A Painting Artist

Artist Linda Norris in her Pembrokeshire studio

I’ve been blocked in my painting practice, and it’s nothing to do with the fact that my materials are in storage!

Although packing up the house did mean having to pack canvases and paints away, they were within easy reach, and I could have taken paper and paints out at any time, laid the plastic sheeting over the floor, and done some process work, the work that keeps me sane. But I didn’t. Instead I kept the painting space free in my head, and periodically I’d wander in there, sit down, and think about mixing colours, getting messy, all the tactile aspects of painting that I love so much. But the images weren’t clear enough to paint. The ideas were forming, new work was in process, as I was in the process of leaving my womb-like nest, but I wasn’t ready to reveal that even to myself. But I was giving myself a very hard time about not painting, and felt something was wrong, my head was full of ‘the shoulds’ … and that always chafes my creative spirit, makes me rebellious, ‘oh fuck it, if I feel I should, then I won’t’ kind of thing. So I continued to feel stuck, until I met Linda Norris again, the Pembrokeshire artist who paints emotional responses to landscapes.

I’d discovered her work during a writing sabbatical several years ago, and knew I’d found an artist who had something powerful to say, not only about her connection to the Pembrokeshire landscape, but about life, living, and our engagement with that. There was a fearlessness in her work, a wild spirit that she had also managed to contain, to frame within the context of paint.

I re-entered her gallery knowing that I would see something that would inspire me to pick up my brushes again. Fortunately she was in residence this time, and offered me coffee while I looked at her paintings and prints. As ever, they moved me to look deeper. Yes, to see the craggy shorelines, but to also be reminded of those rough edges within myself, and the layers that have to be peeled back if the work itself is to be any good. It’s not good enough to hide behind certainty and safety, you have to go out beyond the tides, and to also muck about within them, explore the deep and the shallow. I saw the familiar prints, and some of her new work, but it was the conversation with Linda herself that moved me this time.

For about 18 months I’ve been feeling inhibited by my technique, feeling I’d reached my limit, the edge of my boundary, and was hungry, no desperate to be find my next technique that would allow me to express my voice in the paint. Linda helped me to see that while technique is useful, sometimes knowing ‘how to’ can inhibit creativity. No-one can teach creativity, and she encouraged me to celebrate my willingness to engage with that. Doing so gives me the precious metals of my ideas with which to paint. Suddenly I felt free, no longer inhibited and I couldn’t wait to get painting again.

Linda runs a couple of courses each year, and I’ll definitely be booking myself onto one of these.

The images on Linda Norris’s site don’t do her art justice, but if you can’t get to see them in person as I did, you will be in for a treat!

http://www.linda-norris.com.

Celebrating our marriage in Avebury stone circle

After 25 years of living in London, I am leaving to live in the country.

I’m only going 90 miles north of London, but to a die hard Londoner it feels like another country. Don’t get me wrong, I am excited about this change, and really looking forward to my new life in Stamford, Lincolnshire, a part of Middle England that my husband has long coveted because it’s a gateway to the Northern and Southern countryside, giving us easy access to the Peak District and Lakes, and a hop and a skip commute back to London.

As I write this, I realize that I’m not saying goodbye to London, but to this house that we have lived in for 13 years, and all that it has contained.

When we moved into our 1909 Edwardian terrace it was my dream home. All the hallmark features that estate agents love, we loved: the cornices, high ceilings, and stripped floors. We didn’t mind the tiny garden because we had a huge open plan live-in kitchen, and this has been the happy hub of our home. We have entertained ourselves and our friends and family here, celebrated milestones, anniversaries, Christmases, and also taken refuge here when I was ill with cancer.

For a long time after we knew we would never have children, I hated the house, and the empty rooms that would never be filled with childrens’ voices. I tried redecorating, moving paintings around, shifting furniture into different positions until Peter never knew what to expect when he came home each day. Nothing eased my pain. When I got cancer, the house protected me, and I was grateful for the comfort it gave me. All the space enabled me to create a painting room and a meditation space, so that whenever I need to paint I could just pick up my brush and canvas and paint on the floor. I could spread out, sleep in different rooms when I was too tired to move upstairs to our bedroom, and when I literally couldn’t walk up the stairs because the surgery and chemo had ravaged my body. Then, I could curl up on the large sofa, under my meditation blanket, and be grateful that there were no children crying and needing my attention. I heard my own cries, and my family moved in to live with us for a while, and the kitchen became a battle station, where all my soups were made, juices pulped, smoothies blitzed, and my mother cooked up organic veggie meals to tempt my appetite back from beyond. I couldn’t find it, but she did, and the kitchen hummed with her love and activity, the space large enough to contain the racks of fruit and vegetables that my father was buying on a daily basis.

The house became my fortress, and although I knew I would leave it one day, back then it was also my sanctuary. For ages we toyed with the idea of leaving London, and spent endless weekends toiling up and down motorways looking at converted barns, chicchy apartments in historic buildings, wrecks that would become our ‘project’, and finally exploring Southern France in an attempt to find our next home. It was all good research, and part of my process of letting go of our house, slowly, tentatively moving on, exploring what it would look and feel like to live a different lifestyle, wandering outside the safety of my sanctuary. Always I came back, not quite sure and ready I had found what I wanted. The building wasn’t quite right, the project overwhelming, and the poor airport links in France a turn off.

Then in June this year I reached my golden gateway, my 5 year cancer clear date, and everything changed. Although the house had been on the market since January, we were getting no buyers. Everyone loved the house, but no-one wanted to buy it. The price was right, it was in tickety boo condition, so what was holding a sale back? I was. I was scared to leave, and move into the unknown space that survivors know only too well. Suddenly, everything I had worked towards for the last ten years – wellness, was mine, and quite simply I was overwhelmed. I had passed the test, and was free to leave my sanctuary, which had suddenly started to feel like a prison. I didn’t need to stay anymore, it was safe for me to step outside of my bolthole, and start the next stage of my life. The minute I admitted this to myself, our buyer walked through the door and we sold the house.

I realized that I didn’t need to say goodbye to bricks and mortar, but to acknowledge the memories and the deep gratitude I felt. After all, this was the house that my beloved cat had lived and died in, blessing us with her companionship, and taking her last breath in my arms, the house my beloved goddaughters had painted and slept in, the house where I’d made life changing and life saving decisions, and where Peter had lovingly nursed me back to health. We had loved, fought, grieved, stood our ground and united in this house, and survived.

Bless this house and all it has stood for and contained.

By talking openly (you don’t get much more open than Letterman Live!) about his cancer diagnosis, Michael Douglas is doing us all a favour.

As a cancer survivor myself, I didn’t want to rush out and tell the world about my diagnosis, but I sure as hell wanted to find people who were willing to talk about their experiences. I had tons of questions, and getting a diagnosis is the loneliest feeling. Now I’ve passed my 5 year clearance, I feel differently – I want to shout and tell the whole world, ‘hey, I reached the top of this mountain’!

So hats off to Douglas for speaking so candidly, and at such an early stage of his treatment, when inspite of his optimism, he must be scared. A stage 4 cancer is not where you want to be. As Emma Thompson said in the movie ‘Wit’, about her character who had been diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer, ‘let’s just say there isn’t a stage 5.’

And it’s interesting that he has referenced the stressful events in his life (his son’s recent jail sentence and his ex-wife’s law suit against him) in the context of his cancer diagnosis, and not simply blamed his heavy drinking and smoking habit, because for sure both are not good for you, but not everyone who drinks and smokes heavily gets cancer.

What research has shown is the link between stress and illness, and how often cancer will form in the organ that is stressed. And in his case, it’s formed in his throat.

It must ‘stick in your throat’ when your ex-wife sues you for money she believes she is entitled to ten years post-divorce! And your son is banged up in prison, and no amount of star pulling power and lobbying can prevent that.

Just an ordinary dude coping with ordinary life. Just like the rest of us.

Ultimately, what we really feel will be voiced through our body whether we like it or not. The body and soul have a way of telling us the truth, and it’s our job to learn to pay greater attention to what it’s saying.