I keep thinking that I hear the plaintive cry of a cat in distress, and my heart leaps within me.
It is a year to the day of Silas's death, four months since Minos's. They were fourteen and fifteen respectively- how long did I expect their little lives to go on? I miss them, our gentle tabby and ambassadorial black cat.
I have, however, a storehouse of delightful memories of them, and it is to this I return when overcome by loss; they live forever thus.
So sayeth Mrs Brown, the stalwart mother in Enid Bagnold's National Velvet, a book which was given to my by my maternal grandmother, and which, as a child and adolescent, I read over and over again.
If M had not recovered to return to a fulfilling life, if I had found myself struggling to cope with a profoundly devasting situation, the new drawings, 'with my mother in her garden at sunset', could never have been made. As it was, I persisted with the grid drawings until I had exhausted their possibilities, during the time of M's receovery. Now that he is well, and receiving care to offset the subtle health changes wrought upon his being by Covid 19, I am at liberty to take up my work again in a way that feels meaningful. I have discovered that I need solitude from other artists to make my work, in point of fact, I am now quite sure of my various needs in terms of making art in a way that I was not before. I need to be, if not ecstatic, then at least able to distance myself from everyday worries and cares. It appears to be all about finding a balance- when I work, although, as the title of my new work bears witness, I do have my mother and her ongoing pitiful situation in mind, I am now able to create a happiness bubble in order to proceed. The capacity for choosing to take a positive line when I approach my work is now available to me.
M has survived and is retired from work. We garden, talk, walk, and work each at our respective tasks.We have enjoyed the summer thus, despite often shy weather; for every day is a gift. I feel as though, to coin a phrase, a burden has been lifted from my shoulders. Each day I give thanks for his life.
'With my mother in her garden at sunset' is dedicated to my mother.Some years ago, after a day of labour in the garden that had come to be hers on my father's death, we paused to watch a most exquisite, delicate sunset. Lavender, rose, apricot, lemon; it seemed as though all colours were present in subtle hue, as the lights in the sky faded to allow the mitigating presence of a profound inky darkness. We were silent for a spell, as though to speak would shatter the perfection , before we stretched our weary limbs, and, quietly put tools away before stealing back to the house, where we lit the fire and settled with a glass of wine apiece, to take rest in the early Autumn dusk.
A few months have elapsed since my last post, and my work has undergone a sea change.
I persisted with the grid drawings during the course of those months, and concluded that although a few of them retained their importance for me, the most recent did not. For a while I chafed at having spent such a good deal of time and effort in producing them, before I came to my senses and realised that I had learnt from that expenditure of time and effort.
I purchased coloured pencils which glory in the name of 'magic' pencils. They are thick and of hexagonal section; easy to hold, they feel marvellous in one's hand, as though they were made for a child to use. The 'leads' are multicoloured; each pencil has three different colours running through it, so that you cannot be sure which colour or combination of colours will emerge onto the paper. With these lovely instruments I began to scribble, to colour in, using the margins of notepaper to provide a reference. Although liberating in some sense, drawing thus was also disconcerting; I felt that I had lost my way after the strict impositions placed upon my activity by the discipline of the grid drawings.
The paper was not quite right; I found myself looking at previous work for assistance, to wit the drawings of the transit of Venus, made on fine Nepalese tissue. A moment of Epiphany. How else to describe the sudden feeling that the paper I had been searching for was a paper that I had used and loved previously? I felt as though I were being guided by my unconscious; I wasn't sure how much was choice, which implies conscious decision, or a suggestion made from deep within the recesses of my mind. I took a full sheet of the lovely Nepalese tissue and tore it down into eight pieces, each piece having thus irregular edges; this I felt to be important. I began to colour in and gradually the first drawing resolved itself. Enthralled by the process of making the drawing, and, having taken my self by surprise, determined to continue with the series, I persevered and other drawings followed. I could hardly contain my delight at the feeling of happiness which overtook me; a sense of appropriateness in my process, rare and strange. I thought of, and am thinking the while, of Agnes Martin, whose words resonate in my mind; "happiness is the goal".
My partner, M, said that he found the drawings primitive, or naive; this gave me pause for thought and I researched both primitive art, and naive art. I do not know how I consider myself as an artist; I do not qualify as an 'outsider' in that I have received years of formal training, yet with regard to my stance within the 'art world' I almost certainly am. It is complicated! I am happy for my drawings to appear naive- I cannot help them looking that way, and it is a trait that I have borne witness to before now. I only know that these drawings, made with simple colour pencils on handmade paper from the roof of the world, originate from a wellspring that has been at times inconsitent in flow, one that lies deep beneath the surface. The drawings feel 'authentic'; they feel like me, as though I have at last found my voice, and have recognised the discovery as such.
How to present them, should I ever wish to do so - I do- ? Last year, I discovered a local bindery and comissioned them to make for me a linen covered box to house a suite of drawings made thirteen years ago, when I was in pyschiatric hospital, a series of drawings of a chain link fence, made on tissue paper. As with the 'choice' of Nepalese paper upon which to draw, the means by which the 'sunset drawings' are to be presented made itself known to me. A small, linen covered portfolio, custom made, will meet the purpose perfectly. As I conclude each text to my beloved sisters; all's well.
During the days of M's hospitalisation; not quite two weeks, thankfully, I was subject to fear of the most extreme character. I worked and slept, received and made telephone calls. I could barely eat; my body was rigid with anxiety. These two grid drawings, entitled 'in the balance', were made whilst I awaited news of M's condition. The act of drawing calmed and engaged my mind in a manner that was most beneficial. I have since understood that I was using the measured process of making the grid drawings in much the same fashion as I did when I first began to make them; on the occasion of my mother's hospitalisation five years ago.
These two drawings marked the cessation of work for a while; on M's return from hospital, and in the days immediately after his discharge, my entire concern was for his welfare-no drawings were made.
I have since resumed work upon these subtle, idiosyncratic drawings; have resumed my practice of working in long series, and titles for these series spring unbidden to mind. Thus far I have completed 'hitherto', 'henceforth'( for Minos), 'hereafter'( for Silas), 'be that as it may', 'en plein air', and am working on 'in the groove'. I have changed the format slightly, beginning the drawing eight squares from the top of the page instead of, as formerly, ten squares.
It is with a sense of profound relief that I work each day at these drawings, with the advent of summer and M's gradual return to health, the palette of colours that I choose has lightened, and 'sweetened', containing as it does , pale rose pink, an equally pale soft green and blue, lilac, light coffee colour, amongst others.' In the balance' has deep blues and black, with some neon orange; the colours of a street at night in the winter time.
It gives me joy to write of M's recovery, to witness each day his ability to achieve a little more, even though our experience of Covid 19 has had an effect of the most far reaching nature.
The months of Spring were months of recovery for M, and the last months of Minos's life. Towards the end of April, he suddenly became extremely ill, having developed blood clots in both hind legs and lungs; a condition we had been advised about, and had medicated him against. There was no hope for our suffering cat, even though I had wished that he could slip away there in the garden, we were obliged to take him to the vetinary surgeon, where the dose to bring about the end of his life was administered.
We buried him in a cardboard coffin beside his brother, Silas, whom he had survived by seven months, in the garden, and planted pansies over his grave. The garden, despite the presence of the multitude of bees, and gatherings of little birds, seems almost unbearably quiet without him.
I remind myself that both he and Silas lived long, full lives, lives began at the lodge in Hampshire, continued in my mother's garden in Hampshire, and concluded after many years with M and I in Somserset. I remember, also, the game Minos played with an empty snail shell in the days before his death; leaping and diving, and pouncing like a kitten despite his fifteen years. A chapter has closed. I feel intense grief for our beloved cats, but above all, an overwhelming gratitude for their having lived with us in mutual companionship and, it is not too fanciful to say, love.
Only now, at a remove of almost six months do I feel able to recount the events of January 2021. Then, snow fell outside the window, a light fall, clothing the back garden beneath a shroud of white. Today, a day of warmth and sunlight, some days before midsummer, the honeysuckle is in fragrant bloom, and the bees visit the sprawling cotoneaster beyond the window in humming droves.
Midway through the month of January, M and I contracted Covid 19. M rapidly became extremely ill, developing pneumonia and a bacterial chest infection. Witnessing his desperate attempts to draw air into his lungs was terrifying. I called for an ambulance and M was admitted to hospital in Bath, where he was placed in Intensive Care, unable to breathe without the aid of a ventilator.
Each day, the hospital telephoned me with reports of his condition. I was advised that he may not survive his hospital admission. Days passed in fear and illness; I was less affected by the virus than M, but nevertheless, I was subject to muscular weakness, fever and the complete loss of the sensations of taste and smell.
I slept on the settee downstairs, each evening waiting for the bulletin from the hospital, curling up under my cardigan to sleep after I had made telephone calls to M's mother and our families, advising them of his progress. Minos slept with me, folding himself into a succint coil beside the settee, only leaving my side to perambulate the snowy garden, before returning to take up his position once more.
There came the day that , after a week of cautious calls from the hospital, that the staff were able to tell me that M was considered well enough to leave Intensive Care, to the cheers from the dedicated team of doctors and nurses who had supervised his care. I was overjoyed, my relief and pleasure knew no bounds; I made delighted telephone calls to family and friends.I had thought that I would not see M alive again; to hear his voice on the telephone following his discharge from Intensive Care onto the Respiritory ward was almost too much of joy.
In the weeks after his return home, M made slow, but steady progress towards health. he has been restored to life and health, even though he still tires easily, and reports that sometimes he feels twenty years older than before. He shall retire towards the end of this month, and, with gratitude immeasurable, we live each day in quiet love and companionship.
