Haworth Moon

A long silence generally means I'm having trouble ...

And so it was.

I am a slow worker at the best of times and have nothing but envy for the prolific and (apparently) sure-footed output of some artists I follow by blog and website. I, on the other hand, spend a lot of time dithering about finally sticking certain passages down. And I haven't even mentioned changes to the original plan. And changes to the changes. Which sometimes occur to me, eureka-like, while washing up or weeding the garden.

Suffice it to say that at one point I cut this collage in half and redid the whole damn skyscape.

Then changed the printed page clouds into funereal black curtains. Which may or may not have come about after looking at prints of Victorian curtained hearses recently or possibly thinking about the theatre which was a consequence of thinking about the inherent melodrama of what Lucasta Miller called the Bronte myth. Who knows what goes on in the recesses of my cluttered mind and sketchbooks?

Anyway, here it is. In my amateur photo form. I will get it scanned at some point. The light wasn't very good on this overcast day.

The rain has changed into what? Wind? Elemental sparks? That parsonage must have been fairly crackling with elemental sparks I think.

Detail showing drapes!

The Bronte sisters here are out on a stormy moonlit night. No sign of either Virginia Woolf or Sylvia Plath.

But perhaps an echo of something I noted down among my prelim sketches remains:

"I understand that the sun very seldom shone on the Bronte family," Woolf wrote in 1903.

You can say that again.

Haworth Parsonage Revisited (again)

I have been invited to take part in August in a group show entitled Now for Naive at the lovely Art In The Mill Gallery in Knaresborough, Yorkshire, which is very exciting. They would like some Writers' Houses, preferably with a northern slant. (Here is the link: www.artinthemill.com)

So I immediately thought of Haworth Parsonage for one and searched for a new take on it. My first idea was to place two famous visitors outside: Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath. (Never mind half a century separated their visits!). And that's how it started.

But as I have said on more than one occasion, the best laid plans ....

The collage and the papers I sorted into the colour scheme I was after, plus reading Woolf's essay and other stuff, kind of took over and I'm afraid Ms Plath has been subsumed into the paper plot - she's still there alright, but under a few layers of blocking which I don't like to disturb. What a fate! Also in there (but on the surface) are echoes of the sheep painting I finished last week.

The clouds are photocopies of pages from an ancient and battered tome I found in my local library: "Life and Works of Charlotte Bronte and Her Sisters" (Vol. V. Wuthering Heights, Etc). Poor old Agnes Grey, (the only other work in the book) dismissed as a mere etcetera!

It was printed in 1900 by the Brontes' original publisher, Smith, Elder & Co.

Shame on them...

Anyway, more later.

And doubtless more changes......

Seen through a collage, darkly

Oooh look at that heading .... all this TV Shakespeare must be rubbing off on me!

Anyway, at last a return to the paintbrush, as you see:

Not sure if it's any good but it's what I've had in mind for a while: re-interpreting my collages (which after all are themselves interpretations) in paint. But in this case (and possibly others) pared back and darker.

I daresay it wouldn't do to go back to a photograph and compare this finished article wth the actual building. But then it isn't meant to be a faithful reproduction. Just a spartan and naive echo of Haworth Parsonage.

An interpretation of an interpretation. A dream of a dream. Never mind Shakespeare, now I'm veering into Freud. Though in fact I do remember reading, many years ago and possibly in a preface to Wuthering Heights, about the enormous significance of windows and doors in the Brontes' work.

I wouldn't mind betting walls are pretty Freudian too ...

Christmas thoughts in July

It's that time again ....a deadly suffocating heatwave.

Lovely for sunworshippers but not my sort of weather at all.

And, as usual, every July our lovely neighbour Juan decides he really has to plough up the field outside the back door and envelop us with dust.

To say nothing of stirring up the flies.

And giving me the grumps.

So, also as usual, at this sweltering juncture my thoughts turn to winter - and Christmas cards.

I wasn't terribly sure that my Bronte themed Winter Foxes which I did earlier this year was finished. It seemed a bit empty. But a couple more foxes, more snowflakes and frozen vegetation has done the trick, I think.

More lively and appropriate for a Christmas card as well.

The colours aren't quite right on this photograph but it was the best I could do.  

Now it's off to the printer this week for scanning and samples.

I'll put up the professionally done image at some point.

One good thing about this time of year though ... my beautiful jacaranda tree is in full bloom.

Such glorious colour.

Such a lovely name.

Such a sense of insufferable pride on my part too - this tree (which would be way taller than the house had it not been drastically pruned back) started out as a seed in a packet I bought at a local newstand as an afterthought. One of those garish packets aimed at tourists I half thought of as scams.

So here is the living proof they aren't.

That'll teach my cynical self to think better of things labelled "A Souvenir From Tenerife" .

Little Brontë foxes

Finished at last!

It's been a long time coming, mainly because of other stuff, as I mentioned before. Can't be doing with distracting background noise, literal or metaphorical, brings out the worst kind of procrastination in me.

Anyway, here it is, Haworth Parsonage in the snow (despite the fact that we have been experiencing summertime temperatures over here for the last few days).

The snowmen, which started out more prominent, have been relegated to watchers - watching the three sisters watching them from inside. So they retain their sinister, gothicky aspect even if somewhat watered down. The foxes were introduced as a splash of colour (I just knew that National Geographic portrait of an orange-haired kabuki actor would come in useful one day!) and movement. Three sisters ... three foxes ... mmmmm. Three snowmen if it comes to that. Obviously highly significant.

Or maybe not.

As is often the case with these house portraits it was a piece of the occupants' writings that settled me on the final image.

In this case a poem by Emily which starts:

The moon is full this winter night;

The stars are clear though few;

And every window glistens bright

With leaves of frozen dew ...

Well okay, lots of snowflakes rather than a few stars and lamplight rather than leaves of frozen dew.

Big full moon though.

 

Anyway, it is ready in time for my Christmas 2012 greeting card collection.

Method in my madness.

Haworth in peril

This is the latest stage of the game. Taking snaps as I go along as nothing is fixed and everything is likely to be in a flux, not to mention imminent danger of being scattered to the four corners of the studio and beyond by a draught if I inadvertently open the kitchen door or more likely a cat decides to muscle in on the act. I eventually happened upon Charlotte Bronte in the bathroom by the way, she must have stuck to the sole of my shoe and been transported there at some point in the day. She is now restored to her rightful place as you can see, winging along in the wake of her sisters.

So, if disaster does strike I have this memory jogger to restore order to chaos, so to speak.

I am still trying to ignore the fact that Keeper was brown, as you see ...

Messing around with Haworth Parsonage

This is how I've begun. Nothing stuck down yet. Just playing around with the basic shapes and ideas. There are supposed to be three black Bronte birds (and I use the term strictly in the ornithological sense), but one dropped on the floor and I can't find it.
Was Keeper black? Probably not but he will be for me..
Anyway, it's a start.

Which is hopeful after being stymied in my quest for envelopes for my Keats cards by Semana Santa. The big stationers recommended by the printer was closed, as were 95% of all other shops in La Orotava. Strangely the funny little shop on the bridge that sells outrageously lacy, scanty and expensive knickers was open for business. I was forced to conclude they are either atheists or desperate.
Maybe both.