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Painting - real life and fiction
I have been busy painting (mostly commissions) and am currently doing some housekeeping on my website and this blog, so it might look a bit messy here over the next few weeks. I am extremely,...
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All calm
My current moisturiser, made by my sisterA present for a friendMilk and maskDecember can be stressful at the best of times, but we have a choice in how we deal with it, and while I never really got...
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Books for wholeness | Author Sophie Sabbage
from The Cancer Whisperer by Sophie Sabbage"The sorrow which has no vent in tears may make other organs weep."Henry MaudsleyBack in November I posted a shorter version of the below on my social media...
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Retreat
"Time is a box formed by thoughts of the past and the future. When there is only the immediate now - when you’re not dwelling in the past or anticipating the future, but you are just right here, right...
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Biophilia
Homemade bird food - attempt #1, and a book on bees'Barnabee', oil on canvas board (the model was already dead!)"The effects of nature’s qualities on health are not only spiritual and emotional but...
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Routines for staying grounded
In the studio Some recent and current reading Spinach There are no weedsRoutines, be they daily, weekly or monthly, are an anchor in life, especially in these extraordinary times. We need structure....
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Birthday, houses and home
From Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold (we sometimes put on subtitles in German if available, as John is learning it, or French or Spanish, as a brush-up exercise, but I put on English subtitles...
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Flowers
From Lindgren, Astrid & Hartung, Louise: Ich habe auch gelebt. Briefe einer Freundschaft, Ullstein Verlag, Berlin 2016I have been filling a sketchbook with botanical illustrations, experimenting...
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Natural beauty: skincare and dental
The contents of our bathroom cabinet are not all 100% plastic-free, but where possible we buy and use natural products in sustainable packaging or homemade versions. I have been using a menstrual cup...
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On scanxiety
Photo taken in Italy last year - my first swim in the sea since my diagnosisthe marks on my back after a session on my 'bed of nails'"All patients have complicated relationships with their scans [...]....
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Love, compassion, light: Celia Paul's Self-Portrait
This memoir by the artist Celia Paul has accompanied me for the last few months, moving from bedside table to coffee table to dining table to my desk in the studio. I read it almost in one go, but I...
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Portraits
I have been painting and drawing a lot of people and animals, especially portraits of family and friends. If anyone is interested, I posted some work-in-progress photos of two of the paintings above on...
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Books: On Chapel Sands by Laura Cumming
"The Misses Williamson inspired in her the gift of transforming the everyday that has enriched my whole life." Cumming, Laura: On Chapel Sands, Chatto & Windus, London 2019, p.145*Laura Cumming...
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Walking, swimming and Sufjan Stevens
"Going barefoot in nature immediately helps clear your energy. Stepping out onto the sand, putting your feet into the ocean, hugging a tree, all of these clear your energy. Nature is an incredible...
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In the studio
Just a few glimpses of my studio/office (a spare room in our house), where I am spending even more time now that I am also teaching remotely: 1 | I have four of these bamboo picture ledges in two...
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Silence and Quiet (and kale)
Some snapshots from the last few months:1 | The perfect book pair. I had been meaning to read Susan Cain's Quiet. The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking ever since its...
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Healing tools
Healing can be a full-time job, though I don't like to think of it as work. But for various reasons I haven’t been able to stick to all of my routines over the past few months, so the following -...
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Books: Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton
“Whatever peace I know rests in the natural world, in feeling myself a part of it, even in a small way.” (Sarton, May: Journal of a Solitude, W.W Norton & Company, New York 1992, p.16)"There...
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Two kinds of light
"...[T]he light behind the figures seems almost the subject of the painting, rather than the figures themselves, and there's quite a melancholy feeling about that, that the light will actually...
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Around here
DottyMatcha tea ceremonySome fiction highlights from last yearSideboard still lifeWork-in-progress: John and Cillian"She walks back, more slowly, the way she came. How odd it feels, to move along the...
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Signs and synchronicities
I have always been fascinated by so-called coincidences and signs that seem to arrive at just the right time. Of course, when something is on our mind a lot, we are bound to notice it more when it...
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A jumper and a cardigan
These are two of my recent knitting projects. The chunky cable-sleeve cardigan was knitted in a day, and I learnt the magic loop method in the process (turns out you don't need circular needles...
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Art books: Peter Campbell - Artwork
"One mark of an artist is that he or she alerts us to a world. Modest and wholly without pretension this Campbell repeatedly does. Unsurprisingly he was a lovely man." Alan Bennett on Artwork by Peter...
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Knits, reads, paints
| Knitting cushion covers in Irish moss stitch and washcloths with leftover yarn from my jumper (bamboo washcloth pattern by John's cousin Lisa. My sister also makes her own washcloths) - I love...
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Loss and absence, art and nature
From Celia Paul: Self-Portrait (Jonathan Cape, London 2019, p.152) "A garden is always a series of losses set against a few triumphs, like life itself." May Sarton "[W]hen I look at this painting,...
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