Lixtroll

Thursday, 20 September 2007

Recent Paintings and Drawings of Scary things

As usual, chronology means not a great deal in my blogs - work begins, gets set to one side, another piece is begun - it is a constant theme of working and reworking until finally the image emerges and is something I recognise as exactly that thing which I wanted to drag out from within. The Themes of Tenderness work is still ongoing, concerned with damage, learning to live with damage and even to accept and love it - and the possibility of healing through nurture and not through pain.

Oil on Board - a small painting at 2ft square

Eerie arches at the reservoir above Ben Lawers - this is such a frightening place to be in for me - the sheer enormity of it makes me dizzy when I stand inside the arch, it towers and booms above and makes a person feel so small it is difficult to believe it was constructed by people - I can only make myself stand in there for a matter of seconds then I have to turn and run away, shrieking part with fear and part with delight at the physical effect this structure has on my body!

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Oil on Board - another small painting at 2ft square

This painting is of another eerie place up at the reservoir, this time there are stars in the sky which are reflected in the water below. The coldness and hardness of these silent pieces of material which meet at night where nobody can see them. The stars I also find terrifying in their enormity.

Oil on Board 2ft x 2ft

Another study of the reservoir arches - the scary place!!

Oil on Board - old Rufus again, detail of work underway currently

Rufus the fox-dog appears with railway tunnels and embankments. I experimented with mixing architectural images with the image of Rufus who regularly strolls in and out of my daily and nocturnal life, weaving between concrete and dream images. Part predator, part vulnerable creature, Rufus comprises a complex and interesting personality who is continually developing his character for me to explore in my mythology.

Charcoal and ink wash on paper - approx 30 x 18 inches

There is a disused water tank beside the old railway which runs along from the track beside my house. It is a fascinating thing, decrepit and failing further with each season. Still rainwater collects in pools at the base reflecting sky and trees - I have even seen the moon and a few stars floating at the bottom of this tank.

Charcoal and ink wash on paper - approx 30 x 18 inches

Sunday, 26 August 2007

flotsam & jetsam

• unwanted material or goods that have been thrown overboard from a ship and washed up on the shore, esp material discarded to lighten the vessel

• The wreckage of a ship or cargo found washed up and floating on the sea

So here’s the thing – you think you are ok one minute and then you’re not. Overnight I found all this stuff washed up on the beach. Unwanted stuff from the past, emotional baggage chucked over the side which suddenly floats back in on the tide to confront me. Raw, very raw, my feet are wading through it all just when I thought I was mending. Anger and distrust. Needy, selfish, demanding. Oh god and a whole lot of demons to fight – am I mending or getting worse, sinking and sick, where are those beautiful white sails that catch the breeze in the sunshine and carry me into clear waters?
Worse – building towers with the flotsam and jetsam. Against my will, something compulsive in my character makes me do it - great warped edifices that block the way and prevent progress, wrapped in barbed wire to dig into old wounds and stab at those you love as they try to move closer to help. Frightened and crushed, I do it to myself, and I find myself on that lonely beach wounded and surrounded with these discarded objects, lashing out and pushing the decent stuff away against my will. What an ugly creature I face up to in myself.
Is this growth? I need to leave this flotsam and jetsam behind and climb aboard that lightened vessel – but not without a good close look first – I don’t want to take it with me and I don’t want to acquire more of the same on my new voyage. I really have to take down those towers, earn those beautiful white sails and trust that new vessel. I need to treat it with respect.
Furthermore that ugly creature has to learn how to make good and to grow and not to repeat the same mistakes before it gets on board.

Saturday, 25 August 2007

sitting still

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Rufus and the Crow

There is strength in the breeze gathering in the upper boughs of the beeches outside, but as I sit by the window the sun streams in and I have sunshine in my belly. A bee drifts in and almost immediately straight back out into the shafts of light. I follow it in my mind - I am light and still, free floating through dense honeyed light, just a tiny dust-mote amongst millions, darting and drifting, turning in the light and carried on the airs which eddy and breathe.

I have lots to tell, there is a lot going on - but I will let it gradually unfold in a natural path over time, upheavals do take time to settle. Things have not been easy, but I am free to decide and to reform my future now and I'm getting on with it - new work is underway too . . .

The Falling Sky

Wind and rain, sun and water, they are shaping the great sloping face of the mountains even as I write and you read this. I draw comfort from the vastness of it all, I enjoy the sensation of being immaterial in comparison, of hardly mattering. It’s just for the blink of an eyelid that I get to bask in the warmth of sunshine and be cradled in that glow.

Friday, 24 August 2007

good to be back

A new page has turned in my life and I am about to start again, so I thought I would begin a new blog too – it seems appropriate, and somehow I don’t feel like working on my old blog pages any more; they are still there to visit and explore, but have become part of my past, and somehow don’t connect with the way that I feel right now. So I smooth those dusty old pages down and gently close them, and invite you to my new ones to share my journey.

For the moment I am in my childhood home once again under repair. The wind of change breezes through. Events will unfold in their own time, adding layers to life like the annulets in a tree-trunk, hidden within the bark but essential to the growth of the tree.