Memories and Myths

I am showing you the progress of my paintings today and I think I need to explain something of my thinking behind these. Eynsham is a large urban village but my inspiration is modified by my memories and emotions. I am not painting 'views' that are commodities to be owned but the sense of a place and belonging. This first one is based at the Queen's Head on the May bank holiday and the Morris men have come to dance. It's showing isolation ... a peep through the corner of the window ... through barriers of mugs, people's backs, glass and light. Red is the colour of celebration as the Morris men are dancing the first day of dance and of blood that was once shed at this time to the gods to ensure a good crop.

Here is the main passage way of the DIY and I have come in from the bright sun.  My eyes are struggling to adjust to the darkness here. The walls are hung with many 'treasures' of which I can only see the highlights gleaming but I can see easily to the wood store out the back. Yellow is the colour of my first depiction of the sun when I was a child. It was the colour of gold when drawing the treasure chest that the pirates found. So I have experimented with covering the canvas with artificial gold leaf and then painting over it. My hope is that the highlights and the sunny exterior will shine as a result.

This green canvas is the joy of seeing fresh growth, sun and blossom and having morning coffee with the doors flung open. The trio in the yard also shows my memories as a child of the sense of release that the springs brings. Gone is the prison of cold and hiding in doors and time speeds up as a result. Even as an adult I find that time flows like a mountain river from the spring equinox down to the autumn equinox.

Orange is terracotta colour in the pottery around the corner from me. Here I am standing in the coolness of what was once a forge looking out onto a sunlit street. This time my eyes have adjusted to the cool darkness and the sun burns the details from my vision.   I smell the coolness of the stones and in my head I am standing in the victorian stables of home feeding kids (baby goats) from a bottle.

 This modern Eynsham kitchen is cooled by the violet. This coolness places me in what was once the big kitchen of my childhood home. No servants to give life there anymore but closed shutters but at the same time I am standing in the 'now'. This belfast sink is a reproduction and there is an Aga for a small modern family beside me and not the great coal fired range that was dulled with rust.

Indigo is the colour of the new Bakery in the Eynsham. No memories but a glorious day with fresh bread waiting to be eaten at the next meal.