Sunday 26 June 2011

Our mutual mortality

a genuine and reasonable realistic fear
of God
in this lifetime
would feel
 seem
 perhaps to be
to leave something -unshared.

Gifted -each one of us
with a little bit of thought
that might be kindly conversation
our ordinariness
revealed gently deliberately
courteously embraced

Amen

Friday 24 June 2011

just william -what katy did

I enjoyed the Royal Wedding so much I decided to paint it
I just received the president's prize for it at  the Deeside Art Group exhibition
So I thought I might blog the image and details and share my joy

I drew the whole thing out loosely from the maps wedding guides and spun around the images
of Westminster Abbey I even found a model that I made in a novelty shop.
I realized the scale of the picture
would make the balcony scene small so decided to do a raunchier
Kiss pic with them on the roof of the Abbey

Buckingham Palace made great backdrop for the wonderfully orchestrated crowd that
the wonderful police guided along the Mall
My love of Lady Diane Spencer made me feel that rather than war planes another kind of flower blessing angel might fly past as she did in our hearts

The bottom left seemed a good place to put some recognizable faces-the pop art
 Sargent Pepper corner as it were with Beckhams and  Sir Elton
As well as run away horse there was cartwheeling bishop
Not having had a Royal invite I thought I would have play in my signature corner
and so knowing the Queen had ruled the balcony I thought it fun to pretend to be
doing a plan.The image I am painting is actually Harry William and Lady Di on a log flume
I did not know Prince Philip was 90 soon after and I actually saw him here a fortnight or so later
entering Wets Kirby Sailing Club.Here I have him harrassed by birds.
These are all parts of the one image entitled Just William What Katy Did.
The original framed image is £750 approx A1 in size in mounted and  black matt frame
The 25 prints image size about 45cm by 30 cm  on A3+ size paper.£45 per print .

Thursday 23 June 2011

Two unrelated remarks by a St Ives landlady

1.'Born n bred or born again?'
2.'Barbara Hepworth died smoking in bed!'

I was missing my own Major Barbara
couldn't-didn't want to
get her out of my head.

Oh the intimate beaches of St.Ives
the pasties,the coir covered floor,
the hope n smell of new life
and forgiven by God
Oh I know LOVE
is what life is for.

With the pebbles,& painters and beaches
the chips n the beer n the boats
the quay to the bay and the seagulls
we are hope- fishing and scribbling some notes

Oh I wanted to play on a clarinet
and the tune that said all that I felt
The tune of a song name of Paper moon
said it all on a postcard I wrote(?)

I am here
I am alive
it is a morning years later
in West Kirby-my flat
I notice my friends -are all vulnerable
say they'd help me
I've only to ask

So sing me song then of Jesus Christ
and remove all the barriers to church
Course through our veins
blood unconditional
the healing of man's divisions and sores
as the moisture of Life giving water oozes baptizes
through all of our skin sin n shame sapping pores

Aaah the tree and the roots and our Unity
is here in the hearts harbour and mind

I'm seeking a face for the Jesus
the Jesus of all of man-KIND


...................................


I noticed how Barbara Hepworth
had placed a carving of mother
 and child in a local church to mourn
 her son who I believe drowned.

I have been thinking of our friend Allen Mackie
how I longed to see him arise from his wheel chair
-I believe he has now!

Allen if Heaven get's emails
Thank you from all of us. Amen

Saturday 18 June 2011

a space in the proceedings

I do not hear my thoughts
o i realize
they are words
and i sort of hear them
 but try this
where is the volume?
They have no sound
 O you can
feel the words
 in your mouth
 on your still
ventriloquist's tongue
 but no
 this advance
 in sublimated reading
 or authoring is silent

And sadly i can no longer 'hear'
my parents either
but no thought do i hear
even echoed ones

Hilbre island

Just set off to Hilbre
my boots started to get
 a bit threatened as
they encounter a few
shallow rivers in the sand

took them off carried them
I hoped that the three figures
 ahead of me were the group.

I had said
couldn't set off with them
at 6.30 p.m
so here I was
about 7 p.m.

Could be them
 I waded.

I was half way
 they were on needle eye
the smallest left hand isle
of the trilogy or triptych

For me this left Holy panel
 meant security as if the
water came in
I was on higher ground

As I got the needle
I could see it was
some distance
to middle isle.

They were now on middle as
I barefooted the
water grain sandstone
its ridges at a
30 degree angle
left down to right.

As I approached
middle isle
I decided
not to
go onto it

 I imagined
 the instructions were
 to go behind
to approach main isle

As I approached the final chapter volume
I became aware of a troupe of  cagouls
say 14 of them who had cut wide and got ahead of my progress
on the other side of the shallow rocks on the approach
to middle isle.

Editing my walk
to agree with their interpretation
 and in the hope they were ny church
I stopped slipping in what felt like
a bowl of well soggy cornflakes
.The rock had similar pools of treacherous grey clay
and their crowns a down of green slimy grass like seaweed
I could not take but an  less abbreviated sentence to them

As I got to a path before the middle panel of the icon
its baroque frame proved hazardous and I decided not to
put my boots on nor let it polish me off

a granny and grand daughter
had smiled their passage back
with motherly dialogue about the
 little one being Scot of the antarctic

they were now well past needle eye that looked
a long thread away as did the church snake(trying t find that nice word for a line of children)

Wind swept and interesting
half way home I stopped
and felt safe
and enjoyed the defiance of my individual 'me' ness
I had come  a long way from years of depency and needyness
I was o k among the puddles
I had concern for the lonely vulnerability of my car with its camera and diary
in it and got ready to cope with its theft if necessary
but i was not driving myself to despair
a sort of triumphant lonesome yet not lonely victory

be not conformed to this world

I thanked Tim
for the idea of going to Hilbre
I hadn't made it
nor had I made it with companions
but i had made something

My sandy now fallen rolled up trouser
ends were soggy with sand
my feet muddy sand bathed
sight of the car was delicious
as was locating the camera
 and diary in the rucksack


what is a ruck?

I drove barefoot
decided to shop for curry and put sandels on rather than my boots

a funny moment happened in the flat
I took out my glasses case
to do this

they were not there
i discovered they
had been hanging hooked to the font of my T shirt
all the time from guitar lesson drive walk to middle isle and here

Friday 17 June 2011

The way in

Hope woke.With amazing powers of perception and monumental dreams he looked at the ink drawing he had made of the lion in Lime Street.Then he had a new thought.He drew a gentle image of himself from his voiceless mind's eye .Above this he drew a thinks bubble,into which with scalpel and cutting mat he created a window.
He thought now what to view find a catalogue -no means money.Perhaps go for a walk and look through it of hold it against images in the library encyclopaedia.A new thought came should the hole be a question mark and seek out text? What shape should the two d plastience thinks bubbles be?Now there's a thought should it be an ear hand mouth eye or some new sense a jar funnel or person.................mmmm I will view find all day for a shape.

Wednesday 15 June 2011

Playfulness

I have a lot of short films on youtube under timetheartist1
where you can view me painting several murals,
learn how to make paper mache and listen to a few simple songs

Yearning to write

I have left on hold for over a year my children's writing book course
and I long to continue also with the morning pages of three pages a day
that Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way encourages.

waiting for funds for a notebook that has a decent battery life has caused the pause .
The yearning is to be outside in a cafe whilst I pour out my thoughts.
Rather than here at home on the Internet.

My decision to blog came as I strolled home from a cafe called Toast
in West Kirby.I am about to practice on a keyboard for my music tutor
and this musical way of working I trust will bring me some momentary
relief.I am an illustrative artist who loves the invitation to 'play'.

Music and my studies as a student of writing is showing me the benefit of
practice and fluidity.My goal is to flow with thought images and refrains
so as to free the yearning to express an inner joy of being that must be
given form.So anyway this is a gentle beginning.   Jim 15.6.11