«I prefer the absurdity of sketching – to the absurdity of not sketching» Gouache + watercolor + colourpencils + fineliner in my everyday sketchbook
I DON’T LIKE HEARING that poetry is dying or dead –
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems to the absurdity of not writing poems… Possibilities I prefer movies. I prefer cats. I prefer the oaks along the Warta. I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky. I prefer myself liking people to myself loving mankind. I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case. I…
I like a quiet life –
Lunch dates take the heart out of the day and the spaciousness from the morning’s work Journal of a Solitude May Sarton May Sarton May Sarton (1912-1995) was a prolific American writer of poetry, novels and journals. She is, perhaps, best known for her nonfiction on growing older (Recovering: A Journal and Journal of a…
To require perfection is to invite paralysis
“What I want to paint are the things that have been seen so often that people no lenger notice them …” —Eliot Hodgkin morning walk in the woods “Insight comes, more often than not, from looking at what’s been on the table all along, in front of everybody, rather than from discovering something new.”…
Sunday poem on a Saturday
Lighthouse Keeping – Seas pleat winds keen fogs deepen ships lean no doubt, and the lighthouse keeper keeps a light for those left out. It is intimate and remote both for the keeper and those afloat. Kay Ryan (from my sketchbook)
James Hollis & the second half of life
Did I mention that I have been reading the Jungian analyst James Hollis this summer? Hollis has written several books on what he calls the second half of life. I am not in any way ready for making a meaningful, abridged, account of his perspective on life. But I might give you a glimpse into his way of…
Still here
— sketching my way into autumn, having great fun mixing gouache & watercolours on my sketchbook pages
Summer days
Staying at home when everyone else is on holiday makes the everyday look a little bit different. The streets are empty, and so are the supermarkets, playgrounds and schoolyards – all deserted. All is peaceful … almost forsaken. Still I’m here, doing my daily sketches, recording what is. But I’m not only sketching, peaceful days…
Completely ordinary and unremarkable
— portrait of a washing line
Into the green
— a Sunday Psalm Albrecht Dürer, Great Piece of Turf /Das große Rasenstück (watercolor), 1503. It might not seem like a big deal. Just an unordered group of wild plants. But look again: the subject – grass & wildflowers – might look rather ordinary, but the rendering of this little piece of nature is not. Das große Rasenstück makes us see…
