life drawing

Countless hours at collage were spent honing my observation and drawings skills, and now I rarely draw. This Tuesday I tootled up Leytonstone High Road and attended a class with East London Life Drawing. The assembled group were focused and companionable, and we lost two hours in the best possible way: in the moment, solving the problem of how to depict a living form on 2D paper. For me, it all came together when I got my hands on this red crayon, a blunt, early years type crayon with both beautiful and frustrating qualities.   

hitch

My flat on Leytonstone High Road is steps away from the birthplace of Alfred Hitchcock. He is celebrated locally with a collection of fantastic mosaics along the walkways to Leytonstone Underground station. These mosaics are marvellous, clever in their depiction of characters and places, skilled in design and use of colour. This morning, the view from my flat was blurred with fog, edges softened, timeless, by the time I'd walked to the station this had cleared to become a dull December day. 

This work is called The Hitchcock Gallery, opened May 3rd, 2001. The gallery celebrates the life and work of the great film-maker Alfred Hitchcock, born in Leytonstone on 13th August 1899. The mosaics were made at The Greenwich Mural Workshop.

 Young Alfred by his father's shop

Number 17

 The Pleasure Garden

 Hitchcock the Director

 Strangers on a Train

 Psycho

 Vertigo

 Suspicion

 The Skin Game

  North by Northwest

 The Birds

 Saboteur

 To Catch a Thief

 Hitchcock with Dietrich

 Rear Window

 Rebecca

The Wrong Man

measure of quality

While walking an easy three mile circular route from my flat this summer I experienced a moment of clarity and heightened awareness of consciousness in THIS body in THIS time, in THIS place. Aware of myself as a wondering measure of quality, flesh and blood responding to the sensory stimulus around me as finely tuned receptor, genderless, without culture.

My surface, registering the gentlest breeze, hairs rising upon some impulse from my sympathetic nervous system, this system operating me from before birth to my death. Eyes that see and make sense, or find sense in the environment, perceiving light, distance, colour with a sensitivity no camera could duplicate. Turning home, facing the setting sun I experienced its blinding rays, a last hurrah as the horizon rose to conceal the light. This haze of golden light felt timeless, I could be anywhere, this could be anytime, I could be anyone.

Footsteps measuring pace, distance, rhythm, stone crunch underfoot, a buzz and chirrup from the long grass, the music of trees and breeze, a rush of urgent whispers. Breath rhythm, inhalation, exhalation, an emotional swell in my chest as I feel, I feel. Mind, self, cognisant, piecing together now and before. A belly full of wonder at this awareness, connection, consciousness - my time on the Earth is now, this is my time. Recognising the gift of this moment, legs that carry me, a bright and curious mind, the preciousness of taking a deep, easy breath. 

gold or hell

Saw six magpies on the Wanstead Flats today, which means gold or hell depending on which rhyme you choose to believe. A flock of magpies is a tiding, a gulp, a murder or a charm apparently. Such poetry.

mile

● The path on which I released a red admiral butterfly caught in the grass. Tattered wings beating against the dirt path, it flew, with grass hanging, fluttering toward the trees.

● Fallen tree trunks surrounded with empty beer cans

● One for sorrow

● Yesterdays litter becoming a marker, a neatly tied black plastic bag of dog shit

● Shit made beautiful with the iridescent backs of bluebottles coveting it 

● Six for gold

● Leaf shimmer and whisper 

● Breath rhythm 

red is the colour

Apache chilli pepper! My plants are heavy with green chilli's and happy in their bedroom window sill spot. This is the first to tun red!

name label

First day of school?