting me. But you will not mind if I cannot find anything quite small enough for you to tuck under your wing. I’ll open a sash window, the street noise drifting in, and you will fly away home.
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Purple
Just look at those checked trousers, a woman says to her elderly friend, they look smart. They stand arm in arm, staring at the window display of a ladies’ clothing shop. Am I supposed to like them? The elderly lady asks. I think so, the younger woman replies, tentatively. But if you don’t like them there’s lots of other things to see inside. My father would have had a pair of trousers just like those, the elderly woman says. What, purple trousers? her friend asks. The older woman nods and says: Why not, why not, he was a professor you know!
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I love your rabbits Cathy - I am certain they will be a popular addition to your shop. I especially enjoyed your small story “The visit “
I love painting...of a rabbit painting! Cathy, your talent is boundless. I liked hearing how your painting preferences in clothing have dribbled over into your real life, and of course, I love your short fictions. Just wonderful.