Photo: recent sketchbook pages - figures making the most of any September, sunshine, finding comfort in the small everyday.
It has been A Week. A week of great changes in British life.
Not to mention the weather. Looking out of my window this morning, I see complex storeys of webs, arching into and over hedges and in the cradles of bare branches. Autumn is here, just about, though perhaps we might wait until the equinox (23rd) to say it is so….. But as soon as it becomes cardigan weather, and socks in bed weather, you just know….
I am in a reflective mood, as many are. The Queen was a surrogate Granny to so many of us, especially those of us who have lost a Granny, simply because she was everywhere in our lives: a constancy….. Yesterday, watching the proceedings and formalities of a new King, I covered my dining table with paper, book pages, glue and a large cardboard box. It is time, with so many books, to make a new bookcase! And as soon as it looks like a bookcase and not a cardboard box I will show you! Of course, now, I will always remember how I began to make this newest piece of furniture. Watching the new King, but more than anything fascinated by the body language of all those ex-prime ministers and others as they watched on.
Soon enough, I gave up watching the news and worked in my sketchbooks - a place to escape and reflect and invent. I work in them throughout the week, sometimes just for a moment. There was a time, some years ago, when I would devote an entire day or even weekend to just working on my sketchbooks. I have not done that for a while. I must do that again….. The people who inhabit my sketchbooks - because, yes, I really do believe they come alive in them - are friendly ghosts of the past or a past that never was. They comfort and intrigue, they come to tell tales and lead me on…
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Photo: recent sketchbook page - the figures who gather to wait and reflect
I don’t feel I have many small stories from this week to share. Except, yes, I will tell you about two ‘encounters’ from the past. Both to do with the Queen.
The first is nothing much - my one sighting of the Queen, that is Queen Elizabeth II. It was back in the early 90’s. I was in Ruislip, West London, waiting to cross the road at traffic lights. I stood at the side of the road, watching the traffic and a large dark car slowly went by. It took me a long moment to realise, to spy the unmistakable shape of the Queen, her semi-darkened silhouette, sat alone in the back of the car. She was on her way to who knows where. I knew in that moment that was going to be the closest I was ever likely to get. I was fascinated and then I got on with my day….
A few years later and I am standing before one of my favourite paintings in the National Portrait Gallery. It is an overwhelming expanse of paint dedicated to Queen Elizabeth I. She is a larger than life, otherworldly and exquisite. She is also somehow quite hideous and I feel some delight in all of it. I must have been standing and staring at this portrait for quite a while because a gentlemen came up to me and whispered just behind my ear: She is the one, isn’t she? Before I could get a proper look at him the gentleman, dark-clad and of middling age, had disappeared down a corridor of dark paintings. I marvelled at this encounter and for some time decided it had to be the ghost of some courtier, or possibly the artist himself. Now, I am more sure that it was simply a gentleman, a fellow admirer.
photo: recent sketchbook pages
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This week coming I plan to offer a special, larger selection of tiny paintings. Now and then I like to spend time really focused on a larger group of the tiny ones. I know they sometimes sell quite quickly and so I hope this special batch will offer an opportunity for more people to add to or start their collection. It’s likely to be a real mix of subjects and ideas. If you have any suggestions or ideas on your wish-list please let me know in comments or email. You are always welcome to email me, as several people do, and I try to reply asap.
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On one of our trips to London we were walking down Pall Mall near St. James Palace when a black car turned and passed tight next to us and we found ourselves mere feet away from Princess Anne! it might have been the same day that we came upon Horse Guards Parade with countless riders mounted on shiny black steeds in impeccable formation. You can imagine how that got my heart fluttering! To be honest, I have always been fascinated by The Queen, her ability to maintain dignity and composure through all manner of events. That Queen Elizabeth was performing her Royal duties only two days before her passing is astonishing. With the madness going on this side of the Pond I find the solemn beauty of Royal rituals quite reverent and calming. I wouldn’t choose the lifestyle for myself, but then neither did she. 71 years of service is enough to give me pause...
I’ve seen the Queen a few times over the years and was surprised at how sad I felt as I am not at all a monarchist, quite the opposite actually. I never spoke to her but had a few words with Philip once. This morning was a bit of jolt watching the hearse leave as the funeral director providing the hearse was the one I used for my mum when she passed last December.