grid drawings, or 'meditations'

The 'grid drawings' began as an exercise to temper my eye and hand and calm tumultous emotions at the time of my widowed mother's hospitalisation in May 2016. It was a particularly beautiful month that year, generous warmth during the day, fragrance from luxuriant Spring growth by night. I remember the apple blossom glowing snowy white at dusk, the scent hanging on the air like a perfumed curtain, when I walked alone in my mother's garden after visiting her in hospital.

Guardian of the house for the period of my mother's sojourn in hospital, and, having previously purchased on impulse a trio of squared paper notebooks, which I had with me, I began to draw. Following a directive unfathomable in origin, I coloured in the tiny squared enclosures using a selection of coloured pencils from a pencil tin of my late father's which I had found in the house during my stay. I came to settle upon a square of thirteen little squares by thirteen ( there were thirteen differently coloured pencils in the tin). This seemed to satisfy my eye for the moment. I became aware that the drawings needed something to unify them, and thus applied a layer of graphite, like a skin or veil, through which the colours glowed softly. The graphite membrane seemed to function as a visual metaphor; a device to suggest distance; the shadowy reaches between experience and recollection, or between the inner world of the mind, and external reality. I drew each day as though possessed, even taking the notebooks to the hospital so that I could draw in the hospital canteen between visiting hours.

I did not know then, that four years later I would still be compelled to make these tiny, intense yet subtle drawings and that the drawings would have evolved so much in terms of their poetic and emotional resonance. I draw every day, as though my life depends on it, aware that, as before, owing to difficult circumstances, I need to assuage panic and focus my attention beyond the narrow confines of my mind.

Titles for the pieces came, and come, unbidden to mind. Often they are generated by the memory of a place, or happening, a person, or state of mind. I frequently dedicate pieces to people, thus a piece comprising four drawings entitled 'over the hills and faraway', is for my partner, and refers to the period in our life together when we lived in rural isolation in Hampshire. 'My sister's harlequin slippers' is dedicated to one of my sisters and refers to  her chequered velvet slippers, which, as a child, she loved so much that she even wore them in the garden.

When I frame the pieces I follow the counsel of someone I trust, who suggested that I reference the notebook. Thus, I frame them in such a way as to show the edge of the page where they have been torn out of the book. Notebooks of drawings are like visual diaries; to show only removed pages is to imply that there is other, hidden material, perhaps too intimate to reveal. Certainly such a drawing, once removed evokes the invisible notebook, and is suggestive of the activity of keeping a diary; the reflective, quiet setting down of thoughts, responses, dreams. Notebooks are portable and private, both attributes which I value. The drawings made within them are my journal entries.

studio morning May 5 2020

A return to 'colouring in', and the 'grid drawings', or meditations, about which I shall write in more detail in a following post. Suffice to say that colouring in a small square of thirteen even smaller squares by thirteen in a carefully chosen palette gives me pleasure and soothes my mind. I am thus able to follow Mary Potter's dictate; "draw all the time...".

studio evening May 4 2020

Without electric light, my work place is suffused with the magic of dusk. On my drawing board lie drawings made earlier in the year, and earlier during this time of lockdown. The diary I kept of drawings executed the while lies open. This is where I feel comfortable in the evenings, throughout the long Spring days. This is where I commit to paper my ideas, thoughts, responses, where I sip wine and coffee, from where I call my mother on the telephone, where I can always be found.

the Sun one day

We have time, before the final blossoming of the Sun and the subsequent extinction of life on Earth. Have we time to address the most demanding contemporary issues that have such devastating long term consequences for our home and redeem ourselves as a species? Shall we  discover a new world and live in an epoch where interstellar travel is the norm? Shall we be able to observe from a safe distance the gross ballooning of the star that once warmed our skin and caused the Earth to bloom?

studio May 4 2020

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

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

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

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

transit of Venus

The transit of Venus. Unfortunately, I do not know the date upon which this transit occurred. I made several series of drawings of the transits of both Venus and Mercury, fascinated by these momentous events. As in the earlier posts of the transit of Mercury, Venus can be seen as a small black disc making its way across the face of the sun. I wonder what events were taking place on Earth as Venus made its journey.

the phases of venus

A series of twenty three drawings depicting the phases of Venus. I decided not  to show all of them!

It is awe inspiring to consider the phases of celetial bodies and the true vastness of the Universe in which we live. When I draw celestial bodies I feel open to the Universe in a way that is sometimes frightening, but always inspiring. I feel infinitesimal, as I am indeed, in universal terms, but bigger than a ladybird, bigger than a cat, nevertheless tiny. Insignificant? I wonder.