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.