Painting Up A Storm

Scroll down for a selection of images and Artist Statement about this body of work.

Journal . . . I have been absent from the studio for over three weeks. Far too long. This coming and going is death to the work in progress. On the easel is a half finished work and on returning I can’t find my way back into it. I understand why people who work in creative practices appear to work obsessively. A break in flow can bring a crippling fear of being unable to pick up the work again.

So instead of a day in the studio that I had been craving I put plan B into action. Make a cup of tea. Go out into the garden. See what happens next. . . . and this is what follows . . . . .

Storm Gathering

Making something of emptiness I read tea leaves in the early morning sun noting in my journal that I see the shape of a storm gathering. I scan the horizon — a summer haze of pastels smudged with dust from the north where the land is cracked and dry with an unquenchable thirst. In the far distance a boat is becalmed its blood red sails flapping idly — a painted boat on a painted lake. I notice a quietening as if everything under heaven is in prayer and in the silence I hear the earth exhale — and with each exhalation the surface of my skin is brushed as if by a feather — a current that energises — reaching into my emptiness where a white butterfly unfolds its wings with the lightest flutter. My heart opens. Something has shifted within and without. The helmsman on the lake in the same moment senses change — his sails are reefed, the boat now in motion heading for shelter the drone of it’s engine setting the air a quiver. Goosebumps — I shiver.

Storm Raging

Impulsively I walk to the edge of the lake knowing how weather can impact on this shore — that I could get caught in a downpour, drenched, chilled to the bone, blown inside out — off course. into the face of all that brings change I walk onwards towards the point where a white heron stands poised in perfect stillness — a sentry, luminous against the darkening elements. Lightening flashes, the air electric — the horizon now a slurry of wind and waves and weather. Tempting fate i continue as far as the path takes me and here I wait ,and watch as the storm passes out to sea.

Storm Abating

I turn and retrace my steps. All around the storm has raged as I have walked a path untouched by it’s fury. I see things in a new light — a rainbow arches the dunes in perfect symmetry, treasures line the shore of the lake — feathers from wild birds, shining pebbles and sea glass — tossed up from depths. My garden is scattered with pages from my journal — smudged and indecipherable — history now. My empty cup full of the storm. Storm in a tea cup.

. . . . a poem, not a painting….. a poem holding magic for on my return to the studio my eye is drawn to the working palettes, test strips of colour, half empty pots of paint I had mixed and left behind — and in a way that defies logic I saw in the disarray of my studio, abandoned weeks earlier, colours and mayhem that evoked the mood of the storm. I decided to play with this gift from the weather leaving the half finished painting on my easel for another day. Its time will come. I like loose ends, unfinished business, things holding mystery, a post script — something as an after thought when the day is done — work in progress . . . .

Jo Sabey