Packing

Packing for Spain (30.5 cms x 29.9 cms ink and watercolour 2016)

There may be radio silence for the next couple of weeks as Ms Certain Line and I travel to Spain for a short break. We begin in Seville then head for the mountains of Andalucia for a week. Supposedly we have internet access but…well, we’re pretty remote by the looks of things.

I’ve already started packing as you can see. I have a pen and a reserve pen, and another pen in case the reserve pen lets me down. I also have my favourite pencil, my second favourite pencil, and my third favourite pencil in case…well, you get the idea. I’ve packed Felix Scheinberger’s wonderful book, Urban Watercolour Sketching, although I’m taking the original edition – each one decorated by Scheinberger himself – so I can improve my German and loosen up my painting simultaneously.

I hope to be able to post lots of paintings of Andalucian white hill towns on my return. Fingers crossed: the last time I was in Spain I painted one flower and an odd orange-coloured fruit…

The splendid Jacob, ‘onlie begetter’ of the fascinating and witty Jaywalks blog, has kindly nominated me for a Liebster award. I’m enormously flattered: being given an award by other bloggers who take the time to read and appreciate what you do is praise indeed. Nominating ten others in my turn is difficult: I follow a lot of terrific blogs, many of whom have already received nominations or don’t take part in such things. I’ll therefore nominate ten that I find particularly inspiring (it could have been twenty, or thirty, or…):

• Living in the moment: Wind Rush
• Debi Riley‘s Creative Zone
• Edoardo Dispenza‘s unique drawings and paintings
• Teproleum – be amazed!
• Brushpark Watercolors
• From 1 Blogger 2 Another
• The collages of Pablo Orza
• The wisdom of The Sculptor’s Wife
• Rebecca Art Tutor – your questions answered
• Jean Messner – ‘gratefully recovering ADHD artist living in abundance and prosperity’ as she puts it

Instead of answering ten questions – are you really interested in my ten favourite cheeses or my most-loved fictional horse? – let me share an inspirational evening with you.

Around 1980 I was taken to a Meredith Monk concert in an intimate performance space in New York City. It was a remarkable, baffling, challenging evening – like nothing I’d ever seen before. In the interval I cranked up my English accent and – pretending to be a journalist from the London Review of Books (I actually sold ad space there) – interviewed members of the audience about their reactions to the pieces: they were generous and open  in their responses.

Although I haven’t kept up with Ms Monk’s work since, that evening was revelatory: she demonstrated that music needn’t be popular, jazz or classical; that singing needn’t be verbal; that dance needn’t be balletic. Most of all, she drew back the curtain on discovery and curiosity – my cultural world doubled in size, my horizons broadened and deepened.

So thank you Jacob, thank you Meredith Monk and thank you for reading.