Some were surreal, others were sad. Sometimes she was lucid, sometimes she was delirious, sometimes it was morphine. Three in particular have lodged themselves in my memory. My logical brain tells me that she wasn’t herself, that her brain chemistry was all over the place, trying to cope with the enormity of it all.
It’s just that the last conversation I had with her, was the last.
I suppose I could talk about them to someone, together with the rest of it, but I’m not sure the spoken word will work: the words will come out of my mouth and vibrate through the air to enter someone else’s head. Then they are gone. I need a more substantial, tangible way of dealing with them, through the written word and imagery. I need to be able to confront them, physically.
I’ve had some inner conflict as to whether I should publish the image in which her face is visible; when she was ill and at her most vulnerable. This was a woman who dragged herself through the house, after breaking her leg, in order to phone for my sister to come over and make her look presentable before calling for an ambulance. She was a very private person. But she is no longer here. If it helps me come to terms with it, I think she would be ok with it. My sister’s on board – she reads this blog. She has her own conversations.
Three Conversations With My Mother No 1, Montotype on A4 Cartridge Paper
Three Conversations With My Mother No 2, Monotype on A4 Cartridge Paper
Three Conversations With My Mother No 3, Monotype on A4 Cartridge Paper
I don’t need to reflect on them. I don’t want to reflect on them. Not yet.
It started with a bracing dog walk, first thing. It was the best start to the day.
Then a train ride to London to visit the Michael Craig-Martin exhibition at the Royal Academy before it closes in a little over a week. I have to say that going into a gallery has the same effect on me as going into a church – a sense of wonderment and contemplation comes over me: people even speak in hushed tones.
It was joyously colourful, but for me, that was just about it. I was left wondering to myself, if it wasn’t for the painted walls and the sheer scale of some of the works, would they still have been so impactful? If they had been A3 in size and hanging on a bare white wall, would I still have experienced chromatic overload? I used to be attracted to the graphic simplicity of his work, elevating everyday objects to something out of the ordinary, but I’m sad to say that I don’t think it does it for me anymore. I’ve changed. If anything, I was more intrigued by his earlier conceptual work.
The Oak Tree (1974) is a small glass filled with water to a specific level and mounted on a wall at a specific height of 253cm. It is accompanied by the text of a conversation in which Craig-Martin explains how he has changed the glass of water into an oak tree without changing the physical form of the glass – I don’t know whether it was meant to be amusing, but I certainly had a titter. In a short film for the RA, which I watched when I got back home, he explains that he was trying to find something that constituted the essence of art, in that art is based on the notion of transformation, and the most extreme proposition for transformation would be to have no transformation at all. Others have alluded to his Catholic upbringing and have suggested that it is to do with transubstantiation. I also read that it was seized by Australian customs officials on its way to an exhibition in the 1970s on the basis that it was illegal to import plants into Australia!
I was particularly drawn to ‘Conviction’, a series of mirrors on paper, as it directly relates to what I’m planning to explore.
’On The Shelf’ comprises 15 milk bottles positioned at a precarious angle on a shelf, but the varying levels of water create a level horizon. The four buckets on the table are actually supporting the table, rather than the other way round. Finally, ‘Box that never closes’ questions what makes a work of art: the box has lost all functionality, and does not even form something that is aesthetically pleasing.
I went into the shop but didn’t buy anything: instead I had a look at the wall which supports teaching art in schools. I put a post-it note up following on from our session a couple of weeks ago: ‘creativity will save the planet’, but I forgot to take a photo.
I was then going to nip into the National Gallery but the queue was half way down the street – probably caused by the extra security and bag searches. So I went round the corner to the National Portrait Gallery which I haven’t been in since its refurb.
I was pleased to see the portrait of zoologist and conservationist, Dame Jane Goodall, by Wendy Barrett, the winner of Sky’s PAOTY 2023. Compared to the photograph taken by Ken Regan, it gives the viewer so much more. I thought it was tremendous, and full of intelligence, sensitivity and humanity.
Lucian Freud’s letter to his grandparents, thanking them for the money they gave him, which he was going to use to buy a book of fairytales, reminded me of Miró with its coloured shapes and black lines. It took me back to a hot day in Sóller over the summer when we found relief from the sun in the train station, which happened to be exhibiting various ceramics by Picasso and works by Miró – can’t see that happening at Waterloo Station anytime soon. Freud’s self-portrait is a favourite: the way he applies paint and his minimal brushstrokes are lush.
Bearing in mind my latest experiments using a pen, I was fascinated by the mark-making in Eileen Agar’s drawing of the modernist architect, Ernö Goldfinger. Hockney’s portrait of Sir David Webster with Tulips is stunning: I was a bit perturbed by the size of his head at first, and the fact that the sole of his left shoe seems to be coming away, but I think I’m ok with it now. In any event, it’s all eclipsed by the beautiful rendering of the table and tulips, and the fact that the jacket hanging over the arm of the chair makes him look like he’s levitating.
Colin Davidson’s Silent Testimony was moving: a collection of 18 large scale portraits of individuals who have all experienced loss in the Troubles in Northern Ireland, although it is also more generally about everyone who is left behind after conflict. They are impartial: there is no reference to the sitters’ religion or politics. What is striking is that none of the sitters are looking directly out of the canvas; they look off to the side as though deep in thought, as if they are remembering. There is a real sense of loss and pain, and contemplation – it is etched onto their faces, quite literally in some areas. They are painted in thick paint which seems to be weighing them down. But it’s all about the eyes. They are painted with a much more careful and detailed application of thinner paint. They almost look haunted.
And then I walked back to Waterloo Station, over the bridge, with Ray Davies crooning in my ear, although, let’s face it, his voice isn’t what it is used to be. All in all, apart from my break-up with Michael, a good day.
My sister told me about something which she had seen on her Facebook feed: a man asks his wife, what would she rather have – a million pounds today or a penny which will double in value over the next 30 days?
This question is based on the fable of the Grain of Rice.
A penny doubling each day for 30 days would give you a grand total of circa £5.37 million pounds, proving that sometimes it is better to wait for what is to come, rather than taking what is immediately available. I pointed out to my sister that this is, of course, dependent on all things being equal, that is, that the bank in which the penny is invested, and which is offering such a great compound interest rate, doesn’t go to the wall before the end of the 30 days, or, indeed, that I don’t come to a sticky end, in which case I would have been better off taking the million on offer and having a blast.
Maybe the moral of this story is about making small incremental gains. Maybe me faffing around experimenting, posting and not committing to producing a piece of work will ultimately reap a greater reward than me bashing something out and being unhappy with it, which could possibly lead to demotivation.
Who knows? All I know is that I really do need to bash something out by next week, but it was an entertaining diversion watching my husband try to work out what interest he could earn on a million pounds in 30 days, and then double check the penny figures!
”…Tryna make ends meet, you’re a slave to the money then you die…”
I don’t want to give the impression that I’m on a downer; I’m not, it’s just a coincidence that the things I want to post about at the moment all involve an element of death, which is not a bad thing, as it reminds me to live.
I had never really contemplated my own death until my father passed away in 2013; then I obsessed about it for quite some time. There I was sitting quite happily on my branch in the tree of life when suddenly there was one less person between me and the end; to be fair I was so far along it that it was becoming more of a twig than a branch and had started to bob up and down quite precariously in the breeze. But there’s nothing like the death of someone of a similar age to drum home my own mortality. I had lost friends at university, but I was young then, and whilst the sense of loss was immense, I still felt invincible; those were extraordinary deaths.
Last night my husband told me that an old work colleague of mine had died a couple of weeks ago. I worked with him for seven years; I hadn’t seen him for twenty, yet still the news profoundly affected me. We were more or less the same age and level of qualification; I had previously worked at two law firms before joining the firm where we worked together. He had trained, qualified, and become a partner at that firm, a period spanning 32 years. He had never known any different, had never stepped outside of his comfort zone or worked with new people who may have inspired him or influenced him in different ways. Why not? My husband ventured that maybe he stayed for the money which financed a certain lifestyle and that he was happy with that, with that way of living. That’s true; just because it is a path that I would not have chosen does not make it less valid, and, in this respect, I appreciate that I am lucky in that I have a choice; a lot of people don’t have that luxury.
He would have been earning a fair amount, working incredibly long hours and have been under intense pressure. Was it all worth it? If I had said to him 20 years ago, when we shared the same office in which he would tell me all about his salsa classes, his training for the triathlon he was planning to compete in, or the latest date with his girlfriend, that he had a ticking time bomb inside him which would kill him at the age of 55, would he have made the same choices? Maybe not, but that’s the benefit of hindsight. As Kierkegaard says:
”It is really true what philosophy tells us that life must be understood backwards. But with this, one forgets the second proposition, that it must be lived forwards.”
I’ve rewritten this post so many times. It has become progressively shorter. Sitting back and reflecting, I can see what is important. The first version was just a rant.
In late 2022, my mother was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer. No treatment was offered. At best she had 6 months left. Her GP had messed up. The hospital messed up. My sister and I cared for her full-time. It was the worst, and darkest period of my life.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Six months to live? Well, we could go places and make the most of it, create some new memories. But she was already too weak. Instead, the memories I have of that time seep into my mind when it’s not thinking of something else, usually before I go to sleep; then I can’t go to sleep and I sit up alone in the kitchen turning it all over, reliving it. Nothing makes it feel any better.
My mother died at home in the spring of 2023, three days before her 85th birthday. I cannot say with any honesty that she experienced quality of life in those last months. She was waiting to die, and I was just watching her gradually turn into a skeleton.
I resent that medical professionals have failed my family, not just in respect of my mother, but also my father – I made formal complaints in both instances – lessons will be learnt, apparently – but this has done nothing to ease my resentment.
I resent that because she was old, my mother was effectively written off.
I resent that everything was such a battle and I had to spend so much time chasing and making sure things were done.
I resent that there are old people in hospital who are overlooked, and who don’t have a voice or someone to speak up for them.
I resent that my sister and I were left to deal with everything, both before and after my mother’s death.
I resent that in the last few months of my mother’s life the days were short, and the nights were long.
I resent that those last few precious months were stolen from me.
I resent that the last words my mother spoke to me were when she wasn’t herself.
But, most of all, I resent the resentment that I feel: it’s preventing me from moving on.
There’s something very satisfying about drawing a line.
Paul Klee loved a line. Taking a line for a walk.
Bewölkung (Clouds), Paul Klee, 1926
I stand in front of this Paul Klee every time I go to the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester. Ink lines drawn over watercolour evoke feelings and moods, suggesting, not defining.
I listened to a film whilst I did this. I like the suggestion of form created by the pattern of the lines. It’s made me think about something underneath trying to get out. The real me? I find these sculptures to be disturbing but compelling at the same time.
Maybe the lines are the contours of my life on a map. My own satnav so I know where I’ve been and where I’m going. Lots to think about.
During the last session we considered the premise that resentment blocks creativity.
Resentment is a feeling of anger or unhappiness about something that you have been forced to accept and you don’t like, or think is unfair. It comes from the Latin verb sentire, and so it is an emotion which is ‘re-sensed’ time after time, perhaps even increasing in intensity. Perhaps we feel resentment that other artists are better than us, or that they have works accepted in exhibitions and we don’t.
As I get older, I try as best I can to keep as much negativity out of my life as possible. I may initially feel it, but then I try to process it by turning it on its head, or actively dealing with it. I can’t feel resentment (in the sense of it being a recurring emotion) that other artists are better than me or are more successful – instead I use the initial negative feeling (which is probably more envy than anything else) to spur me on to try again, to fail again and to fail better, because inherent in that form of resentment is the feeling of failure.
For the last few years I have submitted work to the RA Summer Exhibition but I have never made it to the next round of judging. Each year I experience a moment of crushing disappointment and vow never to do it again, but then January comes around and off I go again. I’m clearly looking for validation, but I often think to myself that if ever I do get in I’ll probably never submit again, and maybe it won’t even make me happy.
My husband confessed to me that he had always wanted to paint. Why don’t you just do it, I asked him. He started with watercolours and over time became good at it. I suggested that he try oils as they are far more forgiving and I thought he might enjoy the freedom of using them. I bought him some as a gift along with some boards and brushes. He signed up to an oil painting class and shortly afterwards submitted one of his oil paintings to the Summer Exhibition. He made it through to the last 4,000 out of 16,000 entries on his first attempt. Did I feel resentment? No – I felt proud, with a strong sense of irony. He felt ecstatic with a strong sense of embarrassment.
If someone treats me badly I tend to think that it is more about them rather than me, but if it is something that I know will eat away at me and become a resentment I try to deal with it head on, unless doing so will cause irreparable harm. But, there is one particular instance of resentment which I haven’t been able to let go of no matter what I do, and I feel it as strongly today as the day I first felt it.
Well, the starting pistol has gone off, and I’m still sat here, procrastinating, allowing myself to be distracted, doing anything other than what I should be concentrating on: producing something for the pop-up show. My problem with deadlines is that I tend to ignore them until the very last minute – goal driven, that’s me.
What, with thinking about the pop-up and trying to come up with an inspirational text for Tuesday’s session, I’m feeling just the tiniest bit sick. I would say that I have stuck my head in the sand but apparently that’s a popular misconception: when they sense danger and cannot run away, ostriches will flop to the ground and remain still, attempting to blend in with the terrain – that sounds just about right!
Anyway, following on from my ‘Less’ post, I’ve been thinking about working with a limited palette and how it narrows choice. Using a pen narrows choice even further – just black and white and nothing much else in between. Using a pen forces you to think about mark-making in order to create tonal values and areas of interest. So, I’ve been using my time constructively by doodling with a pen in my sketchbook whilst listening to an audio book – who says I can’t multi-task!
I found the process of mark-making to be meditative and grounding, totally different from the anticipation of putting ink onto wet paper and waiting to see what happens. Strangely, I like it. I think I am a person of extremes: I’m either fastidiously tidy or chaotically messy; organised or haphazard; focused in on the minutiae or just wanting to see the bigger picture. Somehow I have to find a path along which both sides of me are satisfied.
I will definitely use pen again, if only as a way to order my thoughts. Going forward I think I should try to build up a bank of possible marks, almost like a painter might have a bank of colour swatches. Having said that, I’m mindful that I’ve still got to do a few things to which I’ve committed in earlier posts, so I think I need to embark on some self-accountability first.
This is the question debated in the latest RA magazine.
Mary Beard argues yes…
”To suggest that images are inviolable, to be protected from harm in the safe space of a gallery, denies them power. Part of the job of art is to challenge certainties, and make us see the world differently, in uncomfortable ways… But if we surround all art with a glow of pious reverence, if we put it on a pedestal with a ‘Do Not Touch’ label, protected by its very definition as ‘art’, we will have deprived it of one of its necessary functions: to make us angry. Ocassional destruction is the price we pay for art doing its job.”
Tomiwa Owolade argues no…
”Anyone who defends the right of art to be free of censorship needs to acknowledge a basic truth: not all works of art are great. Many are bad. Some are even morally offensive… No art should be destroyed. Because to destroy it it or call for its destruction, is to legitimise something even more pernicious than the existence of morally repellent art: the furies of the mob… The defence of art against destruction is not simply a defence of the soaring works that universally enchant and enrapture us. It is more importantly a defence against the baser instinct to destroy that, once unleashed against art, is likely to spill into cruelty against people. As the German poet Heinriche Heine said: ‘Where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too’.”
What do I think? I wholeheartedly agree with Mary Beard that the job of art is to challenge and at times anger but anger is an emotion and is purely subjective. Just because one person is offended by something does not make it offensive. Others may not be, and her proposition that those who are offended should be able to destroy art and that the only power that piece of art has is in its destruction is not something I can hop on board with. It also doesn’t address the issue as to whether it is the art itself or the maker which is considered to be offensive. Would it be acceptable to destroy great art because it has been made by bad people?
I attended another of Chris Koning’s online drawing workshops at lunchtime, to brush up.
She explained the concept of light logic:
Highlight – the brightest light
Cast Shadow – caused by the object blocking the light and so the darkest dark
Reflected Light – dim light bounced back up from light on the surface
Crest/Form Shadow – shadow which lies on the crest of a rounded form between highlight and reflected light
When drawing we are not interested in contrast, but in value ie what something looks like against something else.
‘The Artist’s Mother’, Georges Seurat, 1883
This drawing by Seurat is made up of lots of different areas of tone. The parting in the hair is not a definite line; it has been created by different areas of tonal value. There are no harsh lines anywhere and there is very little contrast in the image. It is Seurat’s flawless light logic which allows us to create the rest of the information ourselves.
We then did a quick 10 minute exercise. We lightly shaded in a rectangle. Then we were shown a blurred image and told to fill in the darkest areas and then use an eraser to show the lightest. We then had to fill in the rest of the tonal values in the knowledge that nothing else will be as dark or as light as the existing areas of tone.
Chris then inverted the image and made it clearer:
It was a helpful reminder not to ‘see’ what I’m drawing and thereby create an expectation, but just to see shapes of tone, and to start from the general, keeping in mind the relationships between areas in the whole of the composition, and then move towards the specific.
Kate McCalmont-Woods 