studio May 4 2020

My place of work on the morning of May 4 2020. Not an auspicious date, but nevertheless a day of great beauty; breezy with sunshine and the scent of blossom on the air.Unable to sleep, I begin work early, searching through the boxes where I store drawings , seeking the drawings I made of the transits of Venus and Mercury, determined to photograph them and post them in this online diary, which I did in the previous post to this. That is my work for the morning, despite the pencil laid across the piece of paper on my drawing board, as though I had just put it down after making a mark.

We are in, I believe, week six of 'lockdown'. I find myself unable to respond, in terms of making images,to this desperate and strange time. I read of artists who are documenting the strangeness and fear, but I am dumbfounded, as though the breath, the words, and the images have been thrust back inside myself. I speak with my sisters, and my brother-in-law, and we compare strategies for surviving the fear and the out of kilter slant which now characterises our days.

I wonder afresh about the stencils I mentioned in an earlier post; those of the man, woman, and child. Do I purchase them, and make an attempt at describing through drawings something of the unusual isolation those of us who are not keyworkers are experiencing? I do not, as yet, know the answer to this question. I believe that I have spent the days of this curious period effectively, for the most part, taking photgraphs of the work that has occupied me for the last four years, during which time this diary remained silent and bare of image, and posting them herein. I have also sat for hours in our little garden,  the abundant sunlight to caress my skin, enjoying the sight of the Lily of the Valley coming into full glory to scent the air with sweetness, the elegant pale irises gradually unfurling.

 Just now, there is the whiff of woodsmoke on the air drifting through the open window of the room in which I sit to commit these words to the diary, a rich and evocative reminder of past bonfires, both in the grounds of the lodge, and my parents' garden. I recall that only a few years ago, my mother was still able to gather garden debris and , with my help, build a fire at the bottom of the garden. She is now unable to do so, indeed, can no longer even visit the garden unaided. At this time of the year, the burnished crown of the year, the garden will be as a lost wilderness, a riot of burgeoning spring growth, peonies, bluebells, yellow poppies and tall grasses, philadelphus and honeysuckle. There will be birds threading the sequestered air, unseen by my mother, who is now confined to one room of the house. We all tremble at what the future may hold.