Too much is going on in our lives at the moment and I can’t keep up with it all! I haven’t had time to exhibit this year and, in any case, I’m not confident enough in what I’ve achieved so far to show it in public. Standards are improving all the time and I’ve seen so much high quality work in the exhibitions I’ve been to but as usual there are ample amounts of dross too. I’m amazed that some artists want payment for the poor quality work they produce and there’s so much of it on line too! There have, however, been two encouraging developments: firstly, a new landscape that took only three hours to complete (excluding drying time) and, secondly, a conversation with a friend who liked a small figurative work I completed in 2006.
The landscape in question is a kind of Cornish coastline fantasy which shows a sunset just as a storm is dying down, a kind of subliminal reference to some of the credit scenes at the start of each episode of the TV Poldark drama series which is currently airing. It’s a bright and breezy piece with absolutely no palette subtlety whatsoever!
The second painting is a traditional theme in the history of art – the Madonna and Child or mother and child. Countless paintings on this subject have appeared in western art from the early icons, throughout the Renaissance and right up to the present day. One of my favourites is by Peter Blake which I was reminded of recently and it’s in a very contemporary London setting.
When this work was painted for Peter Blake’s residency at the National Gallery in 1993 (the first artist in residence there), he used a well known Vogue model, Cecilia Chancellor, for the Madonna’s face, and set the mother and child against the background of Trafalgar square. Blake’s paintings are wonderfully amusing, thought provoking, have much to look at, almost always generating happiness and optimism. Whilst I have never tried to produce a traditional modern Madonna and Child like Peter Blake I did make a few attempts to create contemporary mums with their babies within a few weeks of each other when I was researching the subject a few years ago:-
and Tenderness
The first effort was technically accurate except perhaps for the size of the child’s head which is rather too small! The second True Love is a slight improvement and shows a calm, confident mum cuddling her child. The final image Intimacy depicts a warm serene moment where the baby sleeps and this is the one that my friend is interested in which I’m getting ready to hand over.
I witnessed the birth of our daughter, Trudi, and son, Paul, and remember the joy and happiness that came into our lives when they were born and later as they grew up. There was a certain amount of anxiety too over illnesses, cot death fears, safety and behaviour as there wasn’t very much written down for parenting guidance in the early seventies and it was a question of learning as you went along, making mistakes and trying not to repeat them. We knew nothing of parenting styles or any of the counselling services that exist now. Today the amount of media advice by parenting ‘experts’, child psychiatrists and psychologists, and behaviour specialists is phenomenal. Children do come first, have rights and must be listened to yet are often the subject of controversial and opposing views on how they should be treated by adults whether parents, relatives, carers, or teachers and anyone else with responsibilities for children. In my experience as I grow older, I still think of myself as a parent but I hope that as the relationship will inevitably change due to failing health, strength and mental capacity on my part, I will not become a burden to them and that they will know that I still love them come what may.