20 07 2018

Hoping to get into studio today as guests leave this afternoon... slightly batty with my absence though have a clear sense of direction.
On Monday, Ariel came and interviewed me there for a 'portrait' in a book of people of the Aude. OLD people of the Aude :) He is back again this monday and I really should have changed something before then.

12 07 2018 Thurs

First of the volcanic extinctions under way, looks promising. All work will halt today though and unless Im lucky for the next few... guests for a week. Longer.
I can still plot.

07 07 2018

Resting on laurels; guests gone, cleaning to do before next lot. A little time possible next week. Must clean congealed palette today...
dinner last night, discovered Peter D is a Mad Martin fan. Gave me the chance to formulate whats been happening vis-a-vis the 6thxtinction - its all quite coherent, surprisingly, given the tradition of Martin and of Dantes raft, etc - the paintings I've been using as source, as it happens.
Beginning to fret now as I start on the Fire part of the series. Rolling grey dust, vivid red fire lines, corpses like pompei.

05 07 2018 thursday

 Finished these two yesterday, grumpy saint pantagathus whose history currently escapes me, and a 6th xtinction which is 90 x 90 like the others in series and gives me enormous pleasure. Dead baby just works IMHO.

Probably on sugar rush, birthday yesterday, spoilt.

Which reminds me, found this lino cut done 30 years ago - on japanese tissue which I guess is why its in good nick. Remember doing it, in helpless panic at the thought of facing 40! Ha, what a child; now looking forward to the graces of being 70.

02 07 2018 Monday

To drawing of Fabienne this morning... iffy at best. Towards the end of the 2 hour session found I was about to faint and had to leave and stand on the balcony until the miasma cleared. God knows what that was about.
Yesterdays painting good, many new canvases ready and several pix nearing completion. Well, two.

29 06 2018 friday

 Iffy watercolours of the lake at puivert. One is better than it looks, one worse. Hmm.

27 06 2018 Weds

Some days.... started when a random collection of big wood fell, unprovoked, and didn't kill me because I was too nimble. Then a lengthy and unpleasant nose bleed.

Remembered in kindergarten when little ones (not me that I recall) poured blood, the nuns would put a key down their back. I remembered them asking each other why it worked; the shock of the cold?
(Why would a nun have a key? Perhaps this memory is a conversation between a lay teacher - pretty northern girl in 50's frock- and a nun. Bearded in one case, fascinating)

Had been considering that young ones and old ones (ie my mother) get nose bleeds. Its a stage that humans go through. The key is for entering another place, to the next stage, a body-understood symbol?
Enfeebled by loss of blood, no doubt. The large - cold- key that I used worked, but only for 5 mins when the flow started again.

Then my beautiful and newly repaired Craven A clock fell off the wall, breaking, crashing into two photo-ready iron crosses which broke. Mended clock - well, it works but the casing is cracked - can't face the iron crosses yet.

oh la theres more inc photo taking for Magrie who have accepted me and now want statements.

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Went watercolouring in the afternoon at the Lake in Puivert. Very good fun, had one of those picnic tables to myself and no-one came near me - chauffeur John just went swimming. Haven't looked at the work yet.