art

the minotaur and me

November 11, 2018

If anyone deserve to see this it’s you Mum, said Milla.

The Minotaur and me. It all began in 2001 when I was an art student with an interest in all things to do with fairytale and mythology. This became a fascination with one particular story. When I say a fascination I was living on the borderline of Crazytown, so much so it became the focus of my sculpture degree.

I was so into Asterion that I made a 2 metre tall minotaur skeleton. The creature was created mostly on my kitchen table as my work table in college was too small, and took me a whole year. I must have seemed like a funny Dr Frankenstein to anyone who came round the house. When he was finished I laid him out on a dark velvet dais. Set up in a dimly lit room like an archeological museum display. While I was at it I made several little minotaur babies too, curled up, sucking their thumbs. And I wrote a 15,000 word dissertation. This was high level fangirling indeed.
These days my Asterion lives in cardboard boxes in my basement. But you only have to say the word “Minotaur” and I’m up in the air like a hungry hound.

And so the word Minotaur got said recently and whoop! up when the ears, nose started twitching, maybe I even drooled a little but I’ll not own up if I did.
Le Gardien du Temple is a loose reworking of the Jorge Luis Borges story, La Casa de Asterion. Told with a 14 metre, 47 tonne articulated, mechanical minotaur. Over 4 days Asterion lost himself in the labyrinthine streets of Toulouse, until, with the help of Ariane/Ariadne, he finds a temple and settles down to his new life. Or something like that.

My energy levels are still often very dodgy these days, so although I dearly wanted to watch the entire spectacle for four days, in reality I know I could only manage one.
What an awesome day it was. An orchestra raised on a platform high above the streets following the action. Ariane appears in the form of a giant spider, and the 16-strong team required to operate her are abseiled into position. And finally, the sleeping Asterion awakes. Breathing steam from his nostrils, batting his long eyelashes open. His flanks heaving in and out with every breath. Hand carved in wood, inlaid with brass, he is an astonishing work of art and engineering. As Asterion and the entire procession continue down the road, we get split up from one another in the crowd.

Now it’s just me and Milla running into a heaving, impenetrable crowd. Pushchairs, bicycles, dogs all lost in the mêlé too. We really want to get to the front. So we hold hands and work our way forward through the wall of people. Sometimes it seems we’ll never get ahead, we watch from behind as he sprays water from his nostrils onto the spectators leaning out on balconies. We see his enormous, dextrous hands move the traffic lights out of the way, pull branches from overhanging trees.

Despite exhaustion, despite undone shoelaces I can’t possibly bend down in this crowd to do up, we carry on with grit and determination. If anyone deserve to see this it’s you Mum, said Milla.
Finally we make it to the front, getting past everyone we stand right underneath the Minotaur. He’s tired out, and he bends down towards us and mists us with vapour, as the music becomes a lullaby. I’m feeling all the feels that are possible to feel, and it is magical. He still captures my heart 17 years on.

Red Earth

October 23, 2018

There’s an awful lot of backstory here when all I really want to talk about is how I came to discover making my own paint from red earth. But first, let me set the scene and I’ll get round to it.

At the beginning of the month, I went on a trip to Mallorca.

The idea was like this:

1.Swim in the sea. Dive, snorkel, frolic in waves, lie on my back in the water. Repeat with extreme frequency.

2.Explore the local area, visit markets, museums, places of interest, local vegan grub, hike the mountain trails.

Our finca was truly a haven of peace and tranquility nestled in the mountains of Serra de Tramuntana with various little v-shaped glimpses of the sea. And it’s a perfect, pastel Prussian Blue sea.

But our finca was also remote and tricky to get to. The drive up the mountains was a white knuckle ride of steep hairpin bends. More often than not you need to reverse and give it some welly to get round the corners. Very narrow with sheer, vertical drops, and suddenly sheep appear out of nowhere, scarper up the lane while you shout out the window at them to eff off into the side. The lane is gravelly causing the car to slide all over the place. God help you if you meet anything coming in the other direction. Luckily we never did. First drive up there and my husband pranged the hire car on an olive tree. He really needed that beer once we made it.

As we arrived a couple of Swiss women were leaving, with tales of mosquitoes the size of bats, stony beaches you can’t really swim in because of the jellyfish and rough waves, and they’d both got chest infections while there. In future we’ll just holiday in Switzerland, they say. Pfft, call these mountains? We go mountaineering for 16 straight hours and wee into our clothes just for light entertainment. And the place was filthy; they’d clearly not washed up or emptied a bin for a week. Our hearts were heavy as we climbed into bed, deciding to move to another location the next day.

Bright, sunny, warm morning comes, and my eyes are opened to the beauty all around me. We’re completely alone here for a while now and is this place not everything I say I want? Everything I dream of? It’s almost the exact picture where I see Future Suzie living (minus horses in a meadow by a river just over yonder) Let’s troubleshoot the problems we can solve and ride this adventure. I rummage around for bicarb, white vinegar and my trusty tea tree oil that goes everywhere with me. A good clean and some homemade mozzie spray, it’s all good.

Anyway, how could we leave here when there are so many sheep? Or ships as the helpful note above bucket in the kitchen says (“put your food scraps in here for the ships”). They are delightful. My favourite I’ve called Dolly and she gets very excited when she knows the ships-bucket is coming. There’s also Debbie and her little boys who are never too far away. A whole flock hang around the terraces and the sound of their tinkly bells, their bleating, their cute little mouths and the way they lean on the dry stone walls for the heat or drink from the pool resting on their elbows. Oh, my heart. Future Suzie will have rescue sheep/ships too.

So our days are spent like this instead of the plan:

1.exploring the terraces, hillsides and olive groves around the casita

2.drinking a lot of rosemary tea – still in flower, straight off the bush, steeped for 10 mins and sipped while looking at the sea, sunrises and sunsets

3.making friends and playing with sheep/ships and feeding stray cats; hanging by the natural pool; lots of yoga and cooking

4.only very scant trips down the mountain. #1 on the previous list barely got a look in – we did get one sea dip and snorkel with nary a jellyfish to be seen, and #2 involved us going once to a local museum/art gallery.

On the way back to our finca afterwards, walking up the stony path I notice the earth at my feet, like really notice it. Of course, as I sit out gazing over this landscape I’m struck by how red the earth is, and the dotted grey-green olive trees, the pinky-beige sheep and the aforementioned blue sea. I’d noticed how stained the sheep/ships are close-up, wool matted into coral dreadlocks. The black and white stray cat has red stained paws, and my flipflopped toenails too. The cogs start heaving into motion. This is raw pigment, the real thing.

I collect a little up and grind it to a powder between two teaspoons. Some boiling water and I’ve made something that’s like a clay slip. I’m loving this, mark-making in such a primitive, natural and immediate way. My marks are simple, inspired by the curves and lines of the olive trees. I collect more earth and pop it in a 35mm film pot to bring home. Side note: I should write a post entitled 1001 uses for empty film pots. And yes, there will be some film photos soon on here.

sketchbook image of olive wood in Mallorca painted with local pigment

Now I’m back home. The slip-paint wasn’t a perfect solution as it crumbles and smudges on the paper. After some research I discover all I need is a binder to add to the mixture. So I have mixed the pigment with distilled water, added gum arabic as the binder and a drop of vegetable glycerin too. The first attempt was pretty good – a tad gritty probably due to insufficient grinding and blending, but by the second try I made a perfect paint, even if I do say so myself. The colour is so rich, and unchanged from how I remember the red hills.

Of course I’ve had to also read up on the geology of the land. I’ve discovered this sort of earth is known as Terra Rossa, an ochre found in the Mediterranean basin. It’s coloured by the wind and rain carrying red sand from the Sahara over millennia. And we’ve been painting with this stuff since the dawn of (wo)man.

This is all so exciting and inspiring, and I’m really enjoying working with the pigment. It feels like such a lovely way to literally and directly abstract from the landscape, adding new layers to the visual information and the feelings evoked by the memory of my stay. It’s all too easy to rely on photographs to serve as reminders, but I prefer a less tangible, more emotional way to reflect.

There’s a strong pull to develop this exploration into a series of work on paper. It will take patience and a lot of play. But it feels so good to know I’m tapping into something ancient, natural and it’s completely enchanting. The hills themselves created the magic and I’m just a vessel to carry and hold it.

forest fire

July 6, 2018

Fair warning – this is going to be quite a hefty, raw post. But like everyone else I’m a complex, kaleidoscopic creature, and a big part of that is my battle with cancer. I’m in remission, finished with surgeries, chemo, radiotherapy and injections. When asked casually “how are you feeling?” I say I’m doing really well and the reply is always “You look great!”

Today it’s exactly one year ago that I finished chemo. Those 12 weeks were the most horrible I’ve ever had to endure. I’m not being melodramatic when I say there were times when I honestly thought I would die.
I had a skype call with a therapist this morning, because I’m Captain Obvious and apparently the all-clear doesn’t mean I’m A-OK. I’ve known deep down for a while that I’m not managing so well, but I didn’t allow that thought in to my conscious brain. I’ve been pushing down rather than confronting my emotions. We are going to work together to build a bridge between where I want to be and the stuck-in-the-mud feeling of here and now. Whilst I’m not exactly a hot mess, I am battling demons and I seem to have misplaced my salt and holy water. Where are those Winchester boys when I need them? ;)

I had much taken from me by cancer, but not my creativity. I painted every day my river metaphor in Prussian blue in my little sketchbook. When I look back over them, I see how abundant my imagination and resourcefulness were in my darkest of times. I must have remembered to turn on the light. (I’m killing it with my references today!)

Those paintings are waiting for me. Waiting to see what I want them to become. They will be something special in due time, this much I know. I also wrote tons; I literally brain-dumped daily in my notebooks, not opened and read since. But a couple of days ago, because I was going to be talking to the therapist today, I gingerly went to the shelf and took down the one marked July 2017. I knew it was going to be hard to read:

6th July 2017
“Will I always remember that sound? The sound of the infusion pump as it rumbles then clicks rhythmically. I often find my breath falls in time with it, especially when I want to drop off to sleep while I’m sat in that hideous lime green vinyl chair. How strange that something delivering pure poison into my body can have that effect on me. Perhaps it’s the gentle lulling, like a baby falls asleep in a car. When the infusion stops a beep sounds. Sharp and loud. At any one time someone’s is going off and it takes a while for a nurse to come. Usually someone in a chair with a buzzer will press it for whoever needs their drip changed.

Today my nurse was Laurence. I’m glad, she’s the eldest and gentlest, I don’t really feel anything when she pierces my catheter port. She says “respire puis bloque” and I hold my breath. I suddenly feel really emotional. I’ve seen many other patients come and go over the past 12 weeks. Chemo lounge is crammed today but I only recognise the lady with glasses who sleeps (or pretends to so she won’t have to speak) the whole time, and the old rocker with his heavy skulls rings and tattoos. He must be in his 70s. Everyone else is new. Rough days ahead people. I’m so sorry for you. I wish I could help.

I slept in the taxi all the way home, feeling strangely blank. Now I feel weak, fatigued and irritable. I’m thinking about how I coped – if I even did at all or whether I just survived it. It’s so ugly, hard and exhausting and takes you to the very edge. All you can do is get on with it. Now, I can barely walk, can barely see my eyes are so swollen. I was so miserable…no, utterly destroyed by chemo”.

One year on, it’s bloody painful to read those words again. But chemo didn’t utterly destroy me. In many ways it was like a forest fire. One that blazed with such ferocity it completely engulfed me, my body and my senses.
Once, many years ago we drove the only road into Cadaques in Spain. The year before the entire region had been decimated by fire. The smell filled our nostrils, but we could see little green tips pushing their way through the blackened soil and scorched stumps. The heat had germinated pioneer plants, that didn’t resemble those lost to the blaze.
Perhaps that’s how I am now. Forever changed, my life now has a new, unfamiliar yet fertile landscape to grow into. It’s going to take longer than even I thought, let alone others around me.

7 day mini-project

July 2, 2018

In my last post I talked about the importance of allowing space to #notcreate.

Now I will contradict myself.

The thing is, I had such a blast making cyanotypes in the river, but then I hit a bit of a lull. It was partly because of rain. So much rain. Then I was packing up our house and moving out, lock, stock and barrel while we get a new roof. I’m not making excuses, far from it. I recognise and respect that this is life, and pauses are essential. But, I do get very angsty if I’m not making art for any length of time. It doesn’t have to be big or clever, it just has be a something.

Now I hope the following will be a helpful if not exactly groundbreaking idea:

I decided the best thing to do was to undertake a daily mini-project. Something manageable and restrained. Not too long, I didn’t want to have it drag on for weeks. I only wanted to work on it for 30 minutes a day. Then I could crack on with packing, plus the cleaning, preparing and moving in to the temporary one. Another important thing was to upload the results to Instagram. This was because I know me surprisingly well, and commitment and connection are pretty much key motivators, giving me the necessary kick in the arse. I didn’t want the project to be too inward looking either, more like a way to reconnect with making.

I decided a week was enough and planned to start a project of 7 days of summer skies – little watercolours in my sketchbook. In Prussian Blue, obvie. Oh yeah, that non-stop rain I mentioned. So 7 days of Payne’s Grey it is then. But the skies were a uniform, flat grey and that didn’t float my boat. Neither did the next three ideas I had. Side note: I enjoy making little mind maps and jotting down notes at this point. Bit nerdy, granted, but it helps me put meat on the bones of ideas to counterweight my proclivity to fly by the seat of my pants, so to speak.
Meanwhile, I went through the river cyanotypes I had made so far, and put the ones that I wasn’t happy with to one side.

At this point I need to stress something I think is important; the ‘not being happy with’ part relates only to the outcome. If I’m happy with the process, if I enjoyed the exploring and the problem solving, seeing what works and what doesn’t, that’s a success in my book. I’m talking purely about the final prints that just look a bit meh to me.
Oh yes, those old cyanotypes. Maybe they could be the launch pad for the project? I could work into a different print everyday. Try out new ideas, mediums, techniques, each one something new. Easy to implement and not reliant on good weather, or high energy levels, with just enough wiggle room and enough of a challenge.

Day 1 (at this point Delia Smith’s instructional voice is replaced by the guy who narrates Big Brother) and I started with some really basic stuff to get warmed up as I didn’t have a scooby where I was heading. I simply made marks with white ink and dip pen, white gouache and charcoal.
Day 2 Trusty scalpel in hand. I cut out irregular lines that represented the the light reflected on the surface of the water. Now we’re getting somewhere!
Day 3 and a print I had badly creased in fast running river water. I accentuated the creases with white watercolour. I also cut some lovely speckled, textured blues from another print and cut little pebble shapes.
Day 4 I folded a concertina form, with cyanotypes made on Japanese kozo paper also cut into pebble shapes. The simplicity and delicacy, the arrangement and scale, and the contrast of the heavyweight paper and fine kozo paper. A lot of good things going on.

Day 5 I got in a right old pickle. I soaked 3 different cyanotypes and tried putting them through the mangle with bits of detritus I’ve collected from the river. Fail. Plan B then. Inspired by artist Coralie Barbier’s work I saw this year at Artistes à Suivre, I pierced tiny holes with a needle, varying the size, direction and pressure of each pinprick.
Day 6 I tore up strips of blue and arranged them in a gradient, with the darkest at the bottom going upwards to the palest blue. Inspired by a window display I’d seen in Porto, of watercolour papers dipped in port wine and Japanese boro textiles.
Day 7 I busted out the silver leaf I bought months ago and did eff all with. All I had that wasn’t packed away gluewise was some wood glue in the basement. I watered it down and painted it onto the cyanotype, then applied the silver. I did two versions, and with the second I thought I’d push myself even further and make a process video. It took ages, I got a lot of silver stuck to my fingers and messed up a lot. There was also a lot of my daughter swearing or chatting to the rabbits. I had to trim it down and speed it up, and add some music in iMovie. A whole new thing for me and bit dodgy in all truth. But still, I uploaded it anyway (see previously mentioned commitment.)

It was interesting to see just how far I could run with a very basic, limited idea. The scope for imagination and creativity was in fact quite large once I hit my stride. I was willing to try new techniques, play and experiment, and get them photographed, uploaded and captioned. Which to be honest I find a bit of a challenge in itself. I know I should use Instagram more, but sometimes it feels just too hard. Something I need to work on, definitely. It was also interesting to observe that the days I enjoyed making most also often gave me the results I like the most; I really liked the concertina, torn paper and the silver leaf ones on both counts.

Overall the project has been a great testing lab and springboard. I’ve generated some new ideas and quite enjoyed the daily focus, knowing I had to show up everyday even for just half an hour. I hope it inspires you to give a mini-project of your own a go if your feeling stuck, bored or just need to get moving again after a break!

{You can see the daily photos here #minicyanotypeproject}

come and go

May 24, 2018

On the surface, it may seem that I’m having a dry spell. It’s true that lately I’ve not been producing work that I want to show. But there’s been quite a bit of busy stuff going on down below in the nether regions.

That’s the thing about creativity, and particularly I’m talking about making art because that’s what I do. But these things apply to various areas of life. If you’re like me, art IS life, the two cannot be separated. And I have a very holistic approach to art, which is something I’ll talk about more another time. Sometimes you can’t knuckle down to work. Maybe physically, emotionally or mentally you’re just not in the right place, not ‘feeling it’ Or maybe your life just isn’t giving you the actual space and/or time you need.

Can I please use my river as a metaphor, again? Thanks ;)

Sometimes it flows beautifully clean and clear, brimming with life, things bubbling happily as the light dances. It’s utter magic. Then there are times – coincidentally these often happen after a period of torrential rain – that the debris brought downstream clogs the river. The fallen logs, rocks and stones build up at the edges and create contained pools. As the water level drops the algae, sludge and ick build up. It gets smelly and stagnant.

It’s similar with my art if I don’t keep moving. I can’t budge the muck and get back to the sparkling joyous place of activity. I too get icky.

Recently I’ve had a breakthrough. I’ve learnt that creativity, like most living things, is cyclical or at the very least non-linear. And the shift to quieter days are not inherently a bad thing. They are a necessary part of the process, and process is the quaffle rather than the golden snitch, which is where the fun lies.

As I see it now, pauses are essential. They allow for idea germination, resting and relaxation, other creative work or projects away from art, pondering the next move, or simply just taking a big step back helps me to look at the entire forest instead of focusing on a particular tree. The key is to just keep the energy softly flowing, in whatever way works for you, until it circles back around to the exciting making art bit.

I’d been a bit untethered since coming back from Madrid. It was a great source of inspiration but it also took a lot out of me and longer to recover than I thought it would. I’m still struggling with issues in my body, my movement and my emotions post cancer remission that I hadn’t banked on being so difficult. So I’ve been doing a lot of me-work, trying to get stable. An unexpected blessing came with a visit from a friend, that marked the start of an extended period of commitments that will take me away sporadically from my art practice for a few weeks yet.

I acknowledge these interruptions and instead of getting annoyed by them, just accept them. With my friend here (and luckily she’s a very like-minded one) I found I was able to cultivate an ‘inner’ practice, and find other ways to keep my brain-radio tuned in to the Suzie Art Station. We visited art exhibitions – the fantastic Eduardo Chillida in Toulouse and the annual Artistes à Suivre; pottered around exploring my local area, viewing through her eyes was fun and refreshing. Of course, there were many walks in the hills and forest, or by lake and river. And above all, talking – swapping ideas, seeing things from a different perspective. With my friend’s insight I’ve gained some clarity on a goal of mine.

During this phase, you are often absorbing all sorts of information that will be of use at some future point, percolating ideas or just giving yourself a chance to be still. I’m going to allow this ebb and flow to happen, without force or strain. My new yoga instructor gently reminds me to not dwell on the past or ponder the future, but to keep prompting myself to remain in the present when I catch my thoughts drifting in either of those directions. And as I said earlier life=art, art=life. The interconnectedness of everything.

“It will come and go, and you must let it come and go” – Elizabeth Gilbert

***

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cyanotypes by the river

April 27, 2018

There are two aspects I love most about art. First is the process, more so than the finished work. I lose myself in exploring, experimenting, trying, failing and succeeding. You probably know this already. I’m indeed an artistic Jill-of-all-trades so to speak. Usually when I’m in the zone I’ll narrate to myself out loud too while I go along – I adopt a kind of Delia Smith cooking voice. No idea why.

The second is making work directly outside in nature. In short, nothing beats being completely absorbed by this creative flow while connecting to something much bigger. The very thing that inspires me. Besides, outdoors really is the best artist’s studio of all.

A few days ago I went down to the river with a heavy backpack, a rough plan and a dog I should have left at home. My river has been super important to me over the past year. As I’m recovering and building my strength and life, I’ve begun to notice just how fundamental art is to both this AND how I coped with cancer. I’m still very much a work in progress in this respect. But I will say this, art has been as crucial to me as the conventional treatments and integrative medicine and self-care on my journey, and this is definitely shaping my future.

Anyway, back to the river. I’m still working on my Prussian Blue project, but I’ve also been thinking of other things to try. I made cyanotypes three plus years ago, but that was working with digital negatives. This time I wanted to work more directly with the water itself; attempt to capture and distill the movement and light.

The day before I prepped the various papers with the cyanotype chemicals, popped them in an old photo-paper lightproof bag to keep them safe overnight. Thankfully the next day was a beautiful sunny, peaceful one. At the river I tried first sealing the paper in a cellophane bag with duct tape and putting it in the water.

But trying to get the paper into the cellophane, then sealing it with duct tape was a real pain. I wasn’t quite happy with the results either as the light didn’t pass through as well as I hoped. Washing the paper in the river was lovely, though. Meanwhile, Delia was chatting away while I problem solved.

So next I decided to see what would happen if I just put the paper directly into the edges of the water. Let the water lap, let the leaves, gravel, stones and debris create the images without too much intervention from me. Although the dog trod on one of them. But that actually created some interesting detail with the disturbed grit. Oh and and a mozzie landed on another, shortly before biting me on my builder’s bumcrack. Note to self: Put repellent in the backpack too.

A handful of the cyanotypes didn’t work out too great. Mainly either wrong choice of paper or underexposure gave me weak results. But most of them did work out good. These initial experiments have me pretty excited to continue seeing what other possibilities there are out there. I love the subtle shifting tones, gradations and random chance element. And of course, the process.

Since then I’ve been back to the river with some different papers, a different stretch of the water, and at a different time of day. I’ve learnt some new tricks and come up against some new problems but I’m enjoying myself hugely and I’ll update again soon with how the project is progressing.

sketchbook daily

March 17, 2018

Last December I felt like I wanted/needed to get a regular, figurative drawing habit in my sketchbook. All this abstractifying with my Prussian blue project has been and continues to be absorbing and wonderful. But the pictures are evolving and more realistic elements are appearing. Swimming women, mink, boar, fishes, birds and tree branches, but not as well as I would like, truth be told. I found a Hahnemuhle A5 Kraft book in the studio, because if anyone ever bought art supplies and forgot about them – reader, that someone is me. Off I went, but oh dearie dear, a few pages in and clearly I’m Not Very Good at this anymore. What I am pretty good at though is not giving up *puffs chest*.

So let’s start as we mean to carry on Suze. No beating about the bush. Keep the bar low etc. If I’m going to be awful I may as well own it, so I wrote in comic sans on the cover ‘The Book Of Shame’. In the spirit of vulnerability and looking like a total prat on my own blog ffs, allow me to present the best pages:

Yes, quite. Glad to see those art school years paid off. Clearly there was some work to be done, so I decided to make a daily practice. In fact so far this year I’ve also established a daily yoga habit, regular reading and flute learning, as I mentioned in my depth year intentions.

Once I finished the kraft book I moved into a large Moleskine sketchbook. No pressure time-wise, if I only have 5 mins to spare, that’s cool. On other days give it an hour if I like. The Moleskine is thin paper and quite bit larger than what I usually use. I thought this would be super helpful in making me loosen up and not be too precious. Shouldn’t your sketchbook be a safe place to play, to grow, to experiment and above all to mess up without judgement or preconceptions? I can use whatever I like to make the marks but to avoid block and/or boredom I set monthly challenges, thus I skirt round the paradox of choice.

January was a kind of diary; a pose from my yoga, perhaps something I ate/saw/did each day:

Not great, but I’m enjoying the routine at least. Then at the end of the month I went to see these two ballets. Please do yourself a favour and spare 1.30 minutes to watch the link. Yes I teared up. Yes I decided I want to be a ballet dancer when I grow up. I’ve started learning some of the Rameau score on my flute because of course I also need to join the orchestra.

Going off piste from the sketchbook story a bit here because I want to tell you a little bit more about the ballet. Funny thing is we nearly didn’t go but as we’d bought the tickets in advance we dragged ourselves out on a cold January night. Our seats were right at the back of the theatre, we had to crook our necks a little and when they told us no mobile phones we were royally peeved. What, no video or photos! How do we remember it or even prove we were there?

Thank God they did. We had a totally immersive experience, committed fully to memory. It was so sensuous; long sinewy limbs moving gracefully. Bodies creating curves and bends, sometimes with such intimacy and tenderness. The dancers weaving, rising, falling gently or crackling with energy as they exuberantly stomp and throw. The trust, collaboration and wholeness between them was stunning.

Meanwhile during the first performance, us philistines are whispering to each other “is that Michelle Pfeiffer? Oh that must be Keanu Reeves and Uma Thurman”…

So February’s theme was dancers. Obviously.

Just as I feel like I’m starting to let go and improve, halfway through February I suddenly had no internet for almost two weeks. Sadly, there aren’t exactly troupes of ballet dancers wandering around my village to pose for me. Instead I had to look at books for reference, which meant veering away slightly from ballet, finding poses that appealed to me and just leaning into it.

That turned out to be a blessing; I found it much more gratifying and a deeper learning curve than working from flattened images on a screen. Figure drawing is such a great practice. I appreciate that dance, yoga or art photography poses aren’t very natural. For that I need to go outside, observe/sketch/stalk people going about their business. Awkward. In any case, for my purposes I’m looking for the graceful, fluid movements of underwater so I’m happy with that.

The figure drawing highlighted how absolutely pants I am at drawing faces, so I made that my March theme. The charcoal below was the first day, I kind of bailed by the time I got to hair.

Ditto drawing a hat. Life’s too short.

A quick sketch of John Singer Sargent’s ‘Portrait of Madame X’. You can learn a lot from JSS, even if (like me) you’ve never touched oil paints in your life and colour makes you nervous. Again, like me. The elegant, free-flowing, rhythmic lines of his sketches are sublime.

all the browns

February 27, 2018

After days of torrential rain, the heavy clouds where chased across the sky by a biting wind. My roof. Let’s not even go there. I’ll mention my bedroom now has an interesting water feature and my son’s room is minus a part of ceiling. Oh how I missed the river.

Snookered by the weather for so long I was itching to go check it out even though it was bone-numbing cold outside. The ferocious, swollen waters had broken about 5 metres free of the nearside banks. Shouting and angry, spitting expletives in river language like a raving volatile drunkard.

The dog sniffed at a lump; a poor drowned mole, bloated and grey. Uprooted trees and branches hurtle downstream. Wreckage snagged on the way creates coffee-coloured whirlpools and swirls of white foam. Hmm, why am I reminded of Starbucks? When the sun breaks cover it brightens the muddy water with golden shards of dancing light.

On the far bank something catches my eye – a flash of rich chocolate velvet. A large mink is running furiously up and down along the bank. What is it searching for? It’s home is also damaged by the rains? Is it searching for an easy meal? I guess fishing is out of the question even for something this strong and agile.

Downstream are two bridges – one is a concrete road bridge. The trees, branches and debris carried along by the water have formed a mountain. Unable to pass under the bridge, the has water backed up. It now diverts across the bridge, creating a cascade. The roar is deafening and terrifying.

I gingerly go up to the iron footbridge and take some uneasy steps across it. It’s high enough that the river couldn’t have compromised it, but, ya know you can’t be too careful. I almost chicken out of standing on the metal grid. I watch the torrent rush downstream beneath my feet, the trunks racing with it. Imagine the bridge giving way! I’m struggling and gasping as the icy, murky brown water pounds and batters my body. Oh yes, I’m a bit like that…

Soon this will all be over. The frogs, the kingfisher, the heron, the brown trout and even the mink will return. Everything will circle back round to where it all began. The waters will retreat into their easy curves, the sound will become a gentle murmur again.

“In the end, it was always the river; everything returned to it” – Truman Capote

I am the fire

September 29, 2017

“Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.”

– Jorge Luis Borges

Three days ago I finished radiotherapy. Future Suze, have you forgotten how that felt? It felt joyous, quite simply. I need to unpick a little as I’m all over the place. It feels like after months and months I can start to properly dare to live again. Dip the old toes back in. I know I still have further treatments to go, and I’ve not been given the magic “all-clear” but nothing can dampen spirits today.

After 6 weeks of early mornings and a minimum 4 hour round trip, can you imagine how thrilling it is to get up when I want, do what I want, pottering guided by my own wishes and intuition? But the best bit of all – my body and spirit are finished with being battered. The trilogy of Cut, Poison and Burn that have ravaged me for 7 months are now in the past. Typing that actually makes me cry. When I think of the physical and emotional pain I’ve have had to deal with this year. Now I can give me the love and care I deserve.

As I sat waiting to see the radiation oncologist for the last time, I scribbled down these notes:

“I’m sitting outside Dr Chevelle’s office, I’m on an ants nest. That’s how this morning has been. So long coming now and it’s here time has slowed to a crawl. I am so proud of how I coped these past 6 weeks. Not just mentally but physically and emotionally. I set out to treat it like a job that has to be done, day by day. Celebrating another week under my belt and relishing the weekends. While I’ve had the unfailing love and support of my beautiful family, and my human scaffold were all there and as ever, amazing, I did all this bit on my own apart from my birthday and one other day. I found the strength to do this alone. I wanted to, I wanted to prove something to myself and I rose to the challenges.

The early mornings and the long drive; battling the fatigue and discomfort; the anxiety – the only times I’ve had panic attacks during this entire nightmare were during radiotherapy. Spoken French without someone else to pick up the slack when I got overwhelmed by information or fear. What it’s done for my French comprehension and confidence! In the taxi we have talked about everything – the holes in my roof (“à mes saladiers!”) Hurricane Irma, how brilliant Radiohead are, pros and cons of Porsche ownership, swapping childbirth stories, and a lot about food (how very French), weather and travel. I’ve also chatted daily with my fellow radiotherapees and radiotherapists. Yet another change in me – from terrified of talking with strangers to being open to conversations with them. You learn a lot of fascinating things about all sorts of people. Who knew, eh?

I slept so badly last night, full of excited anticipation. The taxi was late and I waited a long time for my session. Should I go to the loo? What if I miss my turn? Eventually I’m on the table for the last time and I try to focus on my breath, warm light, a gentle breeze enters my heart centre. Why is it taking longer? interrupts my meditation over and over. I try my other visualisations – fireflies, golden vapour, white moths, thousands of rabbits – everything I’ve called on in the past 7 months. Are they taking longer as it’s my last day? Giving me extra rays to send me on my way with? Forgotten I’m here? At last I’m free and the therapist tells me to see Dr C before I leave. Of course now I’m here there’s 10 others waiting, the cruelty of a horizon that’s just beyond.”

***

You know how I can’t get on board with the warrior woman archetype for those battling cancer, but to tell the truth I’ve been a total champ. I’ve taken a lot of responsibility for myself, not handing myself over blindly to the medical profession. Dr Elizabeth Boham says … “daily movement, relaxation, cooking good food, and writing your journal can help your body heal. Your healing is not all up to your doctor”.

I’m proud of how I’ve nourished myself, kept walking, found my own solutions to problems. Most of all I didn’t waiver from breathwork, journalling and making art.

The painting above marked a turning point for me. Once chemo had ended I reached a point where everything I tried to draw or paint made me feel frustrated and upset. I would try to do a little every day but I was very frail. As I started radiotherapy burnt sienna began to appear more, and shapes more like the rugged mountains viewed on the car journey. It now seems so obvious, the river is a metaphor for the internal body, but the stones and mountains are the external landscape of the body. The prussian blue is fluidity, while the burnt sienna is heat, burning and damage. As a result, I’ve worked on dozens of small paintings and sketches. I’ve lots to show you and I will, soon.

***

I don’t talk much about what happens during cancer treatment do I? I’m not very informative about the processes and specifics I’ve been through. Well, they’re not much fun or very interesting. Anyway, everyone has a different experience so I’m not sure how helpful it would be. There are things I’d much rather tell you about instead.

The important thing to me is rather than a new chapter, a new book in my life series is about to be written. In a Goblet of Fire becomes Order of the Phoenix kind of way. Oooh, a phoenix! I like that! Rising from the burning flames, reincarnated more beautiful and strong, singing sweeter than ever before a most glorious song.

I’m looking very much forward to being around more frequently in this place.

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