As I Was Going to St. Ives

Small, wind washed, golden boy
He tests his toes in shallow waves
"Cold, cold", he cries, but carries on
Sandy, wet, and suddenly brave.

Blue eyes reflect the summer sky
Intent on castles built of sand
He chatters on to unseen friends
Always returning to take my hand.

Grown and married soon to be
Alone, same ocean, I reflect
On how things change and stay the same
Like foaming waves that come collect

The memories like messages scribed in sand
And childhood hopes and dreams marked out
With seaweed, shells, buckets and spades
And I remember the tiny hand

As I prepare to let him go
With love he will return to me
With his own child to build more dreams
And I will hold his tiny hand as we look out across the sea.

Seagulls

Every Tuesday afternoon I take my turn at the Cowhouse Gallery in Perranuthnoe. I was going to say"work", however it is more of a restful time for me.

Sitting behind the counter there is a view of the ocean, but even more distracting for the past few weeks has been the seagull love affair on the roof of the house directly opposite.

The nest appeared during the same week that the only thing happening in the village was the noisy procreation of the two white birds. They mated very close to the spot where she was to spend the next month sitting vigilantly. Their view from the rooftop of the summer home a breathtaking, unbroken expanse of glittering ocean.

Each week I would look to see her sitting there in all weathers, patiently warming the eggs while her loyal partner returned with food to sustain her.

I was inspired to paint these small icons of seagulls and hang them over the window of the gallery as a homage to their resilience.

This week she was still there in the rain, and I wondered how long it would be before the fledglings would appear. The male was on the mossy roof noisily warning the crows to keep clear. Then with a break in the cloud, the patient mother moved off the nest and three little fuzzy brown heads popped up and started their clammering. What joy!

I have always been enchanted by penguins and the way the penguin fathers nestle their chicks under their feathers to keep them warm and safe. The seagull mother deftly gathered all three underneath her when the next shower began.

If only we could sit on our children and keep them safe forever.

Secret Door

Another childhood memory was brought to mind by this garden door at Trellisick Gardens. The door seems impossible to penetrate, like the castle of the Sleeping Beauty! The wisteria has grown over it and there is no latch.

My parent's house, my childhood home, was built at the bottom of my grandparent's land. There was a gate and then a path through the orchard, past the upturned air raid shelter, the sleeping bonfire, then up beyond the berry bushes, vegetable garden, greenhouse, and into the walled flower garden and lawn. This was heaven during the daytime but turned to a nightmare at dusk. Being sent to Gran's with a message in the dark caused me to hurtle through the orchard. My imagination vivid with scenes from Disney's Snow White where the trees are alive and grab at your clothing as you pass by. The bonfire a sleeping giant, about to wake up. The dark back of the Victorian house, impenetrable.

Later in life I was asked to design the set for Into the Woods, a musical about the darker side of fairy tales. I brought these memories to life by creating trees that slithered across the stage and costmes for the dancers who were bushes that came alive. Maybe there is a few more children out there now who are afraid to go to Grandmother's house!

Another Secret Garden

I have the privilege of visiting a very secret garden on a daily basis this week. It is the perfect cross between an ancient Japanese garden and a sub tropical Cornish garden. The weather is suddenly very hot and the light and shade astonishing.

All this charmed me in to taking out a drawing board and charcoal. I rarely draw any more and I asked myself why. Sitting on a bench in the lush garden with three attentive cats and the perfect voice of the blackbird, I began the old familiar routine.

Forgot I had Parkinson's again. When I paint my left hand does not tremor at all. When I draw it has it's little drawing dance of it's own. I am blessed to be right handed and after the adjustment of realising again that my body is different now, I got in to the swing of two hands doing different things at the same time (Maybe I should take up drumming.)

I used to demonstrate drawing while teaching in a university. I couldn't do it now; everyone would be hypnotized by the wayward left hand. I am.

I am going back to the blissful garden now, where there is no-one to watch me draw except the ever vigilant cats.

A Sunny Corner

I always knew that one day I would paint this sunny corner.

My parent's love to visit National Trust garden's and there are many of them in Cornwall. They, and my grandparents, instilled the magic of flower gardens in me from birth. My Mother's parents had a huge Victorian house with a walled garden that she and I both grew up in. There are pictures of us at the same age on the blissful sunny lawn.

One of my favorite books as a child was "the Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett. My Grandfather spoke with the gentle northern Thee and Thous and was always in his wellies digging. I believed he was the gardener in the book. I used to like to work alongside him, his usual silent industry broken by a whistled tune. He called me "sweet pea".

So the painting of the pot in the sunny, walled garden is a memory holder of childhood, innocence, safety, and of the joy and peace only a garden can bring.

Incurable Optimist.

My "Mermaid's Garden" paintings began as a fantasy of a sanctuary under the ocean; a calm place with the seaweeds waving in the ocean breeze; tiny fish ebbing and flowing; jewels of the sea bed.

I imagined myself laying Ophelia like amongst the shells, looking up to the sun speckled ceiling; my long hair winding about me in the water; a flicker of my jade fins langoriously levering me over the coral.

It's my sanctuary, a land where there are no wars and no diseases; peace.

I'm incurably optimistic, I have to be.


http://www.cowhousegallery.org.uk/index.php