There Is No Time To Rush

“Keep in mind that grief doesn’t just dissolve. Instead it arises in waves and gradually, with growing compassion, there comes more space around it.”

Jack Kornfield

It is nearly a month since my dad died on the evening of 30th April 2019 and this post has been bubbling up ever since. It is a snapshot of fresh grief, of loss and learning. In death I see the strong unit that my family has become, each with our own unique way of coping.

On 3rd May, three days into grief, I finished a painting that had been germinating during the whirlwind last days of his time with us, whilst he had been in hospital, semi-conscious. In those last two weeks there was uncertainty, hope, great sadness and a recognition that we were not in control.  Slowly each of us began to accept that his time had come and during those final hours I remember glancing at my sister and brother, as the gaps between his breaths got longer and longer. The title of this painting alludes to comfort and permission to pass.

Flowers Will Hold You, Oil on canvas

On a visit to see him just a few days prior to his illness I had picked a small bunch of flowers from his beautiful garden. Gardening had been one constant in his life and a source of great joy. As the gravity of his condition began to take hold I could not bring myself to throw these flowers out, even as the petals dropped.

Shortly after his death my brother set up a WhatsApp memories group. We did a lot of crying and virtual hugging, we laughed and supported each other from afar. We reminisced about the man in his prime, about beloved childhood memories, about the rituals and routines that he and we lived by. Condensed in the sharing of these memories we found the essence of our Dad.

To lose a parent…I had heard so many of my friends over the years, talk about the enormity of the loss.  Indeed now I know that it holds great gravity but also that it is  exactly as it should be. In death my Dad continues to teach and show me a way. It may not be my way but it is heroically his.

There are moments when the loss becomes overwhelming; these moments come quickly from out of nowhere, no rhyme or reason. Then there are the moments of frozen numbness – what would have upset me before no longer holds any significance. A smashed vase can be replaced, a silly mistake can be remedied, a miscommunication can be fixed.

Wise men and women give counsel on becoming acquainted with the invisible form of the departed. I am grateful to the quiet strength of my ancestry.

There has been a hiatus in the abstract in favour of still lives. I paint flowers obsessively, joyously, beyond thought. It is almost as if the slipperiness of death is too big and scary so I turn away from abstraction in paint, as I am facing it in life.

When I am truly present with the loss it becomes about so much more than just loss. It includes thankfulness and forgiveness, it’s about honouring the past and living for the future. It is also about bravely embracing who I am, whilst fearlessly letting go of all that no longer fits.

I renew my belief in the preciousness of the moment and true connections: I think about legacy and know that busyness will not deliver the desired results.  I need time to be still. Above all death is a wake-up call to being human, to know that I am going to die and you are going to die, and to feel at ease with less than perfect endings.

Namaste

Letter to my dear friend Wynn

Original artwork by Judith Ann Brown

Dear Wynn

I must share with you a book I am reading on Winifred Nicholson called Liberation of Colour, which I know that you would love.

Towards the end of her life she painted prismatic paintings full of spiritual content. I had seen her work at Kettle’s Yard  (which in fact was where the book screamed “buy me”) but had never encountered these powerful works before. They take your breath away with their clear sight and have titles such as Consciousness, Clarion Call and Whisper and Candle, Eigg. The penultimate painting in the book, The Gate to the Isles (Blue Gate), is exquisitely beautiful and hints at other worlds of beauty.

There is so much I would like to quote to you…

“I have been able to get a glimpse of Life and living power, but I have only been able to express the very simplest first letters of the alphabet of Spirit, something to do with cheerfulness, not even yet joy, far less the full diapason of Truth. But I’ve done enough to know that it’s there just beyond the realm of our consciousness, and I always know that some of us, some humans, will reach it.”

“The conscious self is so small, so limited – the unconscious universe is so huge, so unlimited.”

And last but not least  “My paint brush always gives a tremor of pleasure when I let it paint a flower.”

In friendship

Judith

Revolution in Whispers

“Any child could paint that”

How many times have I heard this response to abstract art.

I love the fabled reply from Alan Davie – not if they tried.

Subsequent Layers

Oil paint takes a long time to dry. People ask how long does it take you to make a painting. Some say a painting is never finished. The truth is I will set a work aside to rest many times before I feel happy. And sometimes the happiness is only temporary…

July is Racing

There is heat, there is work, there is painting…

Summer Works

“The eye sees only fronts, and the mind, on the whole, is satisfied with fronts. But intuition needs all-roundedness, and instinct needs insideness. The true imagination is forever coming round to the other side, to the back of presented appearance. “ David Bomberg

Every Painting Teaches Me Something

 

Bridge Over The Cam/ The Air On Our Face

I am reading The Goetheanum Cupola Motifs Of Rudolf Steiner: Paintings by Gerard Wagner translated and edited by Peter Stebbings. It was one of those wonderful finds whilst browsing the stacks at Cambridge University Library  There is an incredible chapter at the end of the book titled A Path Of Practice In Painting. In this chapter Gerard explains the years of experiments and practice undertaken with colour “to train one’s color feeling.” The process he explains is familiar to any artist who paints because they must: that mystical, transcendental feeling of ethereal flow.

“At the moment of appearing on the surface of the picture, they (colours) are actually at the end of their path.”

Apron Strings

Apron strings…such an emotive phrase that I wanted to share a little bit about what it means to me.

When my son was young we were given a book called “The Children’s Year” by Stephanie Cooper, Christine Fynes-Clinton and Marye Rowling.  On the copyright page there is a quote from Rudolf Steiner where he talks about the importance of art and beauty, in the pictures of life that the child is exposed to. This view of childhood and family is idyllic and nostalgic.

In contrast to this, I am drawn to the images of childhood produced by Joan Eardley. There is one with the title Pat and Anne Samson, which I am totally fascinated by. You can sense the future women in these two children; there is such a strong sense of kinship…all that vitality and the thwarting.

And as I put on my artists’ apron to paint, all of my feelings are left in a tangle.

Postscript. After writing this I set about some research and it was not hard to find a story about Pat and Anne, the children in the Eardley painting. I love that Joan fed them treacle and cheese sandwiches.

Hydrangea Flower

 

I have been trying hard to keep my indoor hydrangea thriving. It is a very thirsty plant which apparently symbolises abundance, honest emotions and the development of a deeper understanding between two people. The desire to capture all that in paint is strong.

Absolutely loved the Gertrude Jekyll quote in the church garden at Caldecote…it was worth the muddy boots to wander out over the fields there.

“The first purpose of a garden is to be a place of quiet beauty such as will give delight to the eye and refreshment to the mind.”

Life has become very busy, art needs time…what am I to do?

Bright Yellows, Soft Oranges And Reds (dig up the carrots and plant flowers instead)

I am enjoying two books which seek to extol the power of art. The first is Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery by Jeanette Winterson. In it she tells us how she moved from being totally disinterested in the visual arts to becoming an ardent lover. For the artist, it is chock full of sentence after quotable sentence, which shocks in recognition. She talks about true artists, in preference to great artists. The difference being in the act of connection.

“We have to recognise that the language of art, is not our mother-tongue.” A useful analogy which sees art as a conversation between the artist and the active partaker, between the art object and the surroundings, between the participant observer and their own self. Once the  novice stage has been passed  in the learning of the language there is, with sufficient time, insight, rapture, transformation and joy.

The second book Seeing Slowly: Looking at Modern Art by Michael Findlay also foregrounds connection as the way into art. Here we are guided into noticing how a work of art makes us feel, what it makes us think. It is so refreshing to move on from the “But is it art” debate and instead turn the question onto the person encountering the art object. I love the suggestion to imagine that this work has been made for you. Art, of course, is only a key – the real gateway is attention.

”Why is it art?”Gerald asked, shocked, resentful. “It conveys a complete truth,” said Birkin.  “It contains the whole truth of that state, whatever you feel about it.”

DH Lawrence, Women in Love

And I am returned for a moment to my seventeen year old self, who knew about the potential of art, but did not yet know how to keep that potential alive.