Diary

Common things

It can never be too strongly impressed upon a mind anxious for the acquisition of knowledge, that the commonest things by which we are surrounded are deserving of minute and careful attention.  James Rennie The Natural History of Insects, 1830 As a child, like so many children, I loved to read myself to sleep. I... Read more »

Podcast interview

Hannah Munby of the Fen Ditton Gallery in Cambridge recorded the following interview with me toward the end of a 6 month residency with the Cambridge Conservation Initiative, in 2022.  Dr John Fanshawe invited me to come to Cambridge to work in the David Attenborough building and at the University Museum of Zoology. The residency... Read more »

Moths

“…and in a moth’s life in the ditch’s low level sky by the glow of a flower in the clothes of a messenger maybe this wish whatever it is will simplify.” Alice Oswald  ~   In the two years since my last blog post I have had the enormous privilege of working with four seriously... Read more »

About a Beech Tree

Returning home from a walk on the coast a few weeks back – limbs stretched, brain empty, relaxed, the day pleasantly nothing special, the way utterly familiar – I turned off the ‘main’ ridge road at the five-ways, to dive down the narrow tunnel of lane that leads the last two miles into the village.... Read more »

To be a pilgrim

To be a pilgrim is to be connected.  We are all connected, we are all related, there is no I and the other, I am the other, the other is me – that is what makes me a pilgrim in life and a pilgrim of the Earth.  My pilgrimage is not going somewhere; my pilgrimage... Read more »

Like a bird on the wire

For much of this past year an imperfect Mistle Thrush sang from first light to last, in the tall trees that border the field behind my home.  Imperfect in that he had only one leg. Sometimes, in the afternoons, he would leave the swaying branches at the tip of his favourite ash, to sing from... Read more »

This is not our finest hour.

This is madness. What is going on? I make no apology for the absence of paintings in the following.  As the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish wrote: “what place poetry in a time of catastrophe?” This piece is about racism, assumptions and my despair at finding so much of the former still festering in the country I... Read more »

It takes a stout heart.

The end of the year and, for some reason, my mind turns to Cennini:  FUNDAMENTAL PROVISIONS FOR ANYONE WHO ENTERS THIS PROFESSION CHAPTER III You, therefore, who with lofty spirit are fired with this ambition, and are about to enter the profession, begin by decking yourselves with this attire:  Enthusiasm, Reverence, Obedience, and Constancy.  And... Read more »

Printmaking

There is something wonderful about printmaking.  Often thought of as the poor relation of painting, it is hard on the hands, messy, brain-tanglingly difficult, (you work in mirror image) and frequently frustrating but to those of us who love it …well there is nothing quite like it. However difficult it might be to explain why... Read more »

Entomology

I didn’t mean to do this drawing and I can’t bring it home with me.  It’s in the ‘visitors’ book at the studio here in France.  When I started it, I thought to just draw one or two interesting insects on the page and write a thank you message to the owners.  But…while here, I... Read more »