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.

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.

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.

sunny Saturday afternoon

 

I finish the third grid drawing this afternoon after my partner, M, has left for his weekend shift at work. The house is quiet. In the garden the fulsome breeze quickens the air and stirs the tall yellow daisies into a Gavotte. I photograph the three drawings, copy the photograph to the computer. I prefer to photograph my work place and thus my drawings , in natural light. The light which penetrates the cotoneaster beyond the window is dappled at midday, silvery in the late afternoon, which is when I photograph the drawings. 

 As I did yesterday, I find my wondering about these small, subtle drawings. My mind is full of the book by Anne Truitt; I am reading the third volume of her autobiography- I have the second on order from the United States, but this arrived by post today and I cannot wait for the third to arrive-and am swiftly drawn into her world. I cannot share her experience of being a wife, mother and artist, only that of being an artist, and a much less prominent one at that. In the third volume she describes herself as having been reclusive, a state of being with which I can identify; since the outbreak of the Covid 19 pandemic, I have become more withdrawn, less able to share my work; indeed withdrew from an exhibition at the cafe of the local Arts Centre because I felt unprepared and had lost faith in my work.

I was to have shown the grid drawings; a major stumbling block would have been-and still is- the cost of having them framed by the framer of my choice, who conducts his business in ethically admirable fashion, and is a framer par excellence. I could imagine how the little sensitive drawings would have appeared- modest- is the word that springs to mind. I am pleased with their modesty, their subtlety, but I was terribly anxious as to how they would appear to others. Often I question whether they are 'art' at all; as I wrote elsewhere it is difficult to keep the faith.

I take myself into the garden with Anne Truitt and Minos and spend a thoroughly absorbing hour or two in their company; Minos claiming my attention periodically as only he knows how to do. The little violas planted over Silas's grave are coming to the end of their exsquisite life; I must seek out winter bedding for him. Beneath the violas are planted bulbs; parrot tulips in shades of creamy lemon, burgundy and burnt orange. I only leave the beguiling Autumnal afternoon when I hear the telephone sound within the house; my youngest sister calls me, then almost immediately afterwards, my mother; we speak for nearly an hour. 

Perhaps I am a mother after all; to my own mother, who turns to us for reassurance and the allaying of fears which assume monstrous proportions in her mind. It was ever thus.

September afternoon 2020

 

Is it perversity of my part to persist in making these intense little drawings, of whose artistic merit I am undecided? I know that my partner, M, prefers the supernova remnant drawings and views the grid drawings as something I do to pass the hours and soothe my mind. It is true that colouring in one hundred and sixty nine little squares is a calming activity, and it does indeed fulfill my need to be engaged in an act of creation. If only I knew! Both Agnes Martin and Anne Truitt persisted in their work of creating abstract works which sometimes found no favour in the eyes of an audience. I am by no means aligning myself alongside these two significant artists in terms of my prowess, but their example lends me courage to continue in my own endeavour. 

It is a fine, blowy afternoon. The breeze sets the tall yellow daisies dancing, blows the thin wisps of hair that frame my face across the field of my vision. I have taken my notebook into the garden to finish the grid drawing that I began much earlier in the day, and so sit with Minos, who requests my attention every now and then by giving gentle utterance. The bench where we sit is shaded by the cotoneaster, dappled with sunlight, the moving air is refreshing without chilling.

 All the while that I am drawing the question posed above flickers through my mind. Am I truly obsessed, am I following a genuine path to growth, or stumbling through the underbrush? It is impossible to know, and difficult to keep the faith. I only have scattered comments with which to shore up my fragile confidence. I know that the person whose judgement I have come to trust, the person who frames my drawings when I am able to have them framed, likes them. My great friend L said they were beautiful; she said it twice, and although I remember changing the subject quickly, I also remember the glow of pleasure that her words engendered within me. I gave one of the drawings, entitled 'my sister's harlequin slippers', to one of my sisters for her birthday, as she had admired it. These three persons, whom I believe to have discernemnt, are those for whom I continue to make the drawings, in the hopes that perhaps one day they might find and enjoy a wider audience.

temporality

 

Hard on the heels of Silas's death , an exquisite torture overtakes me; a truly fathomless panic. I am made acutely aware of the relentless march of time and although I had somehow expected my dear little household to persist forever, I am all of a sudden persuaded that it is extremely perishable, vulnerable to the ravages of the passing years. I ask my partner to look up the definition of temporality, a word that impinges painfully upon my conciousness; we find that it is the word that describes our ultimate lack of defence in the face of changing circumstance, that it describes the condition of all that lives. All will die; we ourselves shall return to the dust from which we are contrived, the very stars will wink out and a profound darkness will prevail. I am at the mercy of this realisation for the whole of the day, although yesterday, the day when I committed Silas's obituary to print, the pit of despair yawned deeper. 

Today, despite the closing words of the journal that I keep alongside this online diary, which conveyed a desire to relinquish for good the notion of being a visual artist, I gather together a fresh palette of coloured pencils, I take up my notebook of squared paper, and I make a grid drawing, the first for days for which I have any regard. As yet untitled, it is not reflective of my state of mind, rather it suggests a lighter mood, being rendered in spiritual blues, luminescent orange and pink, dark violet, light ochre, crimson lake and turquoise.

After having coloured in one hundred and sixty nine little squares, I repair to the garden with notebook and graphite pencil, and, in the company of Minos, ambassadorial Minos, proceed to overlay each square with the graphite pencil, until a delicate veil shimmers across the colours. The completed drawing hangs in my mind like a screen; the relief I feel is immeasurable; I am convinced that the grid drawings represent the straight forward path, a path I had somehow lost sight of during my wanderings in the forest dark. 

cloud studies - drawing practise

These two  tiny studies were made in the Autumn of last year, and thrust out of sight into a drawer so that I wouldn't destroy them. I have but recently returned once more to drawing, following a hiatus of some months after the two studies above were made.

I find my drawing practice much subject to inconsistency; I begin, tremulously, only to cease, having suffered a crushing sense of defeat and loss of confidence. However, periods of activity do follow each jarring halt, even if after a few weeks, or sometimes months have elapsed, and I am learning how to draw again, beginning to trust my nervous hand and reacquaint myself with my materials.

It seems that I can only draw in isolaton; I deliberately close my mind to the works of other artists, and indeed to my own earlier works, and seek to attain a meditative state, concentrating solely on the drawing in hand. I use small off cuts of paper, as yet not trusting myself to embark upon a 'finished' work on the larger sheets of paper upon which I was formerly accustomed to drawing.

As it is with my practice, so it is with studying the clouds themselves; sometimes I cannot bear to look on them, so inadequate in my endeavour do I feel. I may studiously ignore the changing cloudscapes above for weeks, before returning to my former passionate observation.

I am presently conscious of a rennaisance of will and intent, fragile still though it may be, and although often prey to bouts of deepest despair, am increasingly able to navigate a safe passage through these, or at least to wait until they have passed, now better equipped to understand that they do indeed pass,  and are replaced by calmer moods  more conducive to the resumption of  drawing practise.

ten thousand hours

Whilst enjoying a velvety coffee in my favourite cafe one winter afternoon, I chance to  overhear a fellow customer declare that excellence in a discipline is achieved only after ten thousand hours of dedicated practise.

The cafe is warm, softly lit, the murmer of conversation is comforting. Yellow light spills from the window onto the darkening world beyond the glass; it is the hour of dusk. I stir my coffee and ponder upon the magical equation proposed by my neighbour.

During the last week of November, I made seven, small, delicate studies of cloud formations, before losing confidence and coming once more to a tremulous standstill. Several hours were committed to each little study, nowhere near the number required for excellence, but my efforts marked something of a return to my practice, nevertheless.

A month later, no further drawings having been made, I retrieve the fragile pieces from the drawer in which I had hidden them from my censorious gaze, and lay them out on the floor of the back bedroom, in order to reappraise them. I am much relieved that I resisted the urge to destroy them; by so doing, I would have denied myself the opportunity of learning from them, vital steps marking my passage through the 'forest dark' would have been lost forever, and I would have again been floundering without the guiding light of their presence. As it is, each carefully dated study bears witness to my attempt to celebrate and understand the wondrous mutability of the clouds, each represents the sum of hours of work, carried out with a will to improvement.

I have still many more hours of such work ahead of me. At times my appetite for the task is fickle; weeks pass in which no drawings are produced, and I am again plunged headlong into the misery of doubt and self condemnation. However, thankfully, these painful intervals are  becoming shorter as my resolve strengthens, and sometimes I  experience the tiniest flicker of pleasure in my modest achievement, from which I gain a modicum of courage to continue. There are even days when I begin to believe that I tread the 'straight foreward path', the way forth from the darkness. I may yet come to behold the stars.

the close of a difficult day

An evening telephone conversation with a dear  friend does much to restore my equilibrium, sorely disrupted following a night of troubled, anguished dreams and a morning of unproductive drawing practise. She is an artist, and we speak, as always , of art, most particularly of drawing, her own principle area of practice. I confide to her my problematic return to the making of drawings, and the destruction of all but two of my most recent attempts, which two I have for now secreted at the bottom of one of the boxes in which I store unframed drawings, knowing that I will, in all probability,  destroy them also.

She likens the process of beginning to draw again after a long absence, to hill climbing after a protracted period of abstinence; one is out of breath at first, weary throughout one's entire body, defeated in spirit and perhaps unable to achieve the summit, but that, following several determined attempts, one regains a former fitness for the exercise, becoming more proficient, one's confidence improved.

With her wise and reassuring words resounding in my ears, I take my grateful leave of her, and, as the evening is wearing on, venture into the garden, from which I have absented myself for the greater part of a beautiful day, to water my collection of potted plants, which have withstood the heat and drying wind of the afternoon in silent fortitude. I hear the bees still in clamourous throng about a densely flowering shrub growing along the length of the wall enclosing our small garden, and realise with a sense of humble admiration that they have been hard at work throughout the day, going about the business of collecting nectar with an engaging fitness of purpose for the task and an unshakeable dedication to duty.

After watering, an undertaking made pleasant by the knowledge that I am supplying  the needs of my beloved miscellany of plants, and by the accompanying sonority of the bees, I repair to the kitchen for a glass of wine, and return to sit on one of the old wooden, garden benches from the lodge, beneath the bee busy shrub, my spirits eased by the melodious notes of a thrush  and the over- arching sky of softly and exquisitely layered cloud. Gazing upon the beauty of the cloudscape before my eyes, I arrive once more at the realisation that I do, after all, wish to return to the making of drawings of clouds, however difficult the first endeavours may be.

Dusk is falling. The clouds above me are dove grey, arranged in folds of exceeding delicacy, deckle edged, indescribably subtle. I determine to re-apply myself to the attempt of rendering this fragile world of vapourous forms with pencil, on paper.

Suddenly the bees are silent, for, as if at a signal, they have departed the garden. My wine glass is empty. I re-enter the house, strengthened in resolve, at least for the present, quietly satisfied with the written work I have accomplished during the course of the afternoon, and with a profound sense of gratitude towards the bees, the garden, the sky and the thrush, for it's generously uplifting evening song.

blunt instrument

I discover, quite by chance, whilst writing a shopping list on a scrap of paper with a dulled, soft pencil, that I am far more comfortable using this blunted instrument than I am with a newly pointed pencil; a discovery that flies in the face of experience and previous preference. The graphite seems to flow more sweetly, the line is thicker and stronger, although still subtle and accurate enough. I find that the sweeping curves I am able to make with this less than needle tipped tool infinitely satisfying and pleasurable, the act of writing more akin to drawing; a distinctly sensuous experience.

I wonder, as one who loves lists, could I perhaps engage upon a series of handwritten lists as drawings? The thought is appealing, and familiar to me; an idea I revisit from time to time, but until now I have not been able to decide on a suitable writing implement, much less the surface upon which to write, having previously written in chalks on the stripped blonde pine of an old dressing table, and the worn receptiveness of a Victorian wooden boarded floor. Perhaps my discovery of the pleasure to be found in writing with a blunt pencil is a guide as to the direction I should follow, especially in the light of my recent abortive attempt to resume the drawing of cloud formations.

I am, however, immediately cast into a flurry of indecision regarding the possible size and shape of the letters, the format of the lists upon the surface of the support, and question deeply my abilities to attain and sustain the freedom with which I wrote texts on dressing table and floor, whilst writing with pencil on paper. I feel my neck and shoulders, my entire torso become rigid with apprehensive tension, my heart begins to race, and my hands dampen with the sweat of fear. I am unconvinced about whether I can justifiably assume the status of visual artist, and my most recent drawing experience has done nothing to disabuse me of my uncertainty.

Feverishly, I comb the internet for examples of lists written by visual artists, and am delighted by John Baldessari and Pablo Picasso, although disheartened when I begin to compare myself with those illustrious others. As before, I should exercise a strict moratorium upon research, if it is to prove not a help, but rather occasions despair.

I must bring myself gently to the point of experimentation; allow myself to blunder, think carefully about how I wish the lists to appear, the scale of the letters, and indeed the size of the paper with relation to the texts, their layout and articulation. I am unsure whether I am equal to the task, not having had a great deal of success in formatting written work when attempting to write essays, for instance, and having a distinct tendency, unless governed by a ruled feint, for my sentences to dip, sag and slant. I have not the eye, or the skills of a graphic designer. I cannot, at present, visualise the texts, although I eagerly nurse the idea like a cherished possession; it has a hold on my imagination, and perhaps will shape my future actions, although it is easier to dream of works to be made, than to undergo the perilous journey of attempting to make them. I am eager for successful arrival; I do not desire the discomfort and possible disappointment of travel.

the search for a voice

I think that, in terms of drawing, and certainly not in line with my desires, I have yet to find a voice, although I seem to have discovered one as far as writing is concerned. I feel that I have greater strength as a writer than as a visual artist. For instance; I recall, that, as a graduating student, I did not gain a first class degree for my visual work, but that I did for the piece of theoretical work  submitted (on the deadline), being a short essay upon a particular state of mind, and an exploration into the extreme difficulties I experienced in the production of an academic thesis. I contravened the terms of the requirements, and took a personal, self revelatory stance which served me well, and resulted in a brief, spare document, nevertheless almost approaching the poetic in some passages.

Looking back, I recollect certain shortcomings, especially with regard to the title, and the piece is haunted by my own immaturity, yet, although the article is no longer in my possession, but has been lost, it still remains significant in my eyes, and is a work of which I am able to write with something of a sense of retrospective accomplishment.

Despite my best efforts, I am experiencing grave difficulty with regard to effecting a return to the practice of drawing, the imminent arrival of lovely new papers, ordered for me by my partner,  notwithstanding, and am not at all sure of the direction which I should pursue. It would appear that with the rainbow, volcano and tree drawings, made several years ago, now, I had indeed found the voice of which I write with such yearning, but the powerful imperative which enabled those drawings no longer exists, and I am finding the resumption of drawing clouds all but impossible. I have made some preparatory sketches, and several attempts at making drawings of smoke, but they fail to satisfy me; I can see that they are painfully inadequate.

Perhaps I shall not ever possess a true, consistent and  identifiable voice as a visual artist, despite the unflagging and loyal belief of my partner in this regard, and I speak instead through the words that I commit to this online diary, words of longing for the rightful designation of artist, rather as Susan Sontag wrote of her own longing for the designation of writer. Perhaps my way lies not in the production of drawings of clouds, but in the making of text based pieces, if I am set on pursuing a path in the visual arts. I simply do not know. I recognise that I am compelled to make work that is, as noted above, in some way self revelatory, usually dealing with psychological states,  but I seem better able to articulate doubt and fear, for example, in the form of diary entires, than I am at fashioning drawings.

Why drawings anyway? Why not a different form? Formerly I articulated my concerns through the medium of photography, specifically slide projection pieces, and polaroids, and, until, making drawings in chalk on the garden paths of my parental home, with my then infant nephew, had not drawn for years, believing that I possessed insufficient skills as a draughtwoman. I only made a dedicated return to drawing on paper, when I made a return to art education as a PhD student, and began, in the face of difficulty concerning the " straightforward path", to draw cloud formations. I discovered that I loved paper, especially soft textured printmaking paper, that I loved pencils in equal measure, and overall, that I loved the process of making a drawing.

This afternoon, a bright, windswept afternoon in early summer,  many years hence, it is  however with the greatest reluctance that I contemplate a resumption of the attempt to make drawings of clouds; that I consider returning to the table at which I have been trying to work for the last fortnight, and take up pencil and powder once more. I would rather sit in the cloistered, shuttered cool of the upstairs room which houses the computer, the shining, perfect afternoon lost to me beyond the drawn blinds, and write. I cannot draw as I would wish, and am already sensitive to the feelings of my partner when I confess to him the destruction of all the recently created drawings except two, neither of which shall I show to anyone, much less publish online. Perhaps, in order to save my partner from hurt, I need not confess their loss, although I shall find it difficult to refrain from communicating my sense of despair and disappointment, my desperation to find a voice that is my own, and is, furthermore, a voice for which I can feel a measure of justifiable pride.

the necklace

Perhaps one should not write of compliments; it should be enough to receive them with modest good grace, and revisit them silently, in solitude, as one may sometimes remove a precious necklace from a jewellery box simply to enjoy the play of light on stone and gold, the pale lustre of pearl, the opal's sudden fire.

This afternoon, a sweetly scented afternoon of sunny aspect, a chance encounter with the former director of the local arts centre furnished me with a compliment upon my drawings, which I received gladly enough, for I had hitherto, despite the bonny afternoon, been much cast down about my work, and questioning deeply my proposed intent of resuming the making of studies of clouds.

I took my leave of her with lightened footsteps, and a gladdened heart, for the moment at least persuaded that the work I exhibited at the local arts centre several years ago  is worthy,  quietly pleased that the drawings still have vitality in someone's thoughts.

It is monstrously difficult for me to retain any degree of confidence in my abilities to draw, or to fashion works of art by any other means; I am habitually consumed by voracious self doubt, against which devouring force I must needs find the way to fortify myself in order to carry out the resumption of my practice.

I keep a necklace hidden in the recesses of my mind; one strung with the compliments bestowed on my drawing, or writing  throughout the years of my life, the first dating from when I was very young; still at primary school. The necklace is not thickly clustered, however, rather it's gems hang in isolation, at irregular intervals. They gleam reassuringly in the darkness of my thoughts; I reach for them when my distress seems otherwise too much to bear. They are like affirmations, uttered not by myself, for I am unable to do so, but by others; those others whom I have sought to please ever since I was a child.

I have now a new jewel to thread upon the necklace, a delicate moonstone, perhaps, or transparent ancient amber, a moment of glory transformed, coalesced, an amethystine remembrance that I must care for, and may visit whenever my heart is faint and my will reluctant, my soul doubt riven.

vacillation

On some days drawing clouds, especially storm clouds, seems like the way forward. On other days, difficult days of bitter despair and fathomless self doubt, it does not.

obscurus

This drawing was made sometime in 2005 or 2006; I cannot remember exactly when, although I know that it dates from the time after I had withdrawn from Winchester School of Art, during which period, before our removal to Somerset, I worked in isolation at the lodge in rural Hampshire. It is reminiscent of the Nimbostratus drawings, published in earlier posts, but I believe it to be a far superior drawing; indeed, I am uncomfortable about having published the Nimbostratus drawings, as to have done so evidences an assumption that I considered them worthy; a somewhat shaky understanding of their virtues as I now come to realise.

The cloud drawings had been becoming darker overall following  withdrawal from my PhD, and I made many studies of stormy formations on offcut pieces of paper, unfortunately without due consideration of the relationship of drawing to paper size and shape. None of these studies survive.
When I now consider a return to the making of cloud studies, I turn to just three drawings for reassurance and inspiration. This drawing is one. I was, at the time of making the drawing, enamoured of mass rather than form, or of line. I liked dust and powder, and found  it  a more intuitive, emotional way of working, to spill dust and powders onto paper and then ease them into the surface using a fragment of linen cloth wrapped about my forefinger.  Working thus I felt a more intimate connection with the drawing and materials; the tiny circular movements of my finger were like caresses, my breath was cast over the face of the paper, my entire being was concentrated, alert, vigilant, abstracted. It was an almost erotic experience; certainly an act of love.


I shall not remove the Nimbostratus drawings from this online diary, whatever the discomfort I feel on allowing them to remain, for I have learnt from them, perhaps belatedly, and they stand not only as failed endeavours, but milestones on the path to more mature and proficient works, which I hope that I shall be able to realise in the immediate future. I now believe that my intuition regarding the road ahead was apposite, and feel that I wish more than anything to resume my practice in the depiction of storm or rain cloud formations. To that end I direct my attention to the "overarching" skies, and rehearse in my mind the articulation of dust and powder upon the enticingly receptive surfaces of the papers I have stored away against the day when I feel able to make a new beginning.

presbyopia

Increasing longsightedness renders my vision imperfect for reading, drawing, writing and playing the piano, but perfect for gazing at the clouds.