Staying at Home - March 21st 2020

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The strongest of all warriors are these two - Time and Patience. - Tolstoy - War and Peace.

Day 1 - of Staying at Home

My cottage is really quite small but it's cosy as in warm - providing that I keep the heating on - underfloor heating is pure luxury in winter and not something I'm used to. Bella loves to come and lie near enough to me to watch me whilst soaking up the heat on her tummy - legs outstretched

- as only a Labrador will, she will spring up at my smallest movement in case there's the slightest chance of food - a crumb or even a molecule will do the trick - she's just had the crusts off my buttery Marmitey toast. 

Moorashes - the little group of cottages  - eighteen in all were built more or less as peasant hovels - one story dwellings built on the earth. 
These little 17th century cottages are all in a terrace that curves gently - very gently along what used to be the edge of the Marshes where the tidal reaches of the River Dart once came to meet the downward slopes of the rolling hills that Totnes was originally built upon.

I'm collecting information of it's history from the Town Archives - I know who used to live in my cottage for instance - a family with six children - believe me a one up, one down cottage is a small place to dwell. At another time a 'Gentleman' with entrepreneurial skills and aspirations who advertised in the London papers and took holiday makers out on the Dart on fishing trips lived in splendid solitude here. Rather like me. I love splendid solitude.

More later when the archives have reopened and I have more information.

Totnes has been in my mind like a second mother to me. I love her. She's accommodated me time and time again as my wandering life unfolded. A safe haven to return to. When I love a place I first of all feel safe and protected. Many places leave me cold and some can actively repel me and then I pass by as quickly as possible and avoid if I can from ever going back. 

Totnes can sometimes irritate me too just in the way that mothers can. I found that my mother hardly ever irritated me - I think that's quite unusual. I however, as a mother, seem to be - according to my children - very irritating but also it seems endearingly amusing - at times. Perhaps that's a compensating factor.

So as the whole world settles or is somehow forced into staying at home I can't help being unhappy for feeling so happy - a childhood trait of mine that seems to have returned. I used to feel so guilty being filled with happiness as my angry and volatile father stomped around the house complaining about doors being open and lights on until he was incandescent with rage - shouting and swearing at my mother and me. As this happened between three and five times a day I was always living on the edge of peace but only ever there when I was on my own or just with my mother - we had that extra bond through seeking escape and refuge. 

We'd commiserate and mull over what had happened if we could possibly find the chance when he'd gone out. We'd go for a walk and let Mother Nature soothe our souls. We lived right on the edge of the countryside - a short walk, over a canal bridge,

along the cobblestone road of the village and then freedom. The Blackbird singing was our administering Angel. 

'Blackbird Singing in the Dead of Night' was my song for a long time and still brings tears to my eyes. You could not talk about abuse in those days - you had to absorb it if you couldn't run away. I could not leave my mother to his single handed tyranny and she continually absorbed it until she escaped by death at 62. A merciful release. 
I continued to try and understand it's origins but from a distance by moving - initially to Devon. But inwardly if I was alone I was happy - mainly - often - often enough to show me that life had meaning underneath the storm - behind the clouds. 

I wrote a poem - quite spontaneously - from fridge magnets of all things - many many years later. I'd had them on the fridge for years - then inspiration struck and as if by magic one day as I passed the fridge. I was somehow compelled to stop - this poem showed itself to me - very quickly - one word at a time. There were no other words to choose from - just the usual jumble of incoherent magnetic words and not that I was consciously 'choosing' them - I don't know if you can understand this. It may sound very 'other worldly' - I also think that it was other worldly - in a good way.

But I felt astonished when I read it - automatic fridge magnet writing?! 

I called it The Garden. And at the end there were only 'life and 'love' left as words so I added in my mind - 'all an elaborate chain of' once again to the last word. I also added the punctuation marks as this is how it evolved in that moment of moving the words - one after the other. I think that it's beautiful. And a poem for our time. Also for anytime. I've gone back to it and shared it many times.

The Garden

I have to take you to a garden.
It is essential that you tell our friends.
I have one lifetime only here.

There is a void and then a vision.

The summer rain is felt as music.
The water and the wind whisper through
Eternity a language that we dream of.

Above the mist, behind the storm, beneath the rain.

Together in a thousand moments.
A delicate symphony of light, like diamonds shine and play.
Shadows fall away. 

Beauty would be these and death sweet, not sad.

All an elaborate chain of life.

All an elaborate chain of love.

From my current perspective Corona virus and it's horrendous toll is having the same effect. Now I can see the - what - I am not at all certain. The whole world is in confusion but right now I am happy. A fool's paradise?
I have been making simple resin earrings for a while and love seeing how they are appearing in my paintings - diadems of translucent shifting colours.

I get up very early and paint. And let it evolve. I am looking over the edge of land into the sea or so it feels. I'm in Italy - there are cactus plants - diadems that float before taking form - caught in mid air. I have very few paints so work with chalk pastels and the paint into them with a gesso acrylic primer. It works and is very versatile but very opaque. Looking too yellow at this stage. Later I think I will work onto and into with oils pastels in layers of translucent glazes.

This morning I took Bella for her morning walk etc to a little grassy area round the corner from where I live - called Moorashes Meadow. 

Some people might just see it as a scrappy bit of grass and pass by and that for sure it once was - until quite recently. 

There's a group of people - often older - often female who have banded together to help Mother Nature shine. They start by clearing away all  rubbish, then the overgrown brambles, docks, nettles, ragwort and all and make overlooked and neglected places beautiful. I'm not one for joining groups of any kind - far more solitary so do what I can when I feel like it from afar and unseen. 

I moved here after all the work had been done so I'm a beneficiary of their hard work. 

It's still not finished but the Leechwell Brook that used to pass through the grassy meadow has mostly been channelled along a beautiful narrow raised leet or rill that's built up along the old wall that once delineated the edge of the town proper. It has a dark grey slate base and little rises of silvery granite blocks to allow the water to collect before it rushes and drops to the next run below - and onwards - collecting and dropping - all the time. Well, it's supposed to be musical as in the sound of water falling. You can just see the water rill under the arc of the flowering cherry below.

As there was no-one else yet about I thought I may as well move the dead leaves from the long rill that carries the spring water of the Leechwell Brook to a pond. The newts and water boatmen etc are far happier in the pond after all. I love playing with water especially if there's a purpose so after going back home and feeding Bella and Fizz

(ancient cat) I went back with a small brush that was almost the width of the rill  - about ten inches - and began to gently move everything along.

The rill drops in a series of little waterfalls of increasing height starting about roughly three inches and gradually increasing to the final plunge of a couple of feet into the pond. 

The thing is (was) is that the rill was full of sludge, twigs, plastic and leaves and the water was hardly flowing at all. So bit by bit I pushed the whole caboodle along and over to the next section. It soon became very heavy and the brush handle broke in half so I used my hands - never thought to use plastic gloves though a pair of bright yellow Marigolds would have been wise. It was only when I noticed something twisting about that I stopped and saw a very large black leech - Leechwell? 

Leeches do carry a certain mild terror for me even though I know they were once thought to be healing aids. In a similar category as rats I suppose. 

I found as I waited for my mild terror to subside that after a minute or two the water began to fill up again and I could then use it's momentum to push the bulk of the sludge over to the next section without actually needing to get my hands in it. 

I've always been a hands on sort of person.

Gradually worked my way along - walking along the side of the stone wall and down-rill to move the leaves into the pond and then walking back to ease the rest bit by bit - not wanting to damage the occupants too much - not even the enormous leeches - until the water ran fairly clearly and freely as it's meant to and the pond had the benefit of all the new visitors and decomposing leaves from the autumn. 

I fished out a big plastic bottle and a bag of dog poo - then feeling satisfied and rather virtuous and still not having seen a soul I went home to shove my clothes into the washing machine and scrub my nails.

Next job is to send a few of the more important emails and then to take a painting to the next stage. I am using up all my canvases and seeing where my imagination and my unconscious take me, really very revealing. I have a large (ish) canvas with a summer sky - slightly blustery on the go. 

The sea is distant but as it comes closer it's shallow and transparent moving over long narrow little sand banks and stretches of seagrass until it is lost beneath the overhanging clifftop that then changes into and vibrant imaginative colourful micro jungle with I think at this stage as a flattened swathe of grass with a book open as if someone has just left for a moment. Maybe. Who knows? Not really me yet as it keeps evolving. This is a daytime painting. I think that I will do a companion piece - set under a full moon. I want to develop a poem I wrote a few years ago and weave it into the life of a character - Sam Lovett - in one of my short stories -

stories that are all linked into a wider arching narrative that connects all of the characters over time. 

Heaven and Earth

Sulphurous halo round the moon, full or nearly full.

Clouds move quickly now, like smoke caught in amber light,

Cool and silent like the river.

Flowers that once dazzled us with their brilliance and intensity,

With their gentleness and grace are still now.

Transfigured and transformed by the silver light and the half-light of night.

The river, half heard, speaks a language that we know and feel,

As it moves along the pathways of our souls.

You are my anchor, my heaven, my earth.

Even though my cottage is small it does have walls - white walls and mostly in the extension that is the studio - really quite high so ideal as temporary storage/hanging space so that I can glimpse them whilst in progress. I find that flashes of insight and inspiration - imagination - call it what you will - will come to me this way. The open book was a complete surprise - not consciously put there by 'me'. My conscious mind would love to vaguely suggest the traces of The Angelic Script 

- partly as some of the letters resemble the flowers that I've painted have evolved and partly because of that intriguing other world that I find enters our world so often. But they're tricky things - Angels. So if I do it will be with a pinch of salt - sea-salt of course.

Or it could be writing by Pericles or the Ten Commandments. Or a page from a sketchbook. Probably the latter.

My daughter is in lockdown with me - rather unintentionally so we're settling into this new shared state gradually. She'd like to get back to London to her spacious flat. As I have mentioned more than a few times it has no garden!  I feel she is safer here. Boris has decided. Here we are. 

As she is by profession as Set Decorator and has worked on some incredible films and has 'the eye'. I have said that she can completely rejig the way I've arranged the cottage to make her stay - however long it may be - pretty much entirely to suit her. I OK with 'Creative Chaos' - and I do know that her way will be a vast improvement. 

Time is standing still now - all the galleries I sent my jewellery out to (on Sale or Return) have closed for the duration of the lockdown so I have time to help rearrange the cottage and do the garden and paint and write and sort out all the 'stuff' that tends to spend far to long in the in-tray. I already have loads of jewellery made and am appreciating the break from making. I have lots of new ideas that I want to relate to my paintings and I want to be able to have time to ponder - to work some stories around the narratives of my paintings and connect them to new jewellery.

In the late afternoon we head off for a walk towards an old drovers road that goes up onto the top of one of the hills here. Walking along the path the birds are singing, the sun is shining and the banks are full of primroses. There is no-one else around. It feels perfect and it's hard to equate this country life with the cities.

Day 2 - of Staying at Home 

Again the sun rises into a blue sky. 

I was woken in the night by excruciating toothache. I made my Elixir of Life - I once read that the Ancient Greeks had a drink that they called the 'elixir of life' and it's characterising feature - apart from the obviously miraculous aspect was that the water was somehow thicker than regular spring water, river water or sea water. This does have a strange viscosity so in my mind I imagine that they had stumbled upon a  water source that ran over salt deposits and passed through deposits of sodium bicarbonate - it's entirely possible - check this out - the many uses of Natron - bicarbonate of soda 

that in the form of Bicarbonate of Soda - 1/2 a teaspoon and a dash of Himalayan Pink Salt whizzed up until clear as the salt can resemble little bits of finely ground pink stone - not sure of the chain of ethics of the suppliers. Too much and it stays cloudy it seems, just right as in Goldilocks and The Three Bears and hey-ho let the magic begin. That's it - the pain abates from 100% to 2% over the next hour. 

I also saw a very interesting video on YouTube about a family who credit Bicarbonate of Soda with not getting Flu during the 1919 Pandemic - it makes some aspect of your body chemistry neutral so the virus cannot enter according to her mother.

Mrs. Boone, 100 year-old resident of Mobile, tells how her family was the only family in a small rural Alabama area that did not contract the flu during the 1918 flu outbreak. Mrs. Boone's family all became responders in her community. Her parents become instant nurses and she delivered soup to the door of ill families. Well worth watching.

I go back to sleep to await the hither said sunrise as clear skies in March also bring very cold nights. 'The March wind doth blow and we shall have snow.' etc. The Robins as are the Thrushes and the Blackbirds are singing in their newly or reclaimed territories and on the hunt for the early morning worms. 

Generally I'm an early morning worm - I love the peace of the beginning of a new day. There is an incredible hush about the air at least for the first few hours. The road that runs nearby has been very quiet but now towards midday I can hear much more activity as in cars moving about. 

I continue to tidy the decking and clean up the pots of this and that - that have endured so many house moves of late. Now I know the way of the sun in this little garden and I can move pots to their best places. 
Wisteria and roses over by the steps that lead into the garden, a vine in the sunniest spot by the arbour, jasmine next to the French windows where the sun shines all day (when it does). 
I cut back the lavender that is in those long rectangular black plastic pots that make such good dividers or sit happily next to a wall or shed and scrub a bit more of that old decking every time I wash up. There is no dishwasher here so everything has to be washed by hand. A process that I'm re-learning to enjoy. 

Do I really need to table the days by number when they have so very rapidly merged into one long day that gradually is getting longer as the nights are getting shorter? No - different rules apply - I am sometimes content to float - more so now as I've completely lost my bearings. 
I love the morning as the sun rises in the frosty air - the blinds - a cream linen colour are down still against the night. I am sleeping on the little sofa in the alcove surrounded by some of my favourite books.

The sunlight gradually slices its way through the 2 inch gap between the blinds. It is dazzling and warm and full of life and joy - of promises for the year ahead. It makes beautiful shadows on the blinds - shadows of vine tendrils and of roses as the reach up towards the light and wave gently in the breeze. I have taken to taking my easel outside on the deck (I think of it as a deck as on board a ship that is searching for its safe harbour rather than decking from the builders' merchants) and with a thick graphite stick - a round one, sharpened to a point, I quickly trace the movements and of the shadows. But not every morning. Yesterday and the day before it was too cloudy so no sun and consequently no shadows.

So I found myself staring into space on the verge of tears as my heart cried out in pain at the whole world' plight. I kept thinking of the poor in India - of the homeless and of all the workers that have kept capitalism alive for the utterly pointless lives of the over indulged and hedonistic. This is a wake up call for us all. 

Today the sun is shining once again and I am seeing everything as an expression of love - at least I am remembering Tolstoy in War and Peace who continually emphasises love - in all it's forms - but ultimately divine love. Turner - the painter - said - supposedly on his death bed - his last words - that the sun is God. Certainly seems to be the earthly manifestation - 

I remember how I felt on the moment of a solar eclipse in Cornwall one summer when once surrounded by sea and sky and hundreds of bright blue agapanthus flowers the world - just for a few moments - but it felt like a howling, screaming desperate eternity - the world turned black and the air became immediately very cold - then the cocks began a confused cacophony of crowing all around - over the hills and woods and fields through the darkness. Then the utter joy and relief as the light returned. 

 

November 2019 - Line Vautrin etc

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In the studio most of the time. Sometimes delivering jewellery to nearby galleries - to have a chance to enjoy the changing weather, take photos, sketch out ideas for paintings and meet and catch up with gallery owners. Back home again and looking for and adding new galleries.

I'm a very early riser - always - since early childhood - I wake at 3am in winter - at 4am in the spring but that's only due to British Summer Time. Im perfectly happy with my Circadian Rhythm. During those early hours I can sense the peace and solitude of the night, walk out under the stars and the changing moon and feel part of the majesty of our little part of the universe and return home to the birds singing as they rise with the sun. But then I will make a cup of tea and return to the cosy haven of my bed where I can work on my laptop. 

Fizz is usually curled up as close to me as possible wherever I happen to be - purring deeply and a bit too loudly. It's my time to be undisturbed and to concentrate on writing, social media and researching. 

My current area of study is Line Vautrin ( my Pinterest board on her) - whose work I love, especially because I like to work in a similar area myself when I am not making my main range of jewellery. I like to experiment with what is to hand. Collecting thrown away fragments and natural forms, making moulds, casting resin, melting, burning and mixing stuff, mixing resin with other materials - currently Polyfilla Advanced.

This is Line Vautrine - gathered together for my own reference and shared here on my blog. Gathered from various sources.

Atypical jewellery and object designer, Line Vautrin had a remarkable career even if the name remains little known to the general public. She began with the creation of costume jewellery. 

She had a stand where she showed her creations in 1937 and opened a shop rue de Berry. She used a lot of materials - bronze, brass, terra-cotta, plastic. She develop a material that she called 'Talosel' - an acronym she derived from the French term for the material: aceTAte de celluLOSe ELaboré. 

Talosel - available in different colours - when placed in the water gave random results, so the 'Pellimorphoses' range was born.

Word games, Rebus sign boxes - using gold plating and Talosel - and mirrors - with a particular iridescent technique of her particular universe. 
Line Vautrin once had 50 people working in her studio, she also created an Art School to share her techniques. 


Also one of my dreams - a place to experiment and to share ideas.

Henry Perrichon often contrasted a hammered surface with faceted crystals. Inventor of Neo-medieval and Neo-Antique jewellery.

Talosel is a material invented around 1960 consisting of superimposed layers of resins worked with fire with inclusions of materials such as crystals.

Signed by Henry Perrichon on the back.

Size: 5 cm x 2.5 cm.

A lot of Talosel jewellery appears to be made from melting and burning (pyrography) sheets of cellulose acetate, as well as melting cabochons and other inclusions into the plastic. Some examples from auctions are shown.



Brooch with turquoise cabochon rhinestones and faceted red crystals.

Made in France in the early 1950's this type of jewellery is hand made and unique - it is 'One of a Kind'. 

Henry Perichon and Line Vautrin both experimented with with a new kind of resinous material called Cellulose Acetate, that she named 'Talosel' - (the acronym she derived from the French term for the material: aceTAte de celluLOSe ELaboré.) They worked with Talosel the way other worked with metal, melting it down and forming it into unusual shapes and ornaments, yielding a result that was strangely primitive, like medieval objects in a church treasury, and yet totally unique and unusual. 

	signed by Henry Perrichon

signed by Henry Perrichon

The mood of the time of the post-war period rejected the geometric shapes of art deco and welcomed the neo-medieval to baroque, the luxury inspired of yore - often seen at the cinema, during the occupation and in the immediate post-war and found in the poetic films in the costumes of Carné and Prévert or Jean Cocteau. The haute-couture then proposed dresses and hats of princesses ready to wander in the corridors of castles or to pose nonchalantly in salons.

The jewellery range named 'Henry' was in this reverie of the time but drawing from other times. They were sold in the stores of couture and luxury boutiques, the stars of the time as Michèle Morgan or Claudette Colbert wore them.

Today Henry is part of the creators of the great period of the fancy jewellery of luxury whose production is sought by collectors both in France and in Europe and the United States.

Talosel - was invented by the industries of Rhône-Poulenc at the beginning of the twentieth century - this plastic is the basis of Cellulose Acetate, harder and thicker that the Cellophane.

In his workshop 'Lyonnais' - Henri Périchon and Vautrin analysed the possibilities offered by this material - very similar to shell and associated to the technique of pyrography and created a new range of jewellery that was entirely artisanal. Shaped by hand, the mount was in basic Rhodoïd for this jewellery -  it was then crimped with metallic inclusions and rhinestones - originally, rhinestones were rock crystals gathered from the river Rhine, hence the name. The pieces of jewellery etc were made attractively unique by their specific stains.

May and June 2019 - Moving on Again

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May brought amongst all the many delights of Spring, the not so nice and very unexpected - the dreaded 'Notice to Quit'. It's very hard to keep your mind on much else when you know you have to find somewhere else to live in just 8 weeks. I've moved house so often though, that shock is soon replaced with a sense of increasing excitement. And I've learned to trust in the whole process. I had not at this stage accounted for the exhaustion that all of this would involve or the incredibly fiddly process of packing up my studio. I did fully realise that moving house and studio would involve getting behind with my work.

So I set off very early in the morning on my first reconnoitre. My initial idea was to explore the other side of the River Exe - the Dawlish side that is. I'd never really got to know the lay of the land after my first journey there. I'd encountered too many enormous fields of maize and slashed hedges - the quick economical way of butchering the countryside. I've often wondered if there are enough people who'd happily take on the job of doing this by hand as it used to be done. Exercising an intimate relationship with nature. Anyway it all seemed soulless that first time so I was not feeling particularly optimistic. 

This might seem like a pointless little quibble of my own - it is however, the way my mind works. When I was a child I lived on the edge of a small village called Grappenhall.

It was very beautiful. I used to walk along the tow path to school

and then down the cobbled street to a - on the whole - happy little village school. But after 3pm and at weekends and holidays I was immersed in the surrounding countryside - where every field had a name and a history and I knew them all. 

Hedges are the boundaries of fields - there was nothing uniform about them back then, all their shapes were unique and their outlines were their defining features, plus of course, they were home to an unseen world of countless wild lives. They all had a certain feel. And that was as much to do with the character of the people who planted the hawthorn and field maples as anything. The ditches were also integral for without them the fields could be water logged, animals could get foot rot, crops would not thrive. The ecology of fields kept on evolving with a natural helping hand from the people who lived off the land and the owners. We all benefited. Times changed.

There is a wonderful book called The Worm Forgives the Plough by John Stewart Collis - you can still buy it - even on Amazon. The house I grew up in had wall to wall books and then more piles of books everywhere else. A literary jungle. I discovered Mr Collis in one of those piles. The modern edition now has an intro by John MacFarlane. On Amazon it is described quite poetically and rightly so as being 'as uncategorizable as it is enchanting.'

As to my house hunting foray - I explored the hinterland on the other side of the river and I loved it all this time - discovering new parts where it seemed that more traditional hedging was done.  Perhaps, most likely in fact, still done with a tractor but somehow with care and a sharper blade. I even found an incredibly picturesque seat down a long, winding lane. My own Country Seat.

Yet it was almost impossible to actually sit on as Queen Anne's Lace and Campion had begun to entwine through the lichen covered wooden slats. A perfect place with only the sound of bird song and the wind. Then a tractor and the postman but then again - solitude - heaven - surrounded only by the fields, trees, breezes, birdsong and hedges.

The little town of Dawlish encompasses such a variety of people. A little bit more socially diverse than Topsham, though it's still what I think of as Enid Blyton Land. 

Most of the West of England is in fact, i.e - not at all culturally or racially diverse. Sleepy on the outside and with a nod to tradition but as I have come to realise, as is every other community in the United Kingdom, sharply divided between the two same groups that were exposed during the referendum that we have since called Brexit - if you've ever wondered why we actually call it Brexit click the link. 

This sharp divide really only became apparent to most of us after the count. We are now a nation divided but of course we always were. I think it's better to have it out in the open. We can now see more clearly where people's interests lie. In a way it was already obvious - especially and much more accurately if we look into the interesting world of digital data. It's there if we care to dig. Or perhaps the term should be mine, data mining. Such an interesting world for those who have invested interests. 

When I was growing up I frequently overheard the term 'They' - as in They know best or They decide these things. I of course asked who 'they' were but no one ever seemed to be able to explain but 'they' continued to be referred and deferred to. 

So here I will use the word 'They' and if you care to you can follow the link. I can't of course guarantee it will take you anywhere other than round in circles.  They  'use the same techniques as Aristotle and Hitler ... We appeal to people on an emotional level to get them to agree on a functional level.' 

And of course. Why not? It works. We give our permission on the back of a digital map. Every time. I have often considered whether our world would be best served by a meritocracy or a democracy of a kind. One formed by programming the best, ethical and moral perspectives beyond politics or religion. It is all happening, all evolving beneath the dirt of TV soap. A black comedy? We all hope not. I like to dig around on the internet. Explore it's hinterland. 

I think I must say that I grew up on Enid Blyton, well to begin with. I liked her comforting yet exciting tales. Castle of Adventure etc. Though she was not discovered at home but in the library that we were lucky to have around the corner. Books were impossible to escape from - thank goodness. And the smell of them was divine, liked dried hay on a summer's day. Enid Blyton who gleamed so enchantingly into our lives.

We lived in an entirely different time then. Just after WW2 we needed escapism and reassurance and she knew how to provide it. Since I've got to know about her and her writing methods I'm very intrigued.  She says that "I shut my eyes for a few minutes, with my portable typewriter on my knee – I make my mind a blank and wait – and then, as clearly as I would see real children, my characters stand before me in my mind's eye ... The first sentence comes straight into my mind, I don't have to think of it – I don't  have to think of anything." "If I tried to think out or invent the whole book, I could not do it. For one thing, it would bore me and for another, it would lack the 'verve' and the extraordinary touches and surprising ideas that flood out from my imagination." 

When I'm writing fiction, that is exactly how I write too. No plotting. Some researching and travelling to absorb the atmosphere but all else is a revelation.  I am never bored, the world of the imagination and all that the world of inspiration brings makes boredom impossible. 

I did actually find a house in Dawlish that day that was a possibility, so felt more optimistic and a little safer. I 'followed my nose' as the saying goes - always the best way I find and walked - taking the roads that seemed to have that certain feel about them. I can't explain it any other way. It has happened so often in my life and I've nearly always ended up in the next place that I am going to live in or it has been a short next step to it. I have moved house so very often. It's one of life's journeys in itself.

So along the road I parked on and down a narrow road that dipped downhill until I came to a little bridge over a wide brook and into a park. I turned left and found a row of houses that backed onto the brook, in fact called Brook Street. I liked the feel of the place, rather quirky and quiet and all very individual looking little homes. I walked down following the brook into the town centre and straight into an estate agents. I explained my position and the woman said "We have a property coming up on Brook Street soon." I hadn't got round to mentioning Brook Street. I left and went to pin point the exact house, then got a coffee at a little French cafe and continued to explore. I love allotments so was delighted to see a possibility for me here as the only draw back to the house in Brook St was that it only had a courtyard garden.

My own position whilst house hunting is really defined and very much underlined because I have an old black Labrador - Bella and an even older cat called (Fizz) in tow. Not easy to accommodate nowadays. It really does mark a line that can be almost impossible to cross. 

Buy to Let and Airbnb has meant that mortgage companies and banks can often stipulate the terms and as a result it is usually - 'No Animals' - sometimes even 'No Children'. The owners of this house were retired farmers and naturally accepted animals as part of family life. 

This by the way, is Fizz. One of the reasons as to why house moving can be the most difficult obstacle game in the book. He's very strong willed and always insists on perching in precarious places. He tends to combine perching with posing and is excellent at both. He's 18 years old now and does like sleeping. I think he spends most of his time in his own feline heaven and wakes only to demand food. He's also excellent at letting his desires be known and thinks nothing of waking me up by yowling loudly at my bedroom door and insisting that I follow him downstairs to the fridge, where he then proceeds to drum on the door with his front paws until I give him whatever it is he thinks is in there. 

I must make a Fizz and Bella a page of their own. 

I have so many photos of him perched or/and posing. He is a lovely elderly gentleman now though still with a tendency to attack very viciously if you should go to a certain spot on his left hip, a place no-one can quite pin point. He was attacked by a badger when he was a teenager. He survived as you can see. He doesn't have arthritis. Somehow I always think of him as a 'she' with a very bad temper.

Meanwhile I had to get back to work in my studio - sorting a few boxes every day - sorting and tidying in the house and garden - a little everyday again. Trips to the charity shops and to the recycling centre. And working - making jewellery and telling my friends that I would be leaving. I've made some quite amazing friends in Topsham. But I don't see it as 'goodbye'. Topsham is still in Devon and I love all of Devon - in fact all of the West Country. I see it all as my own back garden. Much as I see the world. In the meantime this was the view from my studio window - never to be forgotten.

APRIL 2019 - In and Out of the Studio

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In and Out of The Studio 

I have an old wooden box

Of powdered metallic pigments in the studio - beautifully stored in delicate glass phials. They have diagonally cut cork stoppers that are covered when unopened with soft kid leather that is then secured with waxed linen twine and tied with a small very tight little knot. A work of art in themselves. 

The majority of the colours are  in a range that is soft and subtle, reminiscent of the 1920's and 30's. Though some appear to be pale until opened as time and daylight have faded them against the walls of the glass phials. Only the tiniest amount is needed to make a dramatic impression and to add a further dimension - really quite magical. I layer them on with sign writer's gold size. It adds a certain lustre when juxtaposed against ink or gouache. The addition of resin later on brings an extraordinary dimension. My work is about many things - looking deeply and being aware of the fleeting moment are two of them.

These metallic pigments were always in the house when I was growing up though I was only allowed to look at them. I remember being most impressed by the delicate kid leather and how it was wrapped around the cork with the cord. We had hundreds of books and magazines of various kinds - National Geographic being one so

had read and knew about goats and leather and about cork trees and corks and it seemed such a wonderful and extraordinary endeavour to me that there were such people in the world who spent their time making them - bringing together all these things - kid leather, corks, delicate glass, twisted linen thread - school had taught me where that came from and how it was made when we learned about Ancient Egypt, and then the black and gold printed labels carefully glued on each one telling a different story - not to mention the alchemical contents - where were they all from? This may have led to my interest in finding out how things are produced and by whom and how these people lived. There you have the world in a nut shell. Who had conspired to bring them all together? But when I was very small, frankly all I wanted to do was to sprinkle the stuff on my hair. Thank goodness I was only allowed to look. I was quite literally 'away with the fairies' - probably as a result of all those beautifully illustrated fairy stories that where piled up in books around my bedroom. 

Fairy stories 

In the words of - Albert Einstein - 'If you want your children to be bright, read them faery tales. If you want them to be brilliant, read them even more faery tales.'

The metallic powders were made by Winsor and Newton in the 1920's so now is a good time for them to see the light of day once more. The most beautiful things are often half hidden from view. Hidden treasures. 

the perfect hideaway

As to studios - 

The one above is not one of mine though is probably my bench mark in terms of my ideal garden shed though. It is in France.
I have had quite a few studios - in the same way as I have had rather more homes than most people - on average.
I have tried different ways of working - space wise. In the home and away from it. Personally I like to leave the house (flat, caravan etc) and 'go to work'. 
Only yesterday whilst I was working in my present studio - it's an old wooden summerhouse, surrounded by birdsong and views across the river - I realised that I have almost come full circle, well

a small circle at least. Albeit, in terms of that feeling you get when in a small wooden shed - that fragile privacy, the closeness of nature and that smell - damp and musty in winter and burnt toasty in summer. Being able to hear the birds sing or the rain pelting on the roof, the wind rattling the window panes. I love it all.

There is a place to paint outside when the weather is reasonably fine and a long seat to gather round with family for breakfast, lunch and supper, a perfect place for a catch up with friends and neighbours, even a little beach for stretching out and lounging in the sun - a little sun trap 

and a spot for coffee first thing in the morning. I have no complaints. Though once again it is a temporary perch and as always I am making the best of it. So I am also imagining my next studio. Really the studio comes first, then the garden and then the house in my list of priorities.

In the studio I can pretty much do all I need to do to create my papier-mâché jewellery. Apart from computer work and marketing as the internet is very iffy. Packing up orders could and often does happen in the kitchen too though our old cat Fizz can be a tad to inquisitive and friendly - he is very hairy. He's now 17 years old and set for 27 I think. When he finds his spot he will stay for days.

My first private space was the empty chicken house at the end of the garden when I was about nine years old. I had grown up with those hens, they all had names, though some were more memorable than others. Some had definite personalities whereas some not so much. There was 'Queeny' because she was the Queen, she was a Light Sussex -

photo courtesy of  Forde Abbey - Instagram
as my old hen has long since departed

and a grown up in the world of hens. But she was also very adaptable and compliant and would happily allow me to dress her in my doll's clothes and strap her into the doll's pram and walk her up and down the road on which I lived. I didn't see the point of dolls. As all the hens - Oily, Beaky, Browny, Whitey etc gradually died of old age, they were buried underneath rose bushes. Then one day the need for my own 'house' began to grow inside me. I cleaned out the wooden chicken house, white washed the walls, I even pasted scraps of wall paper rather reminiscent of the stripy, flowery painting at the beginning of this post. There was even a window that I cleaned and made curtains for. I put down strips of carpet and made a bed from up turned boxes, brought in a small table and a chair and voila. 

Jam jars filled with flowers from the garden mixed with wild flowers from walks to the woods. And books and paintings of course. The need to decorate. It was very cosy. I loved it and so did my friends. It was our den but in my head it was also my studio. I began my first 'blog' there in fact - A newspaper - hand written - we became reporters and would ask the neighbours for their news, then write it down and sell it back to them for a penny a paper. I had almost forgotten that episode. Hidden treasures.

Having a studio is essentially an attempt to create your own very personal and private space. In my mind I imagine that everyone should have one and that all living spaces ought to be able to provide that space for the people who live there. Utopia. 
* I have think I have just heard my first Cuckoo - surely not - it is April and apparently they don't sing until May. Plus I live in the South West and Cuckoos tend to migrate North. Ah well, imagination is my second home.

In the meantime as I like to choose - somewhat by necessity - to rent the places that I live in. Renting offers so much more scope for the imagination. I have lived in an assortment of places - very old, historically interesting places, a folly, fishermen's cottages, old farm houses, very modern flats, caravans, a hopper shed though only for a summer, a converted church, a couple of baroque villas and various houses and apartments. I always seem to get that feeling that change is on its way after three years. Suddenly I sense it, there is something in the air. I have it now. It is exciting. Change is exciting. Though not for everyone I know. Fizz our very superior cat is thankfully very adaptable.

So the studios have also changed. Often they have been where I have lived though sometimes cabin fever takes a hold and I long to 'go to work' to travel somewhere specific and be more conventional, though there will always be a spill over studio at home as well and then excuses are found and I stay at home. Though every April and towards the end of September I get that desire to take flight and head for - in my case - the South of France - hopefully I will make it tis year.

My present studio is one of the best and even more so as now the huge oak tree that hangs over from next door is filling up with birds singing all day long. In the evening the water birds call out across the river in the reed beds, plaintive, other worldly. So I am feeling very blessed.

At the opposite end of this studio spectrum is the one a few years ago in a weird industrial complex that had concrete block divisions that did not reach the ceiling and all the noises mingled above. I played French Impressionist piano music on my laptop in an attempt to bring balance against heavy metal. But eventually resorted to headphones. 

When I took Bella (our family Black Labrador) out for her walks I would try to ignore the piles of rubbish and broken fences and imagine that I was walking in Capri along via Tragara.

It worked perfectly though not a patch on the real thing. I have had a life long love affair with Capri and have yet to find my studio there. It will happen.