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 »
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 »
For just a very few days a year, a cherry tree flowers in Halwell churchyard. The ground between the graves is a tapestry of primroses, celandine, violets, cowslips, ground ivy and daisies – a sight magical enough – but the huge flowering tree with its chaos of bee-filled, pink and white petals, is something else... Read more »
Late in the summer of last year I had the great pleasure of re-connecting with my old tutor from Oxford – Nicholas Mann. After a happy exchange of e-mails, towards the end of August, he and his charming family drove down to spend a day with me here in South Devon. I remember pale sunshine,... Read more »
I learned only today that the word obsession comes from the latin obsidere – to besiege. from ob (before) and sedeo (I sit) Working on a big drawing like this, for months on end, I am not sure which of us is under siege – who sits before whom? Perhaps the poet Li Bai understood: ‘We sit... Read more »
“….In everyone there sleeps A sense of life lived according to love. To some it means the difference they could make By loving others, but across most it sweeps As all they might have done had they been loved. That nothing cures. “ Lines from Faith Healing by Philip Larkin –
At its deepest level, any poetic utterance grows out of a desire to overcome loneliness, to share experience. “Absence” Charcoal and Inks on Arches paper. 40″X 27″ approx For a long time – really since I started making paintings as a conscious adult – I’ve been troubled by notions of ‘self’ and of art as... Read more »
‘Gone’ Charcoals and watercolour on Arches paper. 13″ X 13″ In loneliness there is also some joy – autumn darkens. Buson (1776) Over the past weeks, as a result of the exhibition TREE at Beaux Arts in London, I have been asked several times if there is a ‘Japanese influence’ to my work. Sadly, I... Read more »
Most of this year has been spent working for an exhibition that will pay homage to one of the most beloved aspects of our landscape – the tree. Patricia Singh of Beaux Arts London was very keen that Revd. Richard Davey – who has written several times on my work with great insight and sensitivity... Read more »
One morning last week a friend called to say he had found a stoat in the lane. He said it must have been hit by a car but was unmarked and would I like it to draw? Waiting for him to turn up with the creature, I noticed that I knew nothing about stoats and had... Read more »
It has been two years this month since I picked up a paint brush. For two years or more before that I had been finding oil painting increasingly confusing. Nothing pleased me. At times the multiplicity of choices – brush, colour, tone, surface, subject and so on – had, without exaggeration, begun to make... Read more »
