After the near debacle where I almost painted over a large
oil painting of Gordale Scar which turned out to have been sold on the Saatchi
site, I have decided I need to be far more organised about this arty stuff that
I do. It is, after all, in part how I earn my living. So in the last couple of
days I’ve been rummaging in my ‘studio’ (ie the small bedroom that’s been knee-deep
in paintings, art materials and cardboard boxes since my daughter moved out)
and finding what I have that’s in good nick and has not been painted over. The
idea is to sort out saleable pictures and put them online, and then, more
importantly, remember that they’re there so that I’m not taken by surprise when
one sells out of the blue.
What I have discovered in my rummaging is a series of very
sweet pictures. I had quite forgotten that I used to do detailed watercolours
of birds. They’re pretty little things, but I don’t really do ‘pretty’ in my
art these days. Art output reflects state of mind, so it makes me wonder what
weird place I was in when I did them – I suspect they were straight escapism,
and I must have been having problems to have painted in such a twee manner.
Nowadays if I paint very dark it’s not because I’m depressed; it’s because I’m
relishing facing my demons. I have had plenty. There’s the whole health thing,
for starters. I’ve now had ME/CFS for more
than sixteen years, so I’m used to it and I have recovered to a certain extent.
The early years were grotesquely awful, and included a spell in hospital that
was the stuff of nightmares – everyone on the ward apart from me was going down
with one of those vomiting and diarrhoea bugs so the stench was appalling. They
would rinse out their soiled knickers in the hand wash basins and then put them
on radiators round the ward to dry. Then they’d come and sit on my bed as it
was the nearest to the toilets. I was unable to get out of bed, being too sick –
had to wait for a nurse to wheel me to the loo, where I’d get left, forgotten,
for long periods of time. No wonder I wasn’t in the happiest of places in the
years that immediately followed; no wonder I painted pretty little birds in
watercolours.
I’ve probably grossed out everyone reading this by now, but
I’ll continue anyway. No more vomiting, I promise.
So what was I saying? Oh yes. Apart from the ME/CFS,
there was the fact that I’d gone through a long period of bringing up three
children on my own, the eldest of whom was severely disabled, and that had been
tough – it was when the eldest finally went into full time respite care because
I could no longer cope that my whole system collapsed and I went down with ME.
My worst spell coincided with my daughter doing her GCSEs, which can’t have
been any fun for her.
There are some landscapes from that period too – even a
little country cottage, as twee as twee can be.
Some of the little birds are now up on the Saatchi site.
There are a few more to go, but I ran out of strength for looking at such
loveliness. It made me feel weird to see them, but other people will probably
like them, so it doesn’t feel right to leave them at the bottom of a box.
As the ME gradually eased off, and my eldest daughter
settled well into her new home, and my younger daughter got super GCSE results –
and my boyfriend was still managing to stick with me despite everything –
things started to look up. That was when my paintings started getting darker,
culminating in the fierce and ferocious painting of Gordale Scar, that was even
too dark for me, which is why I was going to paint over at least part of it. The
sky was simply too threatening – but someone saw it, liked it, and bought it.
Maybe that someone found something exhilarating in the darkness and the
brooding atmosphere. Any artist who goes there feels the same thing, though we
all have different ways of expressing it. I was staying in Malhamdale last
summer, which was why I was able to visit and do sketches and take loads of
photos. My photos show blue skies, so I’m not sure why I felt moved to paint
the sky in a shade of mud, but there’s something about the place; the way the
dark brown rocks overhang, the way you feel as if you’re in a huge subterranean
cavern even when you can see the sky, the unique flora, the mad rock climbers
who actually think the sides are climbable, and regularly fall off and swing
helplessly at the end of ropes. It’s one hell of a place. It’s also very close
to Malham Cove, with its otherworldly limestone pavement, and its subterranean
river, which last year, due to excessive amounts of rain, suddenly for a few
brief days turned into a spectacular waterfall before creeping back
underground, embarrassed.
It’s a place that is gloriously alive, and when you’ve had
ME, still have it but are significantly better, you DO feel gloriously alive. I
still can’t walk very far or very reliably, and am often in a lot of pain, but
I was lucky that I was in sufficiently robust health for a few days to walk
from the car park up to Gordale Scar and also to Malham Cove, because if you’re
going to paint those places you need to be there; you have absolutely no way of
doing it purely from photos, and if you’re going to use photos, you have to
have taken them yourself (which obviously means you’ve been there). It is
dramatic, it is life affirming. It is very, very dark, even when the sun is
shining and the Malham Cove’s limestone pavement is gleaming white, it has a
glorious darkness to it that cries out to be painted, and Gordale Scar itself,
even in the brightest sunshine has deep, deep shadows.
So I painted what I felt, and I went darker and darker
trying to get what I could see down on the canvas, trying to get underneath the
surface of this place and paint what it was doing to me, its fantastic, dark
energy – and I think either I overdid it, or I’m simply not skilled enough to
be able to paint the way I want when I do landscapes. I’m more at home with
portraits, and although a landscape is a portrait of sorts, the more obvious
kind is easier for me. Having painted what to me was an unsatisfactory picture,
I put it away, it got covered with other bits of detritus, but I knew it was
there, and because materials to paint on are expensive, I knew I would paint
over it one day and try to get closer to what I meant in the first place – but somebody
bought it! Who knows what I might have painted, given the chance. I have
another canvas that has undergone a major transformation. It started off on one
of my exceedingly rare TV appearances – I was in the Glasgow
heats of the Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year competition, and had to paint
actress Sophie Turner. I had a great time, enjoyed myself, but when I got the
painting home I realised it really wasn’t very good, so I turned it on its side
and painted a view of St Paul’s
Cathedral over the top of it. I’m now tired of the view of St Paul’s, so will
paint something else over that.
What it will be, I have no idea. Probably another portrait.
I like doing those. Or perhaps I’ll have another go at Gordale Scar. Who knows.
