Seeing

A good few years ago I used to draw things, especially with coloured chalks, and mostly trees. Time moves on and although sketching is still my preferred method of explaining an idea, and although I still love trees (they are a regular feature of our window displays at The Department), I haven't produced an actual picture for a long time.

Drawing is one of those arts that appears very simple and yet when you have a go turns out to be quite difficult. But given time, persistence and the right teacher, skills can be developed and lessons learnt and like riding a bike two of those lessons have stayed with me - seeing, and letting go.

It seems obvious that to draw something you copy what you see in front of you onto the paper, and yet so often I notice that what I see is actually the picture of that object that lives inside my head not what is actually there and so the first step becomes letting go, letting go of my preconceptions, my memories and past experiences, my idea of what the object is or ought to be and even my wish to make it that way and keep it fixed. All of it has to go, and only then can I see well enough to put the marks onto the paper.

"I never paint dreams or nightmares. I paint my own reality."

Frida Kahlo

The Japanese probably have a word for it

I took my youngest to have his hair cut the other day. The hairdresser chatted to my son for a minute or so and then started. He combed and snipped, combed and snipped, moving round from one side to the other and back. Every now and then he would pause, step back thoughtfully and then return to work.

It proceeded this way both of them relaxed and chatting for perhaps 15 minutes or so and then suddenly it was done - a boy had emerged from the haystack.

I love to watch professionals at work. From the hairdresser to the signwriter to the mechanic and seamstress there is an ease, a relaxed economy of motion in the way they move. It is something that can only come from having done something hundreds if not thousands of times and that confidence comes through in the way they stand, the way they move.

And when they have left  I can still feel an echo of their presence in the creation before me.

I find it difficult to put into words but there is something "just right" about what has been made that makes you think "I could do that".

But you couldn't - that magic would be missing.

Snapshots

Every place I have ever been to, every place I have never been to even, remain within my mind. Snapshots of sounds and smells and particularly in my case pictures.

Hastings (UK), the first place I lived after leaving home brings forth visions of tall Victorian brick buildings, municipal gardens all laid out with bedding plants and walking along the promenade enveloped in mist and the smell of the sea. Edinburgh is a mixture of ancient winding streets and long straight Georgian vistas. The buildings are tall and close like walking in a box and pockets of greenery appear unexpectedly tucked in between. The sound is of never ending traffic and people and a soft Scottish accent.Morocco, even though I have never been there calls forth visions of courtyards and searing white heat, juxtaposed with crowded markets and the smell of smoke and cinnamon.

And now we live near Napier in New Zealand. And what do I see ? Norfolk Pines. Long stately rows of them their primordial silhouette backed against the Pacific visible from miles away.

Such a strong shape demands to be reproduced as some sort of print - so watch this space . . .