What the World Reflected Back Sold

I know that I am a landscape painter. It isn’t a sentence chucked out lightly. It is now so much in the marrow of me as to be essential to my life.  However, as happens to us all I believe, over the last few months death (and middle age) has given me reason to pause and try to work out what drives me at all to do certain things and to what useful purpose?

Months have gone by since I started trying to write about the impact of loss close to home. I think I could gnaw that bone for a while yet and while I don’t believe that the thoughts that drip through my mind are unique from anyone else’s reaction to death, nonetheless it is an inescapable stream I’m learning from. In trying to make sense of the feelings of grief and pain, like ripples heading away from an epicentre, we all have singularly different roles to play.

Poignancy and sanctity are created largely because Nature is finite. This picture was painted at a time when death left my family loaded with grief, a new version of life, a level of pain difficult to digest. The void left us missing essential parts and the greatest wish that the lessons could have been revised before the teachers were called from the room.  But what else highlights more the preciousness of life than death? So we pick up and put on overly large coats and, if lessons really are like coats, try to grow into them. And our landscape seeks to comfort us by showing that even in the autumnal and wintery seasons of life there can be enriching beauty. While leaves fall, shoots poke up, growth comes  from decay and we are all bound to this rhythm as powerless as oceans to the moon.

Painting a landscape outside allows my world to unfurl.  My life’s strand tied to the roll of seasons, regardless of  health, family and world events.  What one gains from the experience of being in the open is the patience to watch the slowly rolling change of the minutiae of life, not just year by year but by seconds and minutes.  To feel a working  part of the evolution and  gargantuan flow that binds up the entire universe, not separate from but as a part of and within. It is to be a chronicler who steps outside the forward movement of time noticed by the collective of humanity and events that that “shape” our world.  The media doesn’t have access to my eyes the moment that sunlight glows through yellow leaves, turning them gold and not my nose when a rutting roe buck silently jogs passed without seeing me.  I can offer myself peace despite the inescapable demands of my existence.  And I hope that those paintings can find their way to offering peace to others.

When grief takes a back seat, which in our lucky western lives is most of the time, we can trick ourselves to look at life as a mere cycle rolling forward in an ever repairing collection of cells. The landscape that we have built ourselves into is also landscape that has been built in to us which is why the familiarity with those surroundings, the sense of nostalgia and comfort feels safe.  When the landscape, or life, changes suddenly we feel robbed and have to adapt to what has been taken away.  We work hard to restore the balance, almost blindly sometimes, to make things as they were.  A sense of comfort is taken from collecting the same memories and feelings as the people who have lived before us. But to allow for progression there has to be a giving way.  Otherwise what would our reason be for anything? Our mightiest pleasures in life, as well as our most profound despair, are tied to the fundamental interactions with birth and death. Why do we personify death as a foe to be defeated when the innovation of life comes in minutely small steps, build on the solid existing ones made before?

How do we deal with grief and loss?  How do we marry up the idea that while the rhythms of life are cyclical there are also ends that come with a highly personal price?  Perhaps knowing that we will always lose what is irrevocably dear should be a constant reminder to cherish what we have.  Although I’m not sure human nature is built like that?  In recognising the uniqueness of life we should maybe nudge ourselves about the the importance of joy in our originality. As far as we can be aware there will be no exact replica getting a rerun.

Having said all of that I feel it is reassuring to once in a while be reminded of our very great unimportance in the tiny pocket of time we inhabit to balance out the phenomenal miracle that is even one single life!  Richard Dawkins paraphrased Dale McGowan when he said:

Fling your arms wide to represent the whole history of evolution from the origin of life at your left fingertip to the present day at your right fingertip.  All the way across your midline to well passed your right shoulder life consists of nothing but bacteria.  Animal life begins to flower somewhere around your right elbow.  The dinosaurs originate in the middle of your right palm, and go extinct in your last finger joint.  The whole story of Homo Sapiens and our predecessor Homo Erectus is contained in the thickness of one nail clipping.  As for recorded history; as far as Babylon, as far as the Assyrian who came down like a wold on the fold, as far as the Jewish patriarchs and the legions of Rome, the Christian Fathers, the dynasties of Pharaohs, the laws of Medes and Persians that never change; as far as Napoleon and Hitler, the Beetles and the Spice Girls, they and everyone who knew them are blown away in the dust from one light stroke of a nail file.

It’s a mammoth thought to take in. So where does our 4,000 years of nail dust leave us? That every single thing we have achieved, monumental or otherwise, can be swallowed by time like a whale swallowing one single krill. On some levels it is so simple.  Is it not enough to live well and leave behind a solid step for those that follow. Now, how does one do that?

Painted with Alexander and Johnnie Trotter held in mind.  Brothers born nine years apart, who left within 18 days of each other.  Bravery, grit, loyalty, duty, generosity.  Pragmatism.

Book read: The Mirror and the Light by Hillary Mantel.

She died three days before I finished reading it.

Podcasts:  Last Man Standing by Times Radio.  The search for John Cantlie.

My mother-in-law Julia’s response:

My Darling Louisa

This has moved me so much and the painting itself is so wonderful, your love and understanding of loss to all our family is apparent, and I do treasure that so much. 

I have found the loss of my whole of life best friend, wise councillor and kindest possible husband, followed by dear Johnny however excruciating it is, I cannot say how grateful I have been for your shared love, and loss. I wonder if you realise what a wonderful strength you give with your love.

I suppose my faith in the fact that we do not die, helps me just feeling they are both Alexander and Johnny are safe in Gods arms.  I feel that I have been given and we all have been given strength to live on as Grandpa would have wanted.  Coping with loss is deeply painful, and in your words of real heartfelt understanding helps me to know I am not alone.

The natural world around, I feel is the thing that brings smiles to me face, the enormity of the beauty and fascination from the skies clouds wind, the sounds of the different birds sometimes alone one feels one is hugely privileged to be enjoying their world.  The peeping leaves on what appears a dead branch, blossom, shining in the sun fruits, flowers so much that man cannot control or make!

The landscape artist incapturing the special view to "share" . Strangely I decided and wrote in my exhibitions, how I really try to encapture the beauty of the things I paint to share with anyone who is kind enough to look at my paintings!

Fingers in the soil, also has this calming peaceful effect on many many people. I think Alexander was probably fed up with me being bowled over by a view or a set up, driving along boom there is something so amazing to perceive, squeals of excitement!!! Perhaps the gift of artists is the ability to perceive things in a very powerful way!?

I am rabbiting on!!!

Lol XXX