It has taken me a long time to settle to making any art…. Yesterday at last I found a suitable book, and created enough working space on a table in my very crowded attic studio, and had an idea of what I wanted to do…. a painting of a piece of blossom…. There are so many fruit trees now, covered in the most beautiful and varied flowers. Each species is similar in the flower designs, but distinctly different and I wanted to chart some of this… I started with pear….. But half way into my painting a friend rang. This is a guy from Faversham who has spinal problems and has been very restricted in his social and working life for the last 2-3 years, and is frustrated and lonely as a result - that’s well before the coronavirus lockdown. So we had a long long conversation, which was lovely, but stupidly I continued to fiddle with the painting while we talked, and of course I ruined it (from my pov). It has brought nearer to the surface my anger and irritation - self-loathing, which most of the time I do manage to control and keep at bay. But here it is. I am snappy, unreasonable, impatient, directive. Not nice.
Andrew went to the allotment today to dig, and at last I had energy to do things…. I started to tidy up, throw things away, sort things out. This is an old pattern… I find I get transfixed when he is in the house, somehow immobilised. The old syndrome of h at home….. His continued lack of awareness or sensitivity about what I am doing if he comes into a room, his ability just to assume that he can speak or ask or suggest something quite without taking into account that I am listening to the radio, or doing something, … it is very very irritating…. I am not blaming him fully for this, though I try to explain he should really wait and just see what’s happening before launching into his conversation. I know this is about my reactions, but at the same time, it feels abusive and belittling. I miss things I’ve been listening to, because over the top of the drama or report or whatever comes a a question he’s been brewing, or a suggestion that we go and do something. Agh!
Anyway….
Today I turned out the gardening cupboard. And tidied some papers from the kitchen stacks. And we can sort all these piles of old seed packets this afternoon…. to give away I hope.
I've just had a phonecall from Peter Latham who I had emailed to ask if he had made the beautiful sculpture we have on the landing here. Yes it is his. I said I love it more just about anything in the house and imagine it will still be here in 1000 years, long after he and I have gone. He laughed and said 'Yes, with luck!'
He is 83, did National Service in Malaya (before he knew he was an artist!), took photographs which were casually stolen or lost by a journalist and which he still regrets - an album recording many things. He works in many media, talked about it with his friend the ceramicist Colin Pearson who said “Commercial suicide!” He said I should use permanent ink and write PJL on the rim of the base.
He will send me some images of other works. He sold some to Lady Swire - inc a print of a fine Oriental elephant which he had drawn at a little-known gallery in Paris… She being French was pleased to talk with him about Paris. He said the show where I bought it was at Creek Creative.
He had also managed to get to the Wallace Collection just before lockdown, to see an exhibition of Indian/British watercolours -done by Mughal artists using watercolour and gouache, but in oriental style. Some belong to the Bodleian. Sounds wonderful.
In the world, increasing rage and fury and the government’s failures to act, questions about the Home Secretary’s invisibility, questions about what might be coming next (how long will this go on?), what about those living alone - what if they die, who will notice?, further advice about how households should isolate within the house, fears that the warm weather will pull people out of their homes and into parks and beaches raising the risks, …. Outside, the birds are singing, the sun in shining, no rain so things are looking dry.
The zoom calls are increasing in frequency, and of course there is no down-time to process, or to drive home as you would get with a real meeting somewhere. It’s been too intense for me. People who I have been urging to try it for years are now great enthusiasts, and seem to have forgotten that I was the advocate for it all this time. (Sounding peeved, am I?) My ego keeps getting in the way of my tranquility.
But I have found a copy of the book Wilding which I ordered a few weeks ago. That should calm me down. And, thinking about something i read this morning - that in America, in Athens, Georgia in the 1800s, a man so liked an oak tree near his home that he conferred he legal right of ownership of the tree to the tree itself, and nobody minded. When the tree blew down in a storm, someone planted an acorn from the tree which therefore replaced it. The son of the tree is now the owner of the rights. It owns itself. The municipal authorities have been unable, therefore, to cut it down, as that would infringe the tree's rights. This really does give me some hope.
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