Sketch Ness

I booked myself on an urban sketching walk for this morning. The local museum was celebrating the Festival of Architecture. They had secured the services of couple of artists to “encourage participants to take a fresh look at the architecture of Inverness and to encourage creativity and skills in a supportive environment”.  Inverness apparently has hidden gems that need to be discovered and sketched. Sketchbooks and a variety of pens, pencils and pastels were provided for those who didn’t bring their own.

There was a map of the intended route – a 35 minute walk round some of the back streets looking at “Ross & Macbeth buildings”. There was a lack of context about the buildings or the architecture. A brief history lesson, a short power-point presentation telling us what features to look out for perhaps, might have come in useful.

The day was not as dry as we would have liked. No fat raindrops fell heavily, splattering on the pavement, but it was damp. It was light drizzle. I had an umbrella, in the car, at the top of a long flight of steps where the carpark was. If I had known we were heading up those stairs I wouldn’t have popped around the corner to the shop to buy a cheap umbrella, which wasn’t as cheap as I would have liked, or became embroiled in a sharp tongued encounter with the assistant who gave me the wrong change.

I didn’t know anyone on the walk. They were keen. They were more experienced than I was. And I was kind of glad that I had left my hearing aids at home so I didn’t have to talk to anyone.

We stopped at the bottom of the Raining Stairs and it had been raining. Little exercises of ten, five and two minutes had us scribbling away. One of the artists looked at something I had drawn and said, “Brilliant”. My husband looking at that same picture over tea and cakes later said, “Is it a Dalek?” It was the two minute picture of a slab of concrete next to the stairs decorated with some round stones.

At the top of the stairs the view was something different. Buildings and walls had been demolished to leave a view of the castle, albeit behind a metal grid fence festooned with “Keep Out” signs. A couple of blocks of flats are being built.

Another opportunity to sketch something. I chose the end of a row of terraced houses with an interesting array of chimney pots. I had picked up a red brush-tipped pen and began my lines. What I saw with the eye, and what I drew with the pen didn’t quite match up. If it had a water colour feel to it – that was the rain which was falling in earnest. I scribbled with my pencil and smudged the lines to create some grey clouds!

We walked around to the college at Midmills. It has been closed and most of the buildings have been demolished. It used to be the Inverness Royal Academy once upon a time. The listed part of the building which is still standing, all boarded up, is being turned into a creative hub of artists’ studios. The rest of the grounds will be given over to more blocks of flats.

I think this was where I gave up trying to sketch anything recognisable. The pencil wouldn’t do what I wanted it to do. I had started too high on the paper and couldn’t fit the tower in. Everything was hidden behind fences and trees and high grass and drawing a picture of a bike next to a lamppost looked more inviting. I felt we were getting in the way of pedestrians using the pavement. The umbrella wasn’t helping any.

I was doing the heavy sighing thing when a fellow sketcher drew near.

“As if anyone can draw under these conditions,” she muttered. She went on to tell me that sketching was something you needed to keep doing daily. The eye and the hand improved their coordination in time. She flicked through her book to demonstrate. Even those early sketches were good but I could see improvements as she moved from one page to another. Drawing daily was the secret – practice makes perfect. I thought about the two years I had done “O” level art in school many years ago and how I really hadn’t improved as the weeks went by. Maybe I just didn’t have the artist’s eye.

“Just give me words,” I said, “and I will write you a poem. A pencil and a sketch pad are not my media.”

“You write poetry?” she asked.

We strolled down the hill, the others pulling ahead as we talked about poetry. She had had a couple of poetry books she had self-published. She had a friend who had written short poems with very simple sketches. I told her about my books. The morning had brightened considerably for both of us and it had nothing to do with the weather. We had, apparently, made each other’s day.

The final stop of the morning was the Victorian Market and another series of sketches. My husband recognised the ceiling arches and admired the picture I drew of an umbrella. I tried to draw the shop front of the jewellers where we bought my engagement ring. My husband insists I was chanting “rubies and diamonds” and rubbing my hands together as we entered. I dispute this claim.

What did I learn today? Nothing about architecture. Nothing about Ross and MacBeath. Nothing much about the technical know-how of sketching. I learnt that I’m not that observant. That I really can’t draw. That it’s refreshing to do something other than the usual Saturday things. I learnt how easy it is to find and make new friends when you put yourself out there.

Thank you, Margie, for being there this morning.

And So God Turns Away

This is my art work from Sunday's retreat at the Abriachan Forest classroom. I am amzed what soft pastels and charcoal stained fingertips can accomplish.

In the Darkness of the Clouds

I asked my husband for his permission to write about this.  It’s his story rather than mine – but it is a good one.

Last Sunday our church spent the day together on a retreat.  We had been looking for ways to do things together that lasted longer than an hour and a half and aimed to build deeper connections with each other, with God and with His creation.

We had been given the use of the forest classroom and had the forest, stretching away in all directions, at our disposal.  We had a plan for the day that was open to change, a box of teabags, a jar of coffee, a litre of milk and a plate of shortbread biscuits to get us going.

An afternoon session was all about crafts.  When we join the family of God, and He becomes our Father, we take on the DNA of the Almighty.  God is the creator and we have inherited His creative ability. Sometimes we need a gentle shove into a pile of empty boxes and paper, glue and fluffy things to awaken that creativity.

My husband Joseph is a very clever man. The school he went to, St Mungo’s, in Glasgow, were into ranking in a big way.  After all the various end of year tests had been marked and collated pupils were ranked from number 1 to number 250 or what ever the roll of the year group was. My husband hovered around number 11.  It was art that let him down badly.  Without the art result he would have clinched the top spot year in year out.  He just doesn’t do art. He has promised himself that once he retires he will learn to draw and paint properly.

I am not great at art either…but this is his story.

We had a whole box of stuff to play with and a half hour or more to make something.  There were no guidelines except to have fun.  No one was expecting Picasso to turn up, or Michelangelo.

Armed with a sheet of paper and a box of coloured pastel crayons, my husband drew a picture of Noah’s ark.  The sea looked like the sea.  The ark looked like a luxury liner. The sky was dark with clouds.  A dove in the sky held an olive branch in his beak. 

I’d glimpsed over once or twice, a couple of pipe cleaners twisted in my hand. I thought it was something to do with World War 2.  I thought it was a plane ready to drop a bomb on a warship – but, yes, on closer inspection it really was a bird.  There were feathers.

Time up and we were asked to talk about our creations.

He talked about Noah and the ark.  In the clouds’ darkness Noah would not have been able to see the dove.  He wouldn’t be able to see the water level dropping or the land in the distance – not in the darkness of the storm clouds.

All he could do was to rest in God’s promise that there would be an end to the storm.

At the end of the day, climbing into bed, talking about some of the things we had thought about during the day, there was a knock on the door.

Long summer nights meant that outside was still light – there were no clouds, but a storm was heading our way.

Family had been trying to reach us from Glasgow with the news that mum had been taken into hospital.  There was the possibility of the end coming.  She had spent a number of years in a nursing home.  She had pneumonia and was finding ti hard to breathe.

Bags were packed and tickets and train times chased down.  Facebook came to the rescue with an opportunity to ask people to pray.  The response was wonderful.  It was such a positive testimony to our family – and so effective too.

There has been an improvement in mum’s condition.  She is comfortable and breathing much better.  It may not be that a return to the nursing home is on the cards. 

I think about the picture – with the dark clouds and the dove that Noah couldn’t really see – and the trust he had in God that the storm would come to an end.  What a timely picture and an even more timely truth.

My husband is now home.  He has spent time with mum and with his family.  There is a settled peace about the situation.

Thank you so much to all of you who prayed and who continue to pray.  It has been such an encouragement to us all.

Making the Connection

We have just returned from visiting family south of the border. Normally I try to make sure that the house is left reasonably tidy – I wouldn’t want a burglar to complain that I am a lousy housewife. This time however, there were so many jobs about the house, and workmen to do them (or not do them as in the case of the loft insulation because of asbestos fibres) I just didn’t find the time or the inclination. I still don’t have the time or inclination but the house needs to be clean for visitors at the weekend.

It can be quite a hectic time visiting everyone and we NEVER manage to get round everyone. Sometimes it can feel very un-holiday-like and we miss out on just being tourists, so we plundered the box of tourist leaflets at the
B & B.

In all the years of living in Warwickshire, only a couple of months involved driving a car, so I have never really got to know the roads. I confess that I even got lost in the village of Crick where I grew up. There are one or two new housing estates that have sprung up, with a complicated warren of col-du-sacs. My brother in law sniggered as I phoned for directions to his son’s house. Lost in Crick ought to be an oxymoron, but apparently isn’t.

Joe and I headed out to Compton Vereny - “Warwickshire's award-winning art gallery, opened in 2004, delivering an exciting international programme of exhibitions and events in the setting of a Grade 1 listed Robert Adam mansion located in 120 acres of spectacular parkland.”

The art exhibitions didn’t just begin once you entered the building and paid for your admission but the” spectacular parkland” contained things too. Art means different things to different people. A giant spider web woven out of raffia might make one person think of art – it made me think of giant spiders!

A current exhibition inside the building was “What the folk say”. Presumably upstairs, where we didn’t go, there is an exhibition of folk art – not your classic poses in the usual medium in ornate frames, but lots of wood carvings and papier-mâché objects. Artists had been invited to take something out of the folk collection and place it alongside of an object or picture in the other collections and then write a paragraph to explain how the two were related. One object might bring out a truth about another object that wasn’t at first glance obvious. Some of the connections they made left you thinking “Oh Yes!” while others left you thinking “Duh?”

There was a huge picture of the battle of Troy and one of the main men involved had taken an arrow to his thigh. He was surrounded by women trying to extract the arrow and bind up the wound. An artist had teamed up that picture with a picture from the folk exhibition where a boxer with a black eye was being tended by his trainer reaching out with a cold flannel. Whether the battle is a big one with a cast of thousands, or a small personal one – injuries happen and people step in to try to help.

Another exhibit from the folk exhibition was a very large bullet. It was made out of metal and had ammunition stamped on it. It wasn’t a real bullet, but a kind of cartoon type bullet. It has been placed in the middle of a room dedicated to portraits of politicians. The artist was drawing the link between war and politics. Even on a non-war level words can be used like bullets to injure people. I have seen glimpses into parliament debates and the way words are used – not just the words, but the tone can be very damaging.

The whole thing was certainly thought provoking. One pair of objects that I found quite offensive involved a wooden carving of the resurrection scene. You could see the crosses in the background and Jesus in the foreground and a few witnesses. The artist had chosen to team it up with a knitted egg cosy. The egg cosy was in the form of a king’s head with a crown and it was placed over the head of Jesus. Yes, Jesus is the King – but the egg cosy over Jesus’ head seemed irreverent in some way. The egg cosy wasn’t even well knitted. What is was doing in the folk collection to start with beats me.

I was thinking of the idea of putting one thing next to another where one object reveals a hidden truth about the other object. That is essentially what a parable is – using the known truth in one story to reveal an unknown truth in another.

Swap the art of objects for scenes from the Bible and just a single word instead of the object from the folk exhibition and allow the imagination to ignite!

See in your mind, perhaps, the Calvary scene of Jesus on the cross, the nails, the blood, the darkness and Jesus’ cry of abandonment. For many people their word would be “death” or “defeat” but God writes a different word – “life” or “victory”.

See in your mind, perhaps, Paul and Silas in a prison at midnight, beaten and bloody, manacles biting into wrists and the sewer smell in their nostrils. What one word would moat people write? Maybe “misery” or “hopeless”, but again God writes something different – “freedom” and “praise”.

I never quite made some of the connections that the artists were making at Compton Verney – and sometimes I never make the connections that God makes with events that happen in the lives of people. To make the artists’ connections require me to think like the artist. To understand the connections that God makes I need to think like God.

Thankfully God doesn’t stick an egg cosy over His thoughts to conceal them!

More Than Mere Paint

I watched the last half hour of a documentary last night on the painter Peter Howson. He had been commissioned to paint a picture of St John Ogilvy. The plan was to do a really big picture. He had done a few sketches – crowd scenes with John Ogilvy, noose around his neck, about to be hung.

I confess that I know too little about John Ogilvy, but I know something of Peter Howson. I had plans, once, to send him a collection of my Easter poems, with the suggestion that he might like to provide illustrations for them – and we would share the royalties! I never quite talked myself into it. I am not entirely sure that I haven’t talked myself out of it either! I want my poems to stand on their own merit so that the illustrations and the poems are equal partners in the endeavour

Once he had the commission and the sketches, and an empty church building as a studio, and the really big canvasses, posted through a large letter-box-like hole in the wall, he lost inspiration. The documentary wasn’t called “The Madness of Peter Howson” for nothing. He downsized the picture to something less big, less intimidating for him to paint and he began. He backwashed the canvas in orange and then began to paint.

I suppose that just as a writer may be continually revising a manuscript, or a poet constantly tweaking words, Peter was constantly reworking the picture. The city in the background, with rays of light through the clouds, was painted over so there were just clouds.

I so wanted to take the brushes off him and say “It’s finished!”

And then I thought it was finished.

Brush in hand, he began to cover it all with black paint.

I suppose you have to stop somewhere. There was a deadline – the Pope’s visit to Glasgow. The cameras panned to the opening of the restored church where the painting was to be displayed. The canvas was covered and there were no sneak previews. I am not sure whether Peter was satisfied that he really was finished. He apologized to the crowd in anticipation of them not liking the picture.

And then it was revealed.

I am in awe of people who can paint in such a way that the picture twists your guts and drags out an emotion from you. Flesh and bone people sometimes have a lot less feeling expressed through their eyes than John Ogilvy did in Peter Howson’s painting. It’s just paint. It’s just chemicals mixed together. But those eyes spoke of suffering and sadness, of tranquillity and trust. Something more than mere paint.

I think about the stages of his painting and the times when I liked it and thought it was finished. I liked the city in the background. I liked the rays of the sun pouring through the clouds. I liked the lighter colours. I would have stopped there. But the artist didn’t stop. He took out the black paint. He did not yet see what he was looking for.

Romans 8:28-29 “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son”

God want to see the image of His Son when he looks at me. Much as I would like the lighter shades painted on the canvas of my life, often God chooses the dark colours. Sometimes he paints over the city in the background, or the rays of light through the clouds – because they don’t serve His purpose right there and then.