photo: recent sketchbook pages
I remember summers, baking summers, when blood-suckers were everywhere. They covered the pavement and climbed the walls of front gardens. These tiny red mites - what were they? We children called them blood-suckers and would dare each other to walk on them with bare feet. We would squish them to see them as painterly marks on the hot grey concrete. Such delightful children! Summer was flying ant season, swarms of wasps would hang about bins filled with ice lolly wrappers. Bees filled up roses - who would stick their nose into a rose without giving it a good shake first?! And now, where are we? Hardly a wasp in sight these days. Maybe they are all in our attics, waiting. Yikes. Where are the blood-suckers? I haven’t seen them in years. Do they still hang out on London pavements? Is it just that I am not there any more? Am I not looking hard enough?
Our climate is changing, more drastically than ever. But it has always altered and there have been summer droughts and floods for centuries. Our ideas of summer matter to us because we make them so. We take and make motifs: roses, strawberries, the seaside…. sunburn, ice cubes, plagues of ants.
Just looking at historical paintings of summer you can get an idea of what it might have been like in the hazy past and yet we know artists make big fibber paintings. They play up to their audiences, they entertain. So we know not to trust artists! All those sweeping landscapes, those endless summer days, so chaste and delightful- I can go along with that Watteau - I don’t believe you, but then why should anyone. I admire historical painters because they were big fibbers who revelled in illusion, they were actors of paint, they played intelligently and with skill. They had some romance about them. They had stories to tell.
Now, of course, painting has changed and romance is dead. Or, at least, the romantic in painting is dead. If you want big contemporary success you can try to be romantic so long as it is ever so ironic. When I look at some of (some not all) contemporary painting in big brick galleries I wonder if beauty is dead, at least painting-wise. There is a sheer ugliness and a reaching toward absurd grotesque that is bewildering to the eye. Of course, I am generalising. Of course, what do I know - I know I don’t have anything to do with that world because - why? I am grateful, at fifty and a few years, to know what I like thanks. And I need to pay bills. I don’t have the resources, the connections. I can’t fret about that stuff. I need to pay bills and stay sane and true to myself.
I’m here to tell you that it is ok to like what you like and thank you for liking my work. Thank you, it is humbling.
photo: recent sketchbook pages
Of course, I am a person mostly baffled by things contemporary. I have to ask my kids (now in their twenties) to check if I am understanding certain things correctly. I ask if this really means that. They are not the most street-wise or fashion savvy. I feel, as a neuro-diverse family, we have our advantages and disadvantages.
We simply won’t like something because we think we should. We don’t feel inclined toward fashion, fitting in, turning up, being seen, understanding what the latest thing is. If we don’t want to play the social media game, we won’t play it. But this doesn’t mean we want to exist in our own little bubble, we do like to connect with others. If we like pretty things, old-fashioned ideas, then so be it. Given half a chance I would spend most summer days reminiscing endlessly about ice-cream vans and blood suckers on pavements. My kids, like any others, are good at tuning me out.
And meanwhile, no matter how many followers one might attract on social media, you will be tuned out by the thing itself. You will see just how few people get to see your posts. And you can choose to believe in an eternal summer of connectivity, or realise that if someone is really interested they will make a bit of effort themselves to see what you have to share with the world….
And so it goes on…. the seasons turn, we are halfway through a year and just past the longest day…..
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And as a footnote to this ramble: I will be posting less to Instagram. I like it there but it sucks my time, I have to fight the app in so many time-destroying ways, I won’t go into it… You know what it is like, if you have this app on your phone.
I am continuing to use Flickr as a place to store photos, so that I have them safely stored because too many people I know have had their Instagram accounts hacked. I encourage you to see my photos on Flickr and follow me and connect with me there, if you would like.
To be able to showcase and share my work before I update my shop each week I will continue to ‘preview’ on Instagram stories - but I also will be previewing in my shop.
From around midday Wednesday until 7pm (UK time) you will be able to see all the new work as ‘coming soon’ - in my shop*. So, you will be able to see photos, descriptions, prices etc.. It will all be there. You won’t be able to buy during this time. But you will get this chance to see and possibly, hopefully, this will help you.
Then, from about 7.30pm my shop will go into ‘maintenance mode’ - as it usually does - and I will be busy making finally checks on details, changing everything to available for sale etc.. and at 8pm my shop will go ‘live’.
I hope this makes some sense and works for us. Please do email me, use the contact form on my site, if you have questions.
*I may continue to add a few things to my shop during the Wednesday afternoon/evening.
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photo: recent sketchbook pages
A few small notes from this week:
I saw a neighbour walking by holding a vase of beautiful tall flowers - they looked like snapdragons and delphiniums. She was walking with purpose, delivering them to someone around the corner. I just loved seeing that moment, the flashing beauty of the flowers, the woman walking with her chin up because of the tall stems and her happiness.
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Weeks on from buying it, I have finally painted and planted up my Flying Tiger greenhouse
As you may see from the photo, I have watched x number of YouTube videos and decided to plant the greenhouse as a terrarium, of sorts. I put grit and charcoal in the bottom layers then coir compost with more grit, moss from the garden path and a few plants. My daughter came home from work and took a look. I like the stick, she said, the stick you are using to prop the lid up.
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I have been in a reading slump. It happens. But this week I picked up a library book - The Millstone by Margaret Drabble and was hooked from the first page. Her writing is so good. I am so grateful to have my reading back. I hate not feeling the need to look at books. When I am not reading I am like a cat who’s off its food.
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Thank you for reading here. If you have read through my ramblings this week - my sincere thanks. Please leave a comment, subscribe if you have yet to. If you enjoy reading these weekly notes please consider buying me a coffee - it really does help out - and thanks to everyone who has bought me one or even subscribed to buying regularly (which is an option). Much appreciated.
Your thoughts are always a welcomed treat, Cathy, as are your recent wonderful collage works, thank you for sharing. I am especially in love with your skirts. The bees are being missed here as well. As another fifty-something member of a neuro-diverse family, I very much identify with the caring/not caring takes on the world out there- comfort and contentment seem to be our goals. Very grateful to finally be reaching a place of knowing how to pick and choose what works, and happy that my twenty-somethings have figured it out much sooner for themselves!
As always, I greatly appreciate your honesty and heartfelt thoughts about how you move through the world. I find it so puzzling these days, so difficult to navigate the tumult and the noise. Art and nature are my solace but I find that I don’t share on social media any more because it has been infiltrated by a negative energy. Perhaps that is largely due to algorithms and things beyond our control (as so much feels these days). And yet those of us who bring beauty and creativity and humor to others are needed more than ever! Perhaps I will reconsider Flickr. As far as reading, I agree that mine has tapered off this summer and I recognize it as something I need. I will check out Margaret Drabble. A favorite author that I have returned to in recent weeks is Anne Tyler. Her quirky characters remind me somewhat of Barbara Pym. I think it’s refreshing to focus on the characters, the human element, rather than a smashing plot or fast action. I hope you have a lovely week, Cathy! Thank you for all that you share here!