photo: sketchbook from 2019
The heatwave came, we battled and kept the windows closed. Paint dried too quickly, so I worked in the closeted curtained darkness using my sewing machine. Actually, I had planned a few days or more of stitching so it worked out well. I stitched and stitched. I have a basic machine, an Elna purchased at the beginning of this century. So she is not antique but vintage, I would say, in machine terms. A basic machine with the dog feed down and stuck down because it is broken, but happily so. My machine can get grumpy at times, because she is getting on a bit, and I try my best to be understanding. I need to take her apart and clean her this week coming. So there may or may not be new stitch work coming in the next update…. I am always anxious about taking my machine apart to clean her but the truth is she is in the only hands she knows. I will never give her to anyone to service or repair. I can’t bear for anyone else to have such intimacy. When we work together she becomes a strange extension of my finger tips, or my hands become a part of the machine. However it works, it works for us. There will come a day when she simply does not wish to stitch any more, I know that, it is inevitable. I am not sure who will stop being able to stitch first though - me or the machine? Could she possibly go on and on, just as a Victorian manual-handle machine might still work today?
Could I possibly make the kind of stitch work I make on any other machine? I can’t imagine…
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It is a truth that artists will sometimes work themselves into their work. It might be a favourite hat sitting on a chair, or a pair of gloves on a garden fence, or a reflection in a glass, or a tiny face in a scene of tiny faces…. I have not painted a self portrait for a while, a self-portrait of myself explicitly. It’s a good thing to do, from time to time, I feel. The process of looking at yourself objectively - or as an object - to paint, helps to break your ego down a little. We are all eyes when we paint ourselves. But shyness would have it that I like to live in the shadows a little. Not marginalised, exactly. So when I wrote the poem below, a little while ago, I remember writing a description of myself as a ‘merry ghost’ and smiling. I hope it makes sense to other shy folk, to others who travel through time in constant loops of inspiration….
SELF PORTRAIT WITH JUG OF FLOWERS
First I will sketch the jug and then the flowers.
I will make them numerous, enough to hide
behind. No one will mind, I will become
my own, irregular motif.
Perhaps a mirror reflected on a wall is enough
to suggest I might have made an appearance
at one point in the consideration of paint.
For what am I but my own merry ghost?
A figment of loose ideas
done up in skin and held inside a skirt.
Maybe it would be acceptable to the judging eye
for me to simply appear as a ruffle,
or a riff in the paint, an unravelling, of sorts.
Just specks of eyes.
Not really looking, hands arranging the flowers
in the jug but only a suggestion of flesh amongst golds
and greens.
A flash of human activity, a moment's serenity.
Not really all there.
photo: a sketchbook with self portrait from 2018
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A few small stories from this week
Wretched heat. Can’t bear the airless closed in room. Yet somehow I have a craving for knitting! I have not had much woolly interest for a while, but now, despite sweating and cursing, I am inspired to look again at half-finished knitting projects. Perhaps this is my mind’s way of cooling down - thinking ahead to winter jumpers. I make a renewed start on something but then new inspiration finds me. A drawing of a medieval owl wearing a red cowl or collar. Medieval owls - indeed medieval creatures of all kinds - are wondrous inspiration at any time. But I have a thing about knitting owls. If you ever visit you may see them, sitting in the living area of my home, just hanging out. So I have been knitting an owl. And I started a new jumper for the cooler months ahead.
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Walking across the park, my daughter and I talk about all our ‘off track’ wanderings. She has become more confident at exploring the smaller wooded areas, the little tunnels of trees and finding streams. Walking along my daughter spots something high in a tree that she says looks like an old t-shirt. How did that get up there? She asks. I tell her it is not a shirt but was at some point a kite and has been there for years now. I will be sad when it is gone, finally so tatty it can fly again.
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Favourite summer drink: orange and cinnamon tea with a splash of apple juice. Either warm or cool with ice cubes.
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I have been collecting seed from plants in the neighbourhood (not other people’s gardens - from bits of waste or public land). I have kept a keen eye on plants. So the other day I saw the columbine had ripe seed pods. I know the flowers were such a delicate pale pink. So I took a few pods and have more than enough seeds. I am now keeping an eye on honesty…
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I have joined a Saturday morning abstract painting group. There’s not many of us - just me in my pj’s with apron. The main purpose of the Saturday morning abstract group is to spread lots of paper around and to work through ideas of colour and shape, enjoying the process and moving about. It’s really a dance class. The type of dance class that requires you to not worry how you look. I hope eventually the group might attract one or two new members, if anyone would like to come over and just paint. Dance.
photo: sketchbook from 2011 - this one makes me smile so much
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I love the idea of your Saturday abstract painting group! I have always loved your abstracts and hope to see some new ones in the weeks and months to come. The celebration of painting freely punctuated by outbreaks of dance is certain to yield some beautiful fruit! And we, too, have had two full weeks of exhausting heat, the landscape limp with thirst. Last night we finally had rain and things have cooled a bit, with more storms forecast in the coming week. I did want to thank you for answering my question about travel last week. I did not have time to respond then, but found it fascinating that you mentioned Japan, which is where I was born. I have not been back, but am drawn to things Japanese and revere the wabi sabi aesthetic. My baby albums are so special-- I love being able to see my early years in a place from which I have no memories. Fortunately they were well documented! Also had no idea that you had spent so much time in the US! Your posts are a wealth of wonderful and surprising information and I am so thankful that you share it with us! ❤️
I just loved that poem, it really resonates with me. I look forward to your Studio notes popping up, usually when I’m on the bus to work. I like the idea of your Saturday morning abstract class and may join from a distance. Hope you have a lovely week.