Slow down, you move too fast
Confronting the elephant in the room, trying to learn from my mistakes and wren watching
A warm welcome to new and returning subscribers and thank you for all the encouraging comments following my last post, they were so heartening to read. Following that post, after giving myself a chivvy, came the realisation that having said it was time to seize the day, I had better jolly well do it. Here is what happened next.
Before beginning painting once more, there was an elephant in the room, or studio, that needed to be addressed. Early last summer, my existing printing press decided it had had enough. It was a temperamental, but characterful, converted mangle, that was causing hours of frustration by chugging out only the occasional clean print. I decided the time had come to replace it with a slick, shiny new one that would produce perfect prints each time. After weeks of waiting, it arrived. But during those weeks my wretched hands suddenly became much worse and carving prints became impossible. My strength and dexterity had diminished to such an extent that playing with sharp tools was not very sensible. The press has sat in the corner glowering at me ever since.
Hope came in the form of a wonderful new physio, who has been slowly helping me to strengthen my grip, and I decided I needed to try again. I had missed the slow rhythmic process of carving and the exciting “ta - rah” moment, peeling back the paper to reveal the freshly born print.
Printmaking is a very different process in execution from painting. Carving away sections of lino, to reveal areas of light, is an absorbing, meditative process and highly addictive. While carving, I can listen to podcasts or talking books, something I can never do with painting, as it seems to use another part of the brain. It also allows the mind to wander, and ideas for other work often float to the surface while carving. It is as though while the hands are busy, the mind can rest.
Deciding not to be too ambitious, I made a series of new cards, with designs that could be carved quickly and would produce cheering results. You can see the cards below and I can’t tell you how satisfying it was to see them all hanging out to dry in my studio. While I may not (yet) be able to embark on more challenging projects, this was a start and felt like a major triumph.
My cards are available here
The constant rain of the last fortnight has meant that all painting has been studio bound. Taking the view that waiting for that elusive inspirational subject is another way to prevaricate, I decided instead to make sketches of my studio view: a greengage tree that spanned my window, something I had drawn many times through the seasons. I made several paintings, at different times of the day, in brief spells of sunshine and drenching rain.
After each one, I was conscious that I wasn’t entirely happy with the result. Instead of sitting back and considering why, I just ploughed on. Partly borne out of cabin fever, and partly through telling myself I shouldn’t waste time, I became increasingly frustrated with the results. A sure sign of things are going awry, is when I reach for the smaller brushes and start fiddling and grasping at detail. That is when I need to stop, slow down and step back. Even though I have been painting for years, it is still a trap I regularly slide into.
The next day I returned to carving lino, and my ears pricked up as I listened to the writer Jon Ronson talking about his experience of how a screenplay becomes a film. He asked another screenwriter, “What is the moment when all this becomes magical?” The answer lay not in the culmination of the film being made, but he realised “the magic moment” was the writing of the screen play itself . “The joy, and the purpose, is in the telling of the story and that is separate from how it is received.” Taking joy in the doing, being alive to the process, had been replaced by what I felt I ought to be doing: getting work done and moving onto the next thing.
Painting, or any creative activity, is obviously best pursued without pressure. There is certainly enough of that in other areas of life. That still, quiet place where we try to capture fleeting moments that light us up, without thought of an audience or an outcome, is when the best work is done, but is often hard to achieve. “Ought” shouldn’t come into it, and in my eagerness to make up for lost time, I had forgotten that simple thing.
We are so geared towards being busy, that we can lose sight of why we are actually doing something. So I shall begin afresh. This next week promises to be brighter and sunnier and I intend to go out, take notice and even, if the outcome isn’t quite what I hoped it would be, I shall have enjoyed getting there.
Painted in the late evening, a blackbird alighted on one of the branches and started to sing. Painted quickly, this was the one I was happiest with.
Garden update
Today is the Summer Solstice and it is hard to believe we have already had half of summer. It has been raining so hard that many of the rose blooms have balled or have been sheared off by the weight and vigour of the rain. As a consequence, the borders at the top of the garden are billowing, giving me a soaking everytime I walk down the path to the studio. The vegetable beds, at the bottom of the garden, are in a sorry state, with stunted broad beans, already in flower, but are barely knee high. After each storm the beds of clay soil fill with water, draining slowly, only to be sitting ankle deep in water after the next one.
But amidst this tale of woe, the birds had been busy. The bluetits I mentioned here, have fledged, though I didn’t see the happy event, they are bobbing about the garden looking fresh and fluffy. Each morning there is a race to snaffle the dish of meal worms I put out. Mother and father blackbird collect them like cigars lined up in their beaks, while the mob of young starlings, with sharp elbows, bicker over who can grab them first. Oh, and there are two nearly discovered wren’s nests: one in the corner of my tiny shed and another in the bluetit nest box by the back door. This wren I caught the other morning bringing in a feather. Such delights have lifted the clouds.
Something to listen to
The podcast that I mention above, with Jon Ronson, is from Elizabeth Day’s series “How to Fail” which is about learning from the things that we haven’t got right. It is a brilliant and varied listen and you never quite know what the guests are going to reveal. A favourite episode is with Sathnam Sanghera, which I found deeply moving.
Something to read
Mary Newcomb: Drawing from Observation by William Packer and Tessa Newcomb
'I wanted ... to remind ourselves that - in our haste - in this century - we may not give time to pause and look- and may pass on our way unheeding' - Mary Newcomb
At the age of 64, the painter Mary Newcomb was encouraged by her dealer Andras Kalman to keep a diary, and though she kept it for just a year, it is full of poetic observations about moments captured and colours observed.
Dandelion, pencil and wash on paper, 31cm x 23cm Mary Newcomb
You can also read a post about Mary Newcomb on my previous blog.
Something to watch
When I was small, my Dad had a bottle green MGB and he would zip along the country lanes with this on his 8 Track. I love this song. Slow down, and enjoy the summer days.
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I look forward to your company again in a couple of weeks.
Slow down and observe, which goes against the grain of furiously doing and keeping busy. The part that I find distasteful is the striving, which is pure ambition and goes against the creative process. I try to keep this in check.
The birds are always singing, no matter the weather. It was raining here in Toronto this morning and the birds were joyous gathering the seeds. They know something we humans don't. Something essential and important.
Thank you so much Deborah for a beautiful piece of writing and sharing thoughts and artwork. Just returned from lovely Suffolk and lovely to re-live again discovering Mary Newcomb.