Red Mists

Another passion that has driven me over the last 25 years has been the search to find or build my perfect home. A typical Cancerian, the greater part of my energies have been channelled into this endeavour, and I seem to have spent more time on house-moves, refurbishing, decorating, renovating and building than any psychiatrist would deem safe for one’s mental health and sanity. And indeed, this last project at Brookwood House very nearly saw the men in white coats coming for me. The very mention of “the builders” is enough to send my stress levels soaring through my newly tiled roof . . .

What has this to do with painting you ask? Well it has a lot to do with not painting – the only reds I saw during this period were of the “mist” kind which materialised on increasingly frequent occasions towards the end, and the only art I managed was the art of making myself invisible in the goldfish bowl that became my home while work progressed (or sometimes did not). And how does one make oneself invisible? I did it by employing the Horse/Ostrich method. By becoming like a blinkered horse, keeping my eyes focussed on my various tasks throughout the day, and adopting the mentality of an ostrich by burying my head in plans and interior design magazines, I couldn’t see them, so of course they couldn’t see me. Except when I had a cup of tea in my hand. I always knew they could see me then, and thus, also perfected the art of tea-making for the five thousand.

But at long last it has come to an end and the frustration of not being able to paint has been replaced by . . . the frustration of not being able to paint. No, I am not repeating myself. When I embarked on this build I was in full flow creatively, having just completed my Masters Degree and having found something very real I wanted to say in my painting. I was suddenly plunged into a world of unending chaos, noise, dust (skyloads of it), mud (oceans of it) and misunderstandings (the latter of which always seemed to lay the cost on my bottom line), and I am finding it hard now to recapture that creative zeal and confidence. So for the time being I am just playing and trusting that something good will happen. As C G Jung said, “The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect, but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.”

And Rosy loves paint ......