An Angel Remembered

Just as I was leaving the Cathedral the other day, one of the staff came forward and said she had bought one of my pictures a few years ago. I realised that this lady had bid for a tiny painting I had donated to ADEC to help raise  money for the Babylon Gallery.
I had been making a series of 15 paintings entitled 'Snow Angels and No Angels', each one dedicated to a different female member of the family. The first one was in memory of our stillborn daughter, Fay , whom I saw as one of five snow angels.
As I had one extra canvas, I had reproduced Fay's picture again for the auction and called it
 'An extra Snow Angel'
It's current owner very kindly said she still loved the painting and saw different things in it every day.
You can see 'Snow Angels and No Angels' on the HOME page of my website and if you want to view them larger, go to my PRINTS FOR SALE page. 

Small Is Beautiful

I got a belated birthday present the other week. My sister-in- law bought me a miniature bicycle to go in my collection. It is almost an exact replica of my real bike - all black with sit up and beg handlebars, covered- in gears and large basket.
She originally got it to go outside the dolls house but as I have another couple of bikes there, I had another use for it.
In one of the showcases, I have four items to represent the 'circles of a journey' - the compass, the map measurer, the magnifying glass and the bicycle wheel. The wheel was represented by a minute plastic bike I got in a cracker one Christmas, only the new edition is much better.
I used all the objects on a journey I made several years ago to Suffolk, to make the painting
' The Enigma of the Chinese Mask '. The painting is all about symbolising the ups and downs of family life with a real journey, made by bike along country lanes and busy main roads.
You can see the painting if you go to my PRINTS FOR SALE page on the website and if you look very carefully (click on the painting to make it larger) you can see these four 'tools' in the biggest canvas.

Just Like Dame Edith

Hazel always thinks I am being too theatrical when I say that I need to get everything ready early, when I have a booking for Ted Coney's Family Portraits, and then rest before the visitors arrive. It does feel like a performance, albeit a low key one.
I remember reading that the great Edwardian actress, Dame Edith Evans was exactly the same (in fact we saw her briefly fall asleep on stage once, but that's another story).
However, last Sunday didn't go according to plan. I now have tours at 2pm OR 3pm as I have found over the years that if it is going well, then the visit can last up to an hour or more.
 I had some of my students at 2pm and they were a lovely audience and I felt that was it for the day. To my consternation another visitor arrived just as they were leaving and I had to start all over again.
The second visitor hadn't booked but had tried to phone me, so I felt obliged to go ahead as she seemed so keen.
I now realise that I only have the strength to do one tour a day now, as like Dame Edith, I'm getting on in years.

Blowing Up Parrots

I heard that Frank Whitford, the Sunday Times art critic and art historian died recently. I knew him as the art history teacher at Hometon College when I was working next door at Hills Road.
He was a  clever man, yet warm, generous and very  down to earth. He was always giving my department art books and gave wonderful talks to our students.
I met him once by chance, when we were both Christmas shopping in Cambridge. He said he was absolutely desperate as he couldn't think what to buy any of his family. I told him that I had just bought everyone blow up parrots from the shop behind were we were standing. He thought this was a brilliant idea and went off to do exactly the same.
He had promised to write the forward to my tour guide when I started
 Ted Coney's Family Portraits but sadly ill health overtook him and it never happened.
 I wonder if he would have mentioned the parrots?

Action This Day

'Action this day' is what Winston Churchill said to his civil servants, when he got a call from the code breakers at Bletchley Park, begging for more resources.
I have always believed that a cousin of my mother's worked there during the war but she died before telling us the full story.
I made a painting about it entitled 'Tea For 222' several years ago, as I wanted to show how two of my family had led extraordinary lives during the second world war and yet never talked about it during old age.
You can see the painting when you come to visit Ted Coney's Family Portraits and read more about it in the press stories on my NEWS AND REVIEWS page.
Anyway, Hazel and I finally got to see Bletchley Park last Friday and spent a fascinating day there.
I didn't find out any more about my relative but there were 10,000 people working on site over the course of the war, many of them women. I am sure she only played a minor role but we know she did secret war work in that part of the country, never wore uniform and had been working at Hull University prior to this posting. It makes an intriguing story.

A Quizical Look

I am now working on my latest painting 'The Rashomon Effect' and you can see it's progress on the NEWS AND REVIEWS page of my website.
I am trying to decide how to deal with the view inside my grandmother's quizzer (magnifying glass) as although a small area, it's perhaps one of the most important parts of the painting.
As all the participants within the painting have a different view of the same image, I want to make each one very different.
I think my grandmother was quite blind at the time but was to vain to let anyone realise.

As Seen On TV

I  opened  Ted Coney's Family Portraits last weekend for the new season with a family of four doing the first tour. As one of them had been a couple of years before, when I had given my 'Journeys' tour, I gave them 'Time' on this occasion. It all seemed to go well and I got some very enthusiastic comments in my visitors book at the end.
Just as I was closing up, the doorbell rang. It was another lady who wanted a tour. She said she had enjoyed my exhibition at the Babylon Gallery and my appearance on TV?!
I was to polite to correct her, but maybe my last radio programme had been so illuminating that she imagined she could see it in  pictures.
I haven't managed to get on national television since I appeared on a news programme giving rides for charity in my Morris Minor, ten years ago.  Maybe I don't need to.