Wednesday, July 15, 2009

3BT




















Whilst the first colours lighting the sky today were the deepest blues, and the streets were still dark, and as the night bus sped down Putney Hill towards another day’s work, so the illuminated poster frame at the side of a distant bus shelter was an even more intense patch of that same rich azure. And as it came in to focus, so did two silhouettes; young slender lovers were standing before it in profile, their hands on each others' waists, their foreheads meeting in balanced repose.

As midday approached, in "Jane Austen Country", and as a heavy shower ran away from the sunshine, an exultantly glittering oak dominated the middle of a passing field which was strangely bejewelled with thousands of cornflowers. The oak's low canopy was wide enough to make a deep shadow for some young beef cattle, every one glossy black, and their ears clearly profiled against the bright distant landscape whenever their heads turned to watch me.

The radio in the cab of my truck was playing an interview with Ray Davis, a gentle man who was describing with some tenderness how Kirsty MacColl had recorded his song, which begins, "Thank You For The Days", and as he puts it, “Made it her own”. And then, just as she began again to sing that unforgettable first line, so my truck was swooping past a huge shining cornfield that undulated along a low hillside whilst the shadow of one tiny cloud went dancing off like a ghost over the waving corn towards the distant wooded hills.

Friday, July 10, 2009

the joy of temperance on clapham common











the shady dog, as it turned out, had an owner ...
he lay in the sun with a group of seven or eight other alcoholics ...
i hadn't noticed them until he began to shout ...
he wanted me to erase the picture, or pay him five pounds for the privilege of taking it ...
you can probably guess how widely i smiled

Thursday, July 9, 2009

least said, soonest mended ... part one


least said, soonest mended ... part two


blimey! here's one i'd forgotten ...


a friend just showed me this little photo of a forgotten painting ... ten years ago, a posh theatrical costume designer in brighton, a wonderful woman named fay, had asked me to design a business card, but i was in such a state of mental prostration that i never got past this sketchy stage of visualising it as a linear painting ... sorry fay !


Thursday, July 2, 2009