ANGELAGOODMANART
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It was during the dream time. The time when we were suspended between universes, between light and dark, life and death. The time when I saw the falling star and the fox.
 
The world was in semi-sleep and dreaming, but as always with dreams, the dark mares flitted with manes like black water, through consciousness and unconsciousness. Tales of horror and trauma infiltrated those almost silent sunshine days. Echoes of far off battles, corridors and machinery, exhausted running feet, precious breath, the push of the ventilator and the beeping of monitors… the valiant and the dead… yes that was there, even in the quiet of the night and even in our deepest sleep. We were there, and not there.
 
Death waited in the touch and in the breath.
 
I had trouble sleeping. Woke at four each morning with heart pounding, and speeding, circling, go-nowhere thoughts. Fear prowled the room. What if. What if. Guilt blacked out all hope of dawn and made the future dark. I was alive. Did I deserve it. Would it even last? What if. What if. I rose. Made tea. Tried to read. Went to a window and watched the sky to the east and waited. Weeks… months… we were all waiting, so what was one more hour, to sit and watch and wait? We also serve, who only stand. And wait.
 
I thought of the Bristol churches with their watch towers looking eastwards, the faithful watching and waiting for another kind of dawn.
And waited.
And looking eastwards, there it was. My first ever falling star. A lonely Lyrid, falling… falling… briefly a light to our world.  Out there was hope perhaps.
 
As the sky greyed, things took form outside.
 
A moving shadow caught my gaze. It stopped. A glow of white fur under the body and face. Darkly silhouetted ears, inscrutable eyes, and stillness. Our eyes met through glass: the human being, trapped inside, locked in my own darkness and the small fox out there in the dawn. And I heard her, as if she spoke to me … no… not heard… sensed?... a message without words.
 
This is not a dream.
 
There is always hope.

Picture

Pandemic

The Commission

14/11/2013

1 Comment

 
PictureInitial paint sketch
Some people have fear of flying and some fear the dark shape lurking in the shadows during a lonely walk home.  My current bogeyman is The Commission. 
I was so pleased to get it.  It wasn't a massive lot of money really but - what could ever be better, than to actually be paid for doing something you love?
Not only that but it involved a trip to a beautiful place, with time spent drawing and photographing that beautiful place. 
But that's when the trouble began... 
What view to take of those fantastic coastal curves and tactile rocky textures? From down below or up above? From left or right?  And do I use the earlier morning view - silhouette and dark/light contrast - or the later view with clearer textures and more vivid - possibly more brash - colouring?  
And...how much to include?....the essence of the place - already photographed and painted to within an inch of its Jurassic  life?  Or a wider panorama? 
And then one starts to think about the complexity of the actual task.  The expense of time and paint in palette knife/impasto work (and the heart-stoppingly scary, risky, randomness of it - aaargh!) versus the flatter more controlled colourful style which uses less paint and takes less time and which I also enjoy making... but which isn't like the painting which the commissioner already bought?   I want him to like it and enjoy looking at it.
So the worry builds and I keep trying to second guess what is wanted.  I need to be free to take the risks but feel inhibited by the second-guessing and now find I've done one painting and started a second one and still nothing is right and I'm even considering a third.
Of course nothing is wasted. Even if I end up with three different paintings of Durdle Door they'll surely come in handy someday.  I can store them and revisit and rework...  and sometimes the time factor makes all the difference, because problems can often solve themselves in your head.
But that doesn't stop the Commission looming darkly in my subconscious telling me I'm useless and can't do it and I ought to give up and go and work for honest money on a checkout somewhere.

1 Comment
Doreen Kirk
14/11/2013 04:36:50 am

Angie, I know the angst you're going through very well. Sometimes I prefer a customer buy something off the wall than do a commission.

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    May 19th

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