A Big Gap...

I've been away from blogging as my Dad died last week.

It was all a bit sudden and I'm still a bit bewildered by it all...

I love this photo which was taken when he was about 5.
So, nothing much to say, I'm afraid, but here is what my eyes have been looking at...

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...and my Dad's pride and joy; The Screaming Baby making friends with the fish!

Where the rust and water went...

Well, I've put my fear and fascination of rust and metal in water into my recent paintings.

I'm a bit of a fiddler, so these may not be quite finished...or they might be...I have to live with them for a bit, but I've really enjoyed the process of creating them, which has taken some time: because there are so many layers, I've had to be really patient letting each one dry, whilst trying to keep them looking wet...

...and this is one below I've been playing with for a while, (some of you might remember it in a slightly different way, from an earlier post 'Up Close and Underneath');
It's become a lot murkier over the last few weeks!

Fear, Rust and Loathing in Lost London...

I am so drawn to the Thames, to the sea, to all things tidal, and yet I have a fear; a phobia connected to it.

One of the comments I had about a painting I'd done of the underneath of a boat, has prompted this post, which isn't really an explanation, but maybe an illustration of why I try and paint what frightens me.

For a start I've found that when I paint something with the fear and strong feelings I have about man-made objects in water, particularly metal things, somehow it seems that I leave some of that emotion lingering, and people appear to appreciate it, even if they don't feel the same...maybe that emotion enables them to be led to visit other deep places ?...who knows...but my phobia fascinates me, and just as I think it's all ok, and I'm fine with rusty boats... I suddenly get the fear.

I took a walk along the Thames yesterday and saw some fantastic and odd things. The Thames is so difinitively London and so not London at the same time.

However, The Thames terrifies me; it's lonely, grey, old, full of rusty working vessels, and it seems to hide so many things under it's deep grey shroud; an historical London which we see broken fragments of on the shoreline, and the fact that it's calmly yet constantly hiding death...or maybe that's just my phobia!

Anyway...the walk started out in a civilised way, and when you work out what this says,...you'll laugh I'm sure!

A wonderful piece of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott design: see the telephone kiosk resemblence?

...and there was a pedestrian diversion near Blackfriars, and can you believe NO ONE stopped to look at this apart from me. It is hidden in an awful industrial corner, surrounded by vandalised 'hazardous chemical' warnings...

I think it's utterly amazing and so beautiful

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...and this kind of made me think of Elaine

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And the rest...well, the rest is just rust and fear...the industrial, lonely, chained, boat persisted in worrying me, but it was the piping further down that was the final straw; I was nearly crying and feeling really rather sick, so I called it a day after that, and made a hasty retreat!

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Catching Up...Part 2

Oh my goodness...I am so rubbish at 'catching up'...I've been meant to be finishing this post for 3 days now, and I've chosen to start writing something 5 minutes before I go out...anyway, lets see how far I get...

So, I've been painting, in preparation for The Early Open House , but I keep doing that thing where I like my painting for 5 minutes after I've done it...go to bed, and then wake up thinking it's crap...anyway a couple are here for you to peruse...

The one below, is the bit of the boat which is usually below water level

line shapes have been fascinating me too...but to no real purpose

nice patterns...even in an horrible office!

and also at home...

you've got to guess what this is...

...and big, fat list makers!

Now this is where the second wedding I went to was: Wilton's Music Hall.

It was utterly gorgeous and fantastic!

...and another little one!

If you havn't already, please have a look on the new Early Open House blog...you'll be familiar with a couple of us, and if you'd like to come please just let us know...or just turn up, of course!

Catching Up...Part 1

I havn't done any blogging for ages...but I have to say... I've quite enjoyed not!!!

I've been driving all over the place, having had 2 weddings and unfortunately a funeral to go to over the last few weeks.

The first wedding was really lovely, and at an amazing place called Hampton Court, in Herefordshire.

I don't really do party photos, as I enjoy taking part rather than documenting it...but I thought some of the little places around and about were really atmospheric.

There seemed to be an odd combination of Medievil and Victorian...

We danced under the alternative 'glitterball'...a giant mace!

...and I think I was the only guest to root out the Guiness...(I don't behave well on wine)...and I was the envy of many!

Then, of course, guess what I did on the way home?...

A family group...

'Sorry...'

Proud.

A very satisfying public partnership (she's proud of her age!)

Mr Richards has gone...

...leaving Mr Richards' lonely son!

Round the Bend...at dusk.

And then what was waiting when I got back home...

I love this photo...

Routine, Lists and Nothingness ...

Well, I've cheered up since my last post!

My life is just in a state of flux at the moment, for one reason and another, but I have to say that the return of the school drop-off and school pick-up has felt incredibly beneficial to an up-tight Summer sufferer.

I've started running again, I'm doing a bit of boring work again...I have routine again!

Routine, for me, is the essence of accomplishment, and as long as I have a ridiculous, fat marker- pen list, blue tacked to a wall in front of me, I can accomplish!

Now, this list sometimes even features:

05.30. Wake Up

People are often shocked at this (possibly by the time) but usually by the fact that 'Wake up' is part of my list...

Well, if I am only able to cross one thing off a day, it makes me feel better than if I'd crossed off nothing at all...lists should be achievable, in my book (and my fat marker pen).

Actually, I have other sorts of list too, which are much more serious and ambitious, and slightly unachievable, but they are my 'long term' lists and, crikey, when I cross something off there, it feels SO good!

Over the last week or so, I've also been tidying and sorting (and yes, I managed to cross off 'sort piles of papers at the end of the bed' well and truly off!)...so my mind has become a little freer, which I'm sure has helped spark an idea for painting, which I wont write much about just yet, as it's still in a sort of infancy...

Last week I had to speak about synaesthesia at the British Science Festival in Guildford:

I played Judy Garland singing 'Over The Rainbow' (a '50's recording), and Elvis singing 'In The Ghetto' whilst the audience looked at my two paintings of the sound of the two singers' voices. I also handed 'round oranges, Maltesers and English Mustard for people to taste whilst they were looking at my paintings of those tastes...

(If you're a bit bewildered, you can visit my website)

Anyway, I'd done some of the paintings a while ago, and this talk I had to do, forced me to think again about sound, and how I paint it.

After doing a lot of voice portraits, I felt that I'd lost any 'feeling' for it; I felt my paintings had slipped simply into artistic notation.

So that's why I've been concentrating on painting things which I feel something strongly about inside: (the fear of the underneath of boats, shipwrecks, and of course telephone boxes)...and then last week, my feeling for sound and paint came back!

...and I'll hopefully keep you posted about that in the near future...

But just for now, I'm enjoying a bit of nothingness: Nothing amazing, nothing absolutely gorgeous, nothing particularly anything really...I'm just waiting...

amongst some of my sweet nothingnesses...

...all rooted by me!

It's a wonderful feeling to paint or create something you have a real passion and feeling for, even if it involves an element of nothing!

Up Close and Underneath...

Moving on

Then moving back

Stumbling forward

with things I lack...

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Nothing ventured

sitting still

but nothing gained

with bitter pill...

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A weekend through

I feel the same

inside out

with outside game

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Am I tired?

Am I tough?

hardened through

the want of love

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(an odd weekend...but with a new painting)

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