gold band

 

On November 20th of last year, M and I were wed. A cool, grey day. My sisters were our witnesses, my brother-in-law, A, our best man. 

M married me with the gold ring with which my father had wed my mother, over sixty years ago. I had worn it on my right hand since my 21st birthday, when my mother had presented it to me.

Now, it pleases me to gaze down at my left hand, where the band has been lovingly placed, and to ponder that serious and somehow ennobling estate; that of marriage.

For we did not enter into it lightly. It was the events of much earlier in the year, when M had almost lost his life to Covid 19, that sparked the thought and the desire, and caused us to reflect solemnly upon the manner in which we lived our lives. We had been living together for seventeen years, and had surmounted different hurdles and obstacles, both had been bereaved of our fathers, M had lost two of his brothers. We had had to leave Garston's Lodge, the cottage in which we forged the early bonds of our relationship, and to which we would return tomorrow if the opportunity was present. 

It seemed that our relationship had stood the test of time, and we both, as one, came to the realisation that we would like to formalise the arrangement. And so we were wedded one to the other, vows were taken , a reading from 'The Velveteen Rabbit', was made and we were pronounced husband and wife. Our tiny audience clapped their hands, and my sisters duly signed the register, the memory of their smiling faces remains with me to this day. 

Afterwards, emerging into the calm Autumn air, a touch of dampness about it, we stood in the local churchyard for photographs and repaired to the town's bookshop cafe for cups of fragrant, scalding coffee.

My sister prepared a celebratory lunch, and we gathered as one about a laden table. Cake and a toast with sparkling wine followed, sated guests left us to a quiet evening, listening to music and reflecting upon a day that somehow had lifted us beyond the reach of everyday life, had cast us in new and profound guise, had been sanctified by the loving attentions of kin, and had embedded itself in our minds as precious, everlasting memory.

ghost

 

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.

"things happen appropriate to the time"

 

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.

with my mother in her garden at sunset

 

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.

in the balance

 

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. 

Minos

 

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.

 

covid 19

 

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.

grids

 

"Quite dynamic" I can hear her voice now, echoing across the distance of forty years, which is when I was first engaged upon my studies in art and design at Winchester School of Art, following traumatic years at sixth form college.  The voice belonged to Sue Arrowsmith, a vibrant, intense and compassionate tutor on the Foundation Course on which I was fortunate enough to be enrolled. The work in question was a series of boxes made of thin card, quite small, covered in brittle and glorious tin foil, with tissue inserts of pastel hues, notably pink and blue. It was one of the best pieces of work that I completed whilst studying for my certificate in Foundation Studies in Art and Design, and a piece that I have an acute visual memory of. Why have I not kept the luminous, fragile boxes? They, as works of considerable frailty, have not survived the various transitions I have made in my life since then, but I remember them as though it were only yesterday that I  created them. Somewhere, doubtless, I have photographs; Sue Arrowsmith was a photographer and documented my work for me. Was. I found out quite recently that she died in 2014. She would have been sixty three or four, just a few years older than I am myself. I felt and feel, a keen sense of loss; above all regret that I never thanked her for what she did for me, for what she gave me.

I feel that the current grid drawings to which I have made a return during the past few days, are related in a deep, fundamental fashion to those fragile and "dynamic" boxes of the early eighties. They rely on a strict format, generally pastel hues, and the grey skin of graphite refers to the skin of tin foil with which I covered the card. One returns in a sense of "atavistic longing" to previous works, or to themes which occupied one so intensely as to leave a deep mark in the subconscious. 

The most recent drawings, in the long series of grid drawings, are entitled 'the way things are going' , which title may be read as however the audience wishes, but to me are indicative of the intense struggle I am engaged with  in relation to my mother and her decline. How is it that the drawings are so calm, so insistent on their pastel hued palette of colours; soft blues, violets, luminescent pinks, pale orange and a virtually colourless sky blue? It is as though I were seeking a place of safety amidst the conflicting and sometimes dangerous emotions that possess me currently. 

For I self harm. I do so deliberately and violently when caught up in emotions that I cannot process, simply cannot deal with; self harm has become a means of coping, of surviving the violence of the feelings that threaten to overwhelm me utterly. I inflict scratches and bruises to the skin on my arm; my right arm, as I am left handed. It is my left hand that deals out the violence, taking up the skin in vicious pinches until I wish to cry out at the pain but instead refrain and continue to twist and mutilate the soft pearly skin on the inside of my forearm. Afterwards there are tears and then blankness; emotional flatness, bruises and torn skin. None of this is reflected in the work that I make; the grid drawings are measured, aesthetic, subtle. Perhaps my habit of self harm enables me to make quiet drawings, instead of gouging holes and tears in paper and marking that paper savagely in an expressionistic burst, I instead choose my own flesh as my working surface. It is all so terribly complicated.

For now, I continue to make the stately grid drawings, titling them thus; 'all of a sudden', 'the way things are going', 'as though my life depended on it', titles which spring to the mind unbidden, as though I were being spoken to by a voice outside of myself, a voice which sometimes I am priviledged to be able to hear quite clearly.

One's relationship to one's work is visceral as well as intellectual, even though it may appear that the grid drawings are entirely cerebral, the feeling I have for them is centered somewhere deep in my guts as well as in the soft grey matter of my brain. I do not know how it is for the viewer; I have received only a few responses, the words, 'subtle', and 'lovely' have been used, which, as may be imagined, fill me, as ever tortured by the most painful self doubt, with deep pleasure and a feeling very much akin to relief.

somewhere out there

 

Second drawing in the series 'somewhere out there', completed yesterday evening, that is the evening of 25 November 2020. I worked on in artificial light until late in the eveing, taking my time, unhurriedly placing white touches of the pencil on the black paper. Yesterday was especially poignant, as it was the anniversary of my maternal Grandmother's death; she died when I was just twelve years old, but I can remember the day as clearly as though it had been indeed yesterday. Something about the quality of my mother's voice as she took the telephone call alerted me and I knew without being told that the person with whom I had had not an easy relationship had died.I loved her, as I love my mother, both women presented and still present, in the case of my mother, difficult personality traits, as I am sure that I do also.

It would appear that my drawings are about so much more than scatterings of stars in imaginary galaxies; how can I convey the texture of each day, each evening, which seem to me to be intrinsic to each drawing?It may be that the titles for each drawing could communicate something of the feeling tone of the time during which they were made. If the overall title; the title of the series, is 'somewhere out there, there is nothing to prevent me from titling each indivdual drawing within the series., thus taking into account the quality of the light on each particular day, for example. Yesterday was a cool, calm day. The quality of the light was beautiful; silvery gold ; a tranquil sunset closing a tranquil day. My mother and I compare weather notes each day; yesterday I was able to describe the luminous afternoon for her. I refrained from reminding her that it was the anniversary of her own Mother's death, for it would have caused her such pain. Instead I remembered my Grandmother in my own fashion, dating the drawing made that day, with care on the back, holding her in my thoughts as I worked.

Her name was Violet Lanchbury, sister of the composer and ballet conductor, John Lanchbury. She came from a gifted family; her brothers and sisters were clever, but it seems to me  that although gifted intellectually, they were not so in circumstance. They were born just before the outbreak of the First World War; they were adults during the Second World War, adults bringing up families. My Grandmother removed her family to South Yorkshire following the bombing of their London house, during which her beloved goldfish which lived in a tank on the kitchen windowsill were killed; this was her deciding factor. I have pondered upon this over the years since my mother recounted their loss to me. I can visualise the shattered tank on the flagstones, see the beautiful golden fish scattered and mutilated; the image is as sharp and poignant in my mind's eye as though I had been there myself.

I do not believe that my mother has recovered from the traumatic experience of having lived through war years in London, despite her having been evacuated, effectively, by her mother at the age of eight, just two years into the war. My Grandmother spoke little of it to us, her grandchildren; I do not know how much she and my mother talked of it. I only have my mother's recollections and her precious writings to communicate something of the quality of those times. Perhaps the titles for my drawings could reflect something of that.

somewhere out there

 

A more meditative, measured approach; a better drawing.I took time over this drawing, was not swept along by the urge to finish, thought carefully about where upon the paper I placed each star, began by drawing the most tiny; just pin points of white to denote the tinest of stars. Fewer stars, a more believable drawing. Before I began the drawing, I sat with the piece of sooty black paper upon my drawing board, and just looked and thought. Slow drawing is more conducive to the drawing's success, and is calming for me at this time of international crisis. I am, as I wrote in an earlier post, conscious of the precious photographs behind me, and the nearness of the beautiful piano, which has remained silent for the last few days; I have not had the concentration or the will to practise. Drawing and practising the piano both require patience, but the activities are very different. Perhaps this afternoon, a still, pale afternoon in late November will be the afternoon when I resume my study of the Satie. 

I am aware of persistent low mood, which has no doubt affected my will to practise, and is affecting my will to draw; it is difficult to summon the necessary motivation. It is , however useful to experience inactivity sometimes; I have researched an artist whose work I have found that I hold in high regard; her name is Frances Richardson, and her drawings are beautiful; spare graphite pencil drawings of repeated noughts and crosses in geometric configurations. Whilst looking at images of her work, I remembered drawings of my own which prefigured the recent starfield drawings; drawings of imaginary constellations drawn in grey and black on a neutrally toned paper made by the same mill as the mill that makes the black Crowsnest. The drawings sought to represent the configurations of stars as they might appear on a star chart, or map; I looked at them with a sense of how I might remake them, make fresh drawings with more attention paid to the placing of the tiny black or grey discs denoting the stars. I have looked at star atlases, and stars are often represented in this way. 

At present a new starfield drawing lies upon the drawing board; as before I am paying great attention to it, so that the act of making the drawing is extremely slow paced and the concentration required is considerable. It feels better to draw like this, as though I were really drawing, rather than just dotting a piece of black paper with little white discs, far too many and appearing, on close inspection to be exactly that. Such a long time it takes to hone and mature one's craft;but I feel that I have learned an immeasurable amount during the passage of the last few days, it has been a reflective period.

Does drawing lift one's mood, or does one require a more elevated mood in order to enable one to draw? I suspect that both conditions come into play. Certainly, when I apply myself to my craft, after a while I experience a lessening of the debilitating effects of depression or lowered mood, although when I am at my lowest, the capacity to draw is lost to me completely. At present, then, I am able to place white marks on black paper, evalutae, meditate and reflect, although I admit that these processes are slowed, as though I were caught up in one of those dreams in which all mobility is slowed, or impossible, like trying to run underwater. But I don't wish to hurry over the drawing, my slowness is deliberation; it is the act of sitting down to the drawing which is the most difficult at the moment.

I know that my father is smiling at me; each time I turn around he is there, he looks over my shoulder at the drawings. My drawing board lies upon the table, the window is to my left, this afternoon, tranquil light filters through the branches of the Cotoeaster, which still bears a few Autumn gold leaves. The piano is but an arm's length from me, I am secure within the narrow confines of my working space; I could not wish for a better studio. 

Eager for the delivery of newly ordered paper, I wait impatiently for post-none today, maybe tomorrow! I know that the paper, a fresh consignment of Old Master Crowsnest , is on it's way; a question hovers in my mind, do I go ahead and order another paper from the Old Master range? 'Frobisher' is pale, off white and would perhaps be perfect for the star atlas drawings. It is pleasurable to think on them; I'll bide my time before ordering, and perhaps experiment a little on paper less beautiful and expensive.

It is now late afternoon,, the days are short and still shortening as we turn towards the December ; the garden is in shadow, in just half an hour dusk will have descended and I shall close the curtains against the darkness. I must needs repair to my place of work and continue with my drawing whilst there is still light in the sky. Natural light is perfect to draw by, electric less so, but imagine how difficult drawing would have been by candlelight. Whilst daylight prevails, albeit the nild light of late afternoon, I shall take myself to my waiting work.

Remnants

 

More remnant drawings, made on Nepalese Lokta paper, a very different animal to the Old Master Crowsnest that I wrote of in the previous post. This paper is fine, soft and tissuey; I can rub, and indeed do, coloured pencil sharpenings into the surface in a manner impossible with the Old Master. The paper has a slight velvet sheen, and is fragile, so that applying a moistened pencil point to the surface removes some of the paper; this does not happen with the Old Master. I love both papers and take pleasure in the differing techniques available to me when I use them.

The drawings above were made in a flurry of activity over the course of just a couple of days; in that respect they are very different to the starfield drawings which each take several days to complete. It is helpful to engage in different ways of working, although I was very distrustful of this way of going on at first. 

I work at the end of the long room downstairs, at the table by the window. Behind me is the piano and on the wall above the piano, the two photographs that I wrote of in an earlier post, that of my father, and that of the three kittens at the lodge in Hampshire. Each day I sit at my drawing board and work, taking comfort from knowing that the piano is but an arm's length away. A friend sent me a copy of Eric Satie's Gymnopedie for my recent birthday, which I am in the process of learning; the music lies open on the piano. Somehow, the delicate, spare compositions complement my work and practice. It pleases me to think that my father and the kittens are close by as I practise and draw.

somewhere out there

 

Not Nepalese Lokta paper this time, but a paper handmade in a small mill in Montreal and obtainable through a London stockist. Old Master 'Crowsnest' is a sooty black and made to a seventeenth century recipe using sisal, cotton offcuts and waste from the fashion industry; an old recipe made modern. The paper has a fine tooth and readily accepts detail, which the Lokta paper does not, so the touching of a needle sharp white pencil point to the surface leaves a minute white mark. These drawings take days to make and the making of them is an absorbing, calming process; I realise that when I first sit down to my task, I am holding my breath, which, after a few marks have been made, I gradually and consciously expel from my lungs with a sense of release. Thus open to the Universe, I can begin. 

I work right up to the edge of the paper, which has four lovely deckled edges, so that the entire sheet of paper is covered with tiny points of light , or stars. My starfields are imaginary; it's just possible that the configurations of stars and star clusters that I draw have their place in the actual heavens. When I am drawing, I think of the little girl that I was, on that evening when my father and I stood and looked up at the star filled canopy above us, and I had my first taste of infinity. The star drawings, which have the collective title,'somewhere out there', and form an ongoing series, are thus dedicated to my father. It is my hope that he would have liked them.

stars

As suddenly as it had imposed itself upon me, the will to make drawings upon the squared paper of my notebook vanished, leaving me high and dry, as it were, without direction or motivation. I pitch and yaw like a rudderless vessel embroiled in high seas with little hope of gaining safe harbourage; indeed have more or less abandoned hope with regard to ever attaining a stable state in terms of my relationship to my work. 

Instead of drawing in my notebook, and in my ever present desire to write and to write well, I read, devouring Anne Truitt's autobiography, and W G Sebald's Vertigo, from which I shall herewith quote a passage:

...."Peter did not come down from his observation post for weeks. It was said that he spent a large part of the first years of the war up there, sleeping by day and watching the stars by night, drawing the constellations on large deep blue sheets of card, or alternatively perforating them by means of bradawls of varying sizes so that, when he attached the sheets to the wooden frames of his glasshouse, he could actually enjoy the illusion, as in a planetarium, that the star-lit heavens were vaulted above his head." 

I have yet to draw the actual constellations as they appear in the night sky, and, not having recourse to an observatory, shall have to use found illustrations for the purpose. Instead, I strew sheets of black, Nepalese paper with fields of stars in imaginary configurations, delighting in subtle inclusions or imperfections in the body of the paper which sometimes appear like myriad infinitessimal groups of stars at great distances from the stars which I draw with white pencils. 

The process of making small white marks upon the jet surface of the beautiful, fragile paper is all absorbing; I deliberately avoid analysing why I choose to make drawings such as these, I do not wonder about their reception, I just draw. Each morning I find  Minos, who has now adapted his outdoor life to include the domain of the house, sprawled across my drawing board, where he has taken to resting; my first task of the day is to brush with care the cat hairs from the surface of the paper. He has lost weight with age, his supine body looks so defenceless whilst he is sleeping, that I do not have the heart to move him, instead I draw on as much of the paper that is available to me before he gets up of his own accord and proceeds with his singular business of the day. I find that with Silas's death, my bond with Minos is ever stronger; I am conscious of the fragility of his little life and of my own mortality, although the despair that overtook me during the days following Silas's death has somewhat dissipated. 

Yesterday morning, up early, and having to go outside to move the waste bins into the street for emptying, I stood for a moment, my face upturned to the bowl of the sky. The West was yet ultramarine, the firmament to the East banded subtlely with palest lemon; the sun had still to broach the horizon. The stars were out, two heavenly bodies among them shining with such vigour that I supposed them to be planets; it was so beautiful a sight that I found myself upon the verge of tears. It has ever been thus; as a child I would spend lengthy stretches of time watching the stars by night, the clouds by day, although I never experienced a moment of near levitation as did my mother. Towards mid August each year, my partner and I journey by car on a clear night to Salisbury Plain, not a great distance from the market town of Frome where we currently reside, and watch for 'shooting stars', as the Earth passes through the seasonal meteor shower of the Perseids.

My piano lessons with Mrs Hilda H Price used to be on a Wednesday evening; my father and I would take the bus into the town and walk the remaining distance to her house. One evening is set fast in my memory, it may have been Autumn, it may have been early in the year; that much I do not remember, I do remember the profound frost that edged the fallen beech leaves with glittering rime and thickly coated the pavements beneath our feet. Above our heads the vault  of the heavens was ablaze with a multitude of stars and seemed to my childish eyes to extend forever and ever. What passed between us by way of conversation I no longer remember; I must have only been very young, but the image of the jewelled bedecked reaches of the sky, the reassuring warmth of my father's hand holding my own remain deeply imprinted upon my memory. I cannot ask my father whether it is the same for him, cannot convey to him how much that time spent alone with him meant to me, how, many years later as a deeply frightened adult I took comfort in the clasp of his hand over mine, but when the night sky above me is crammed with stars, and the air is honed keen with frost, I think of him.

today's drawing

 It had been my intention to curl up on the settee yesterday evening, when the street lamp had lit, with my notebook of gridded paper to make a drawing therein, but when the hour presented itself, the street lamp glowing beyond the window, my notebook to hand, I could not muster the enthusiasm, or the will. My partner was working a late shift; I knew that he would not return to the house until after ten pm, the evening stretched ahead, my inclination to work was absent.

Instead of drawing, I found myself seated at the piano, which I had not touched all day. Lifting the lid of my beautiful piano is always a joy; each night, before I retire, I close the lid, each day that comes I open it, if only to see the lovely word Knight emblazoned just above the keyboard in elegant gold letters. A photographic portrait of my father hangs on the wall just to the right of the piano; it depicts my father at home in his garden. I remember taking the photograph in the Autumn before he died, nine years ago. The piano had been his possession, chosen from a showroom of pianos for it's bright, clean sound. To my father's acute ear, all the other pianos seemed 'woolly'; 'Knight' had and still has a voice that resonates like a crystal bell, a clear, penetrating yet melodious voice.Knight was the piano that I learned to play on, and has been a family member since the late 1960s.

It comforts me to see my father's smiling face; his kindly eyes meeting mine as it were; I feel his presence when I am playing, indeed he is never very far away, catching up with me when I am out walking, entering my dreams at night.

Just above the piano there hangs another photograph- of the three kittens, Minos, Silas and Mimas, taken by my partner shortly after we discovered that there was a litter of kittens sharing our estate at the lodge.These two portraits are precious to me, as is the lovely piano; when I sit down to play, I feel as though I am embraced, the world takes on a more stable aspect, even though most of  the characters portrayed in the photographs are gone, as indeed is our life at the lodge in Hampshire.Until hanging the photograph of my father beside the piano, and then the photograph of the kittens above, I had thought that photographs were rather melancholy, they evoked pain, the pain of loss, for the moment that is caught on camera passes with the blink of an eye, the click of the shutter, is lost forever, constitutes a small death.I shall never again hear my father's voice, with it's soft Sussex burr, his smiling eyes shall never smile upon me again, but I have the photograph, I remember how the skin crinkled around his eyes when he smiled at me on that balmy Autumn afternoon in the garden, where we had sat, my mother, my father and myself to take tea after our labours, which is when the photographic image of him was captured.

In the evening, then, yesterday evening, I played the piano, Chopin; although most of the preludes are beyond my scope as a pianist, there are some that I feel I may be able to learn, and so in my solitude, I opened the book at number Prelude number 2 and began to practise. Number 2 is, like number 20, most affecting, difficult to play effectively, and I am not sure about the use of the pedal- I need advice. Perhaps the time has come for piano lessons. I remember Mrs Hilda H Price ( I always wondered what the second H stood for) who taught me from the age of seven until I was thirteen, she told me that I would never make a concert pianist, but that I was a born teacher- how could she know? Yet she proved to be mistaken in that assertion, for I cannot teach; I seem to have no ability for that vocation. I had once hoped that I could support my work by teaching, indeed once had a passion to teach , but my life has taken a different turn. 

This morning, a fine, bright, blowy morning, with the wind gusting determinedly from the North, I take myself in hand, so to speak, and begin the drawing shown above. It belongs firmly with those preceding it; I seem to be working as is customary, on a long series of drawings with like palette. I remain at a loss for a title; whilst the words 'safe' and 'longing' were prevalent in my mind when I began the series, they have disappeared; maybe when I group the drawings together and see them all as part of a greater whole, a title will arise in my thoughts. Titling the 'grid drawings is one of my pleasures; as noted before, I often write titles in the front of the notebook so that I do not forget them. This evening, and another late shift for my partner- do I play the piano, or do I draw? As yet I am undecided, but the choice before me is far from onerous, I am thankful to be in the position to make it.

  On rising we were met with a sky swept clean of cloud and brilliant sunshine. Another late shift for my partner, so we settle down to a leisurely morning; I complete the drawing shown above, which I began yesterday evening, shortly after the street lamp over the road had lit, upon which I closed the curtains, enjoying the cosiness of curling up on the settee with my notebook. As the morning advances, ominous cloud builds from the west, marshalled by a brisk breeze; heavy rain falls and once again I am anxious for Minos, who has elected to remain out of doors.

I needn't have worried, later in the afternoon, after my partner has left for his place of work, Minos bounds in, his glossy black coat bone dry, and takes up a seat on the windowsill of the little back bedroom in which I sit to write. The breeze has quieted and the air, although chill has slowed.The birds are silent. Light grey cloud blankets the sky, but the aspect is bright, silvery, as though the sun were just about to break through; a quiet, cool, Autumn afternoon. 

I recall the telephone conversation I enjoyed with my mother at about this time yesterday, when she spoke of her childhood experience of almost levitating amongst the clouds way above her supine body. I remember that I told her of dreams that I have where I do levitate, without fear, indeed, the experience is exhilarating,even if, happening as it does all of a sudden, it takes me by surprise. If you are a child, that sort of experience must be truly terrifying; only later in life does what I termed a transformative experience elevate and yet calm one's spirits. And there is a vast difference between sitting quietly to compose a drawing and lying on one's back in the summer grasses watching the clouds bank and race above you.

My mother and I speak again this afternoon, but I am aware that I am tired; the conversation does not have the flavour and depth of yesterday's. I tell her that I have completed another grid drawing, but today she does not ask about it; she is more interested in our weather and the cat, details of which I happily supply her with. 

During the course of the last few months, I have been able to save a little money; I would like to have a couple of grid drawings framed, although I shall be hard-pressed to choose between them. Sometimes I allow myself the luxury of day dreaming about their hanging in a snowy white gallery, accessible to a wider audience than that they enjoy at present. It is my habit to write on the inside cover at the front and back of the notebook, ideas for colour combinations, notes for possible titles; it seems to me that these notations, written in pencil, have a life of their own-they could accompany the drawings perhaps in some way. Each notebook begins life crisp and new and plump. During the course of my work, as I remove each drawing, it becomes thinner, until empty save for the pages bearing the notations at the front and back of the book. Yesterday the fresh notebook that I had ordered, arrived; such a rush of pleasure did I experience on unwrapping the parcel and discovering within the new notebook.

The above drawing needs to be removed from the current notebook before I can commence a new drawing, which I shall do later this evening, when the lamp is lit and the dusk is come. I am conscious that I am already eagerly anticipating this time, when the business of the day is done and I can relax with my work- and very possibly a black cat, who has not forsaken his domestic self as I had feared, but embraces both his outdoor life and his indoor life in an exemplary fashion. I cannot help but worry about him; it is only three weeks since the death of his brother, and he is an old gentleman.

rain

 

This morning dawned damp and silvery, it was obvious that rain , the first for days, had fallen in the night, indeed, as the morning wore on, the clouds built and darkened, the light became leaden rather than silver and heavy rainfall made me anxious for Minos who remained  out of doors. To my great relief, the downpour eased and when I looked, Minos was curled up nose to tail on his bench, having escaped a drenching by virtue of the overhanging cotoneaster.

I completed the grid drawing begun yesterday evening, which can be seen to the right of the above image, and duly took my photographs as has become customary; no spillage of golden light across the drawings today, just a light of even pewtery grey. I muse upon titles for these drawings whilst I am working on them. I cannot bring a title to mind for the current suite of drawings, but the words 'safe'  and 'longing' keep presenting themselves to my concsiousness. A long telephone call with my mother touches upon the work I am making; she asks about the drawings, how they are made, what they look like, and I find myself hardpressed to describe them. I ask her to imagine a notebook, a small notebook of squared paper, then ask that she imagines a square of squares, thirteen by thirteen in the middle of the page, with a greater margin below the image than above. So far so good. I then explain the colouring in and she enquires as to the colours I use. We agree that colours have beautiful names; she particularly enjoys 'dark violet', I think that because Violet  was the name of her own mother. She remarks upon the titles and I find that I am on surer ground, even though they may seem idiosyncratic to some.

I am touched by her obvious interest and promise that I will show her the drawings when I next see her, although I am not sure when that will be. I am extremely anxious about train travel, and do not drive; the only option is if my partner would be willing to drive us both to Hampshire; his mother lives in the same town as mine. I replace the telephone receiver in pensive mood.

To my delight and relief, when I go out into the garden in the early afternoon, to make sure that all is well with Minos, he greets me fulsomely and follows me indoors, rushes upstairs and instals himself upon the bed, demonstrating to me that he has not reverted to his feral beginnings, and will find relief inside the house from inclement weather if he has a mind to.

Another telephone call from my mother who tells me that she has been thinking of the grid drawings and is eager to know how I feel when I make them; I tell her that I regard them as meditations and that colouring in is a transformative experience, through which I arrive at a calmer state of mind. I find that she understands for she goes on to recount an experience from her childhood; she tells me that she was a solitary child, much given to wandering in the countryside surrounding the village in Yorkshire where she spent her formative years. In the summer she was out of the house at dawn, her mother's dogs her only companions. She would lie in the dew wet grass and listen to the song of the lark high over head, she said that the very words'the lark ascending' made her entrails turn, as it were, to jelly, her heart felt as though it would burst from her ribcage. One morning she lay back and became so lost in the sight of the cloudscape above her that she became afraid that she would levitate; in a fathomless , vertiginious panic she clutched a hold of the grass upon which she was lying and cried aloud" I don't want to go'. I ponder deeply upon this; it seems to me that whilst she is afraid of the transformative state, which is accompanied for her by the disagreeable physical sensations of anxiety, I am able to welcome it; in fact need it as a counterpoint to, or indeed refuge from persistant worrying thoughts. I am moved , however, that somehow, through our conversation about the grid drawings, we have been able to speak intimately about art and experience in a way I have an inkling that not many mothers and daughters are able to do.

equinox

 It is the first day of Autumn; a chill is in the air, whose swift passage has brought swathes of soft grey cloud to drape the sky, which was earlier this morning of peerless blue, brilliant sunshine illuminating my drawing board, where I had laid the drawings made during the course of the last few days.

I repair to the garden to keep company with Minos who greets me with a fulsome range of utterance before settling at my feet. Recalling the day before, I remember how I watched in horrified fascination, a garden spider weaving with skilled artistry a silken jacket about a large black fly, who had blundered into the web in the centre of which the spider had waited for the whole of the previous day without a catch. This afternoon, the spider sits once more in the middle of the web, the delicate, deadly threads of which radiate in almost perfect symmetry from it's tweedy body. The neatly packaged fly of yesterday is nowhere to be seen. 

Contemplating the clouds, which are now moving more rapidly across the sky and have formed an impenetrable layer , I find myself pondering the Autumnal Equinox, the likeness of this time to Spring, a now distant season, the late flush of growth, the often prodigious blooming, and a feeling of restlessness, almost of a need to migrate, to be on the move. 

This morning, after having bid farewell to my partner, I made a cup of coffee and returned to bed, where I sat up against the pillows and worked upon the drawing shown above; the drawing to the right of the frame.Later I had a number of errands to run, which took me out into the then bright air and brilliant sunshine. When I returned to the house, I completed the drawing and, as is my habit, immediately photographed it; delighting in the dappled sunlight and shadow falling across it's surface. 

The day has changed in character considerably; I ponder upon how to next engage myself. I had made a promise to myself that I would, once I had completed the necessary tasks of the day, to work steadfastly at the grid drawings, but find myself unsettled, made uneasy by the change in the weather, which was forcast, but which I am finding difficult to adjust to coming as it does after days of fine and even aspect.

I resolve to take my drawing things into the garden and keep company once more with Minos, who has adopted a life out of doors with the run of sunny days. The breeze will no doubt lift the paper in my notebook, my pencils will rattle about on the old tin tray I use to convey my materials to the outside, yet I shall be content. "Draw all the time", said Mary Potter- I am glad to be able so to do.

the last day of Summer

 Still within the notebook, the 'grid drawing' begun early this morning when a pearly mist blanketed the garden, completed some hours later when the sun had ridden free of the grey. 

Up early this morning, as M, my partner, had to begin work at eight. The garden, when I went out to greet Minos and take him his breakfast; he has adopted an almost feral habit of living entirely out of doors this summer, was mysterious and cloistered; I felt like an intruder. I love mist and fog, love the way colours are trammeled by soft grey and disappear into the velvety atmosphere. Perhaps that is why I cover the colours of my grid drawings with an even, finely drawn layer of graphite.The grey is like a mist descending before one's eyes, through which the colours glow softly. I am recalled to the films I made at one time; I hung a silk chiffon scarf of pale grey  before the lens, which billowed in moving air and through which all was diffused, uncertain. It is that feeling of mystery, of uncertainty that the grid drawings seem to possess, one is not quite sure whether one is supposed to be looking at them, even though the first impulse is perhaps to let one's gaze penetrate the gauzy layer of graphite.

Several telephone calls with my mother of necessity complicated my work this morning; there was an issue with her medication which needed to be resolved, so that I did not complete the drawing until well after midday, by which time the sun was shining with optimistic energy through the window and illuminating my workplace. When the drawing was 'finished', when I had coloured in the bottom left hand square with graphite, I released my cramped hand from it's clutch of the pencil, photographed the drawing and went outside to sit with Minos. I took the third volume of Anne Truitt's journal with me - I am close to finishing it, and shall miss her insight and carefully wrought portraits of family life, childhood remembrances. She describes her work in detail; she made singular pieces, free-standing columns of painted wood, which I have seen in reproduction, and drawings , the descriptions of which tantalize me as I have never seen them. I worry that my 'grid drawings' are so similar; one needs discernment to allow the subtle differences between them to reveal themselves. 

It is not 'wrong' to have fallen for a particular palette of colours, in whose differing configurations I take delight, and not 'wrong' to have alighted upon a particular, unvarying format, after all, Agnes Martin worked consistently with a given set of dimensions for years. I just worry that I am not exploring, I'm standing still. Perhaps it is alright to stand still, and let the delicate drawings come as they will; if I attempt to impose any control over them, I soon come to grief. For the moment, then, I shall stand still and allow the work to evolve, to unfold slowly in slow time; time takes on a different shape when I am engaged in making a drawing, much as it did this morning, certainly the early morning experience was vastly different from the afternoon's, when I brought the drawing to fruition.

Tomorrow is the first day of autumn, the season of 'mists and mellow fruitfulness'. I feel a tremor of excitement at the thought, savour the last golden day of a summer unlike any other summer I have known, just as the spring was made strange by the experience of 'lockdown'. During the spring, I made 'grid drawings' as though my life depended upon the activity, mostly sitting in the back bedroom, with the window open to the balmy air, Silas curled up beside me. Now I have exchanged my place of work for a corner of the settee in the sitting room, enjoying the constant North light by day, at dusk, the lighting of the street lamp across the road, which at first flicker shows ruby before transmuting that subtle rosy red into flourescent orange. It is then that I draw the curtains before curling up again with my notebook.

Sunday evening September 20 2020

 Above the grid drawing begun yesterday evening and completed this afternoon; the first photograph reveals it in it's unfinished state, with the skin of graphite drawn only halfway across, the second completed, with the drawings from the last three days. This latest 'grid drawing' differs in palette from the previous three; I incuded lemon neon, which lends a piquancy to this otherwise pastel hued drawing. 

This afternoon , my workplace was dappled with sunlight spilling through the window; I chose to photograph the drawings in this light because it reflects my experience of their presence- that is how I see them every day when they are completed. I do not 'see' the finished drawing before making it; rather it unfolds, or comes into being under my hand. The process is intuitive, the drawing evolves in it's own terms.Beyond abiding by several 'constants'; a square of thirteen squares by thirteen on A5 gridded notepaper, a pretty consistent palette, I let nature take it's course- that is not to say that I am inattentive, or careless, rather I practise a watchful discipline and attentive concentration, but I do allow myself the freedom of intuiting which colours to place adjacent to one another. The drawing takes on a life of it's own as I proceed.

I did not keep many of the drawings first made when I began to make 'grid drawings'; in a comprehensive collapse of self confidence, I destroyed them, an act of destruction which I now  regret; it would have been interesting to see how the drawings have evolved. That said, not every drawing is successful, and I am reminded of an account I read of the destruction Agnes Martin exercised upon works that failed to satisfy her. I have made it a rule, that I do not destroy, but lay aside drawings which I come to feel as having been unsuccessful- they are steps along the way to drawings that do please my eye and mind.

It has been a day of late summer beauty, a mellow warmth making the garden a pleasant place to sit and read- in fact , I have been in the garden with Minos nearly all day, my partner having been at his place of work since seven this morning. Bereft of his company; I am finding his new shift pattern difficult to accomodate and miss him sorely, I found the garden a place of solace. At least I have completed a drawing, spoken with my youngest sister on the telephone, and tidied the kitchen, even if I have not washed my hair or practised the piano...

My beautiful piano has been silent all of this day, although I did play yesterday. The piano was made by Alfred Knight, and bears the name Knight proudly just above the keyboard. In voice it is 'bright', with a bell like treble and plangent bass. It has been recently removed from my mother's house to the house where I live, and , after three weeks of settling in, been tuned to perfection. Silas died on the day that the piano tuner worked his alchemy. The two events are inextricably linked in my mind; my first touch on the keyboard was tentative, hesitant, and I only touched the piano after my partner and I had buried Silas where I had found him in the garden. 

I am not a proficient pianist, indeed have returned to pieces I first learned at the age of thirteen , when I had weekly piano lessons with an elderly woman named Mrs Hilda Price. Some vestigial remembrance of my early schooling remains; my dyspraxic fingers are relearning the pieces more readily than I had anticipated; two pieces by Haydn, which I appreciate much more as an adult than I did as a child, and 'To a Wild Rose' by Edward Alexander Macdowell, a beautiful, tender composition.

My touch is inconstant; I lack precise fine motor control; a feature of Dyspraxia, and I notice that when I am drawing I hold the pencil extremely tightly in order to exercise control over my movements. I know that my touch on the piano keys shall never be consistent; my grip on my pencil shall never relax, but the discipline of practising scales on the piano, and making grid drawings each day may effect an improvement!As indeed the daily discipline of writing may hone my literary skills and extend my scope in terms of what I choose to write about.

Evening is coming to the garden. The birds are silent, the tall yellow daisies have ceased their dancing. I shall pour myself a glass of wine and go out into the quiet  to sit with Minos at close of day.

later, evening

Dusk greys the garden, lavender clouds bank in the East. I am acutely aware, despite my limited horizons, of the earth's slow, inexorable turn Eastwards. The evening is all but still; the frivolous breeze of earlier hours has given way to a gentler tide of air; the tall yellow daisies now hardly stir. Minos and I sit together on the bench beneath the cotoneaster. I watch the birds arrowing homewards and wait for the first star to ride clear in the curve of the firmament. Minos curls around on my lap. He purrs, I can feel the gentle vibration of his little body, hear the throaty rumbling.When he gets down from my lap, I repair to the house, murmering an emotional 'goodnight' to him

Still have the 'grid drawings' very much upon my mind; I worry about them, yet am compelled to continue to make them. When at first Britain went into 'lockdown', I drew as though my life depended on it; I have many 'grid drawings' to show for my efforts, among these a good many that please my eye. Two long series preoccupied me; 'as though my life depended on it', and 'with my mother in her garden at sunset'. I came to use a palette which included soft, bright, luminescent pencils; pink, orange, green and blue, several blue pencils of varying shades, crimson lake, dark violet , spectrum orange and turquoise. The 'neon' pencils glowed through the skin of graphite that I apply across the colours when I have finished filling in the little squares.

 Over the course of the last three days, I have made three drawings,using a similar palette to that above, but with the ommission of neon green and yellow; the resulting drawings are light and airy, pink and blue. I am recalled to Agnes Martin's love of pastel hues, and the delicate 'spaceiness' of the large paintings. My own endeavour is decidedly more modest, the tiny drawings intimate in scale and not varying from the format which came to please my eye when I first began to work thus, back in 2016.

As I write, the dusk deepens beyond the window, and I need to illuminate the house with electric light. I still carry the stillness and peace of our tiny urban garden within me, the hush of the threshold time between aftternoon and evening, between sunlight and twilight. Minos remains in the garden. He will have business to attend to which does not include me. Each of us in our different domains have, I hope, been enlarged by the mild scope of this evening and each other's undemanding company.