MARCH 2008
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Phone call from Michelle Blondel to say thank you for the copy of Nathan's book; also how much she liked the painting of the Arabian souk (Coffee Pot Seller) - she hopes they might be able to have some similar works in my forthcoming exhibition there which opens on Saturday 6th September.
Call from Lee in New York wanting to know when the Paris vernissage is - she had thought it was in March! as she and Jim will be there later in the month. Luckily for me it isn' t as I'd be exhibiting a lot of half finished works. She's also enquiring about the price of a prospective commission.
Today is Mothering Sunday and I receive a beautiful vase of multicoloured double tulips which include some brightly coloured parrot variety from Henrietta, Kev, Isaac and Samuel form whom some lovely photographs and cards had also arrived yesterday. My Mum comes to supper in the evening and we exchange baskets of polyanthus and home made cards. Phone call from Nathan to wish me Happy Mothers Day.
During the day work on commissions.
Message from Lee saying she has just been talking to the wife of the Colombian Ambassador in London who is also an artist so she has given me her e mail.
I've had three missed calls from three different journalists, Friday, Saturday and Monday, who were wanting to know the result of the 'Cash in the Attic' auction of my little painting Angel in the Garden. So today there's another very nice piece again (with a photograph) all about the sale.
Poor old Conrad Black had to report to jail in Florida to start his sentence; what a way to to enfor this media magnate to end up. It seems rather sad that at 63 he's going to spend the next six years in prison. I feel a strange attachment as he commissioned me through, a gallery in Florida, to create a large newspaper painting of all the papers owned by Hollinger, being read by its Directors all of whom have been involved in the fraud case that sent him to jail. He had asked if they could have giclée reproductions of it made for each member of the Board but Theo Waddington would not hear of it.
E mail from Sharon at Fosse Gallery saying that the two tiny works I am doing for her will need to be at the gallery by Wednesday of next week as the Easter exhibition opens the following Saturday.
Working fast and furiously at the moment, have started several more new pieces for Paris.
Concentrate on the second small work, a street scene, for Sharon's Easter exhibition at the Fosse Gallery.
Friday 7.3.08
Spend time working on Karl Monday's commission and of course the more I work into it the more I see I'd like to do. The works always take longer than anticipated but then that's the name of the game, there would be no point in making the paintings unless I was satisfied with them.
I have been working on a larger canvas, now covered in high heeled shoes but feel I would like to try containing it in slightly smaller shape and format.
Continue on the new shoes. I've been on a roll so have now started several new works whilst the ideas are flowing - I have to capture them whilst the muse is there before returning to complete the commissions.
The gales have luckily not done any damage to the house or studio. We set off to London mid afternoon; R's feeling really pleased as we are making very good time but probably shouldn't have commented on it for as we entered the Limehouse Link the journey becomes slower and slower due to the volume of traffic. When we get to the Blackwall Tunnel the slip road leading to it is closed and we are forced to continue and decide in between the outward bound A13 or the Canning Town exit. We choose the latter in the hope of turning round and going back into London but are gridlocked on the roundabout, which is full of big red busses, for at least an hour before we can reach the A13 back into London We keep our fingers crossed that the Blackwall Tunnel will now be open and luckily it is. So it ends up having taken us 2 hours to reach a destination that would only have been a mile and a half as the crow flies, from the gridlocked roundabout. Isaac's gone to bed but Kev's cooked a wonderful stir fry and we still have time to give Samuel, who has grown enormously since we saw him in February, a cuddle.
Arrive at the apartment at 10.00 and manage a couple of hours painting before turning in.
We walk into Greenwich with Samuel (whilst Henrietta collects Isaac) and buy most of today's British papers fore the small corrugated piece that Richard has made for me.
Stay up until 2 am finishing the little paintings
On the news today we hear Edward saying he has had to cancel today's racing at the Cheltenham Festival due to the high winds. On Sunday night winds had blown down parts of the tented village and he could not risk the safety of the race going public or the magnificent horses. There is almost always a chill wind blowing down from Cleeve hill at Prestbury Park during March but the only other cancellation this century was for the Foot and Mouth in 2001. The Cheltenham Festival has now become the most important jump racing event in the world - each race attracts such a high calibre of competing horses that just to run there is seen as a wonderful accolade. And with Ladies Day it's even gaining some of the glamorous Ascot-type cachet. Unfortunately we couldn't accept Edward's generous invitation to this year's meeting as we were coming up to town.
R manages to e mail photographs of the two tiny paintings for the Fosse Gallery Easter exhibition.
E mail from Sharon saying that the two small paintings have arrived safely. Everyone comes to supper (a late celebration for R 's Birthday),including Nathan although not Rebecca who is having to complete some work for her PHD at Goldsmiths but Nathan does phone her so that she and Isaac can speak to each other.
Go to collect a painting from West London that had been out on loan. We have Isaac with us and take him to Tate Modern on the way back. We buy tickets for the Juan Munoz exhibition but probably because he is tired, he decides he'd rather we sat on the balcony and watch the boats go up and down the river; he's fascinated by the fact that they are travelling to and fro under a bridge and that they vary considerably in size and include a wonderful strong little tug, towing an enormous load of lorry containers on the barge following it. We also see a small 'neenaa' or Police launch. He always enjoys the escalators and a visit to the bookshop - he helps choose three which we read on the way back in between singing songs like 'the runaway train'. We've been having such fun that he hasn't had a sleep all day long so by the time we get him home and had his tea, he's ready for bed.
We spend most of the day and evening with Henrietta, Kev, Isaac and Samuel. As we are walking through Greenwich Park into Greenwich Isaac spots the childrens' playground with its swings and slide etc. so we take him there whilst they go into Greenwich with Samuel to buy Kev's Mum a birthday present. It's raining but Isaac is undeterred after granddad's pushed him on the swings and I've dried the slide for him to Whizz down, he heads for the sand pit where he asks for his shoes and socks to be taken off. But poor little chap is somewhat unsettled by how cold it is on his feet, probably not helped by the fact that he has a cold. We now start to walk towards the entrance that his parents and baby brother will appear through, stopping off to run in and out and round the magnificent bronze sundial that marks the Great Greenwich Meridian. He then spots a very nice puddle that two slightly older children are stamping in, in what looks like an empty pond, and insists on being lifted down into it running straight way to the little gully full of water where he manages to splash enough to get the bottom of his jeans and new shoes well and truly wet. We persuade him to walk on; he doesn't want to be pushed on the trike we bought last time we were here and isn't having any truck with my umbrella being held over him to try and shield him from the rain so this happy little boy skips along until we spot his Mummy Daddy and Samuel walking towards us in the distance. When we point them out to him he becomes very excited and breaks into a run. Tonight R cooks a meal for us all at their house as they had a shop being delivered by Ocardo (Waitrose) which is interesting because Kev had designed the livery for these vans.
They all come round to us late morning and Isaac partakes of lunch, Kev's parents are bringing lunch and tea for them this afternoon. They wanted me to try and give his beautiful curls another trim which is usually a bit difficult. But the day before yesterday I had mentioned to him that the place where men and boys have their hair cut is called the barbers. Today I am inspired to turn it into a proper game so he and granddad sat side by side on separate chairs each with a tea cloth round their shoulders and his Mummy and I invent a song to sing including the words "snip snip in the barber's shop" a bit repetitive but by trimming some of g granddad's hair first I'm then able to snip snip on Isaac's. R's pleased as he is always wanting me to trim his hair and Isaac sees it as great fun and distinguishes between the heap of granddad's black hair which he points at saying "granddad's" and his own fair to blond locks to which he says "Isaac's". His parents seem well satisfied although like me Henrietta is always a bit reluctant but I'd rather do it myself than let him (at two years or age) go to a real barbers shop (but it would make a good subject for a painting!. Kev's parents are impressed apararantly, especially when Isaac describes the experience; they are perhaps slightly less bohemian than Henrietta.
On our journey back we call at Tate Britain to see firstly the Peter Doig exhibition - large figurative and landscape canvases, perhaps influenced in scale by the stage sets he used to paint in Canada after studying at St. Martins (in London). And before coming back to London to do his MA at Chelsea. He was born in Scotland moved with his parent's to Trinidad (where he currently lives) and Canada. Many of the paintings are sparked by memories of experiences he has had in each of these places, sometimes they seem to have a splattering over the surface and one canvas in particular had been left in the rain, which created a series of drips washing out any detail from the lower part of the canvas.The works are all studio based the starting point is usually a photograph one he has taken or from a newspaper or film still ( particulary the film "Friday the 13th" a recuring image of a girl in a canoe floating on a lake.don't know that I take quite as much time as I would have, looking at the exhibition as I think I'm coming down with the 'flu -like virus that Henrietta and Isaac have had so am rather cold and shaky until I find a soluble Disprin in my bag which helps me regain my equilibrium enough to go and see the exhibition downstairs which is all about the Camden Town Group and focuses on Sickert and his colleagues, Gilman, Gore, Drummond, Bevan. As well being fascinating to observe the influences they had on each other (and those which came from France) historically there is a view of London just before the First World War when the horse was giving way to the car and electric light is replacing gas. The show also devotes quite a lot of space to the dark nude studies of a woman lying on a bed with rather indistinguishable features, they are often thought to be about the Camden Town Murder and there are those who have hinted that perhaps Sickert was Jack the Ripper of the murders a years or two earlier!?
We arrive home at about 8.30pm.
I think I've got the influenza virus that Henrietta had. I haven't been quite sure what it was as I woke up on Friday night with a pain in my chest after having felt quite weary that evening. I would have thought it was a heart attack but it's on the opposite side. On Saturday night the same thing happened, I woke at 2 am with a horrible pain in my chest but decided on Sunday perhaps I had cracked a rib or strained something that was causing pain.
Henrietta's ribs had also hurt and her friend Emma who also had the virus thought she had pulled something in her chest, so decided to cancel the doctors appointment I had made for fear of infecting all those in the waiting room and the doctor who probably has a thousand patients to look after.
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I've tried painting in my studio but find I keep falling asleep, only waking when my head hits the painting on the easel. I now dread going to bed at night because as soon as I lay down I start to cough violently which then brings on the chest pain but for a non drinker have discovered a formula that seems to work after having taken the paracetemol or disprin - I suggest to R that I should have a glass of ginger wine whilst sitting up in bed and he adds a tot of whiskey which does have a wonderfully warming effect and seems more soothing on the cough than the Benalin which didn't seem to do anything.
Still nodding off, even when sitting up and the pain continues to persists when I cough, particularly at night. So I've taken to sleeping propped up on several pillows. In the early hours I cough up some blood!
I shower, dress and phone to see if there is a Saturday morning surgery there isn't so am put through to the Primary Care Centre in Gloucester where I describe my symptoms and the woman who is taking the details says a doctor will phone me back but it could take up to two hours as they are very busy. Within ten minutes there's a phone call from a doctor who suspects I have both a viral and a bacterial infection of the lungs but is also concerned in case it could be DVT after travelling to and from London in the car. She thinks one of them should listen to my chest so if I can make my way to the Primary Care centre at Cheltenham General Hospital a GP will see me. It's really crowded and includes quite a few small children and a baby called Rosa who is only 8 months. In less than an hour I'm seem by a doctor who says my breathing is much to rapid for that of an adult and that she can't get a sounding from the lower left lung. she wants me to have an x-ray and says that I might have to wait for half an hour until a bed is available in the Medical Assessment Unit where I will be examined by doctors. It's probably less than an hour when we're given the go ahead to make our way to the MAU. I somehow feel like a fraud as the other patients are all in bed whilst I'm sat on the chair fully clothed. But not for long as a male nurse, Adam, comes along to give me an ECG, blood pressure, pulse and diabetes tests. Then it seems to be dinner time and as I say to Adam when he asks what I'd like " I feel fraudulent taking the dinner" but have to say that as I'd only had fruit for breakfast I do enjoy the mushroom soup, egg mayonnaise sandwich and banana. Shortly after this a young junior doctor from Malaysia comes to ask me more questions and to examine me; he pinches my calves to see if they hurt for DVT , examines me and sounds my chest again. then takes blood to send to the pathe lab. An hour later a lovely porter arrives with a wheelchair to take me down to the x-ray department. I smile and say I can walk and he smiles back and says nobody's allowed to walk from this department. So I sit in the large metal chair and enjoy the ride telling him it's a good experience for me to have as I'm a Patron of the National Star College where most of the students are in wheel chairs. There's just a young boy to go in before me but within 10 minutes the radiographer has taken the x-ray and by the time we get back up to the ward the result must have come through and that of the blood test. A more senior doctor sounds my back then tells me I've got pneumonia. Strange as it sounds I'm relieved to know as hopefully it rules out all the other possible diagnoses. I can either stay in hospital or go home and take the two courses of very strong antibiotics in tandem and lots of rest. I opt for the latter saying I will sleep better there and it will give them another bed and he says "don't worry about the bed!!" So I've now entrusted myself to Richard's care.
How wonderful and efficient this NHS service has been, having gone from the GP in the hospital through all those tests to reach a diagnosis and be given the cure within seven and a half hours.
It's Easter Sunday. Henrietta, Kev, Isaac and Samuel had been going to come for the weekend but I get lots of concerned telephone calls from them and Nathan, who tells me I should eat fats! when I tell him I'm 6 st 12lb which the poor boy hears as 6 st 2lb. My sister phones my Mum from Chicago where she's en route to Montrose for skiing. My poor Mum looks very concerned when she looks in through the window - I won;t let her come in case at 85 she catches one of the two viruses I have. Spend the day drifting in and out of sleep whether I'm lying down or sitting on a chair during which time I remember something that happened yesterday that makes me smile. Whist Richard and I were waiting for the call to go up to the MAU; into the waiting room wandered a young man who sits down in the side row near me in the central column , bent over - he looks up and says "it's amazing". Both R and I think that he must recognise me from somewhere. He tells us he's been listening to some borrowed Beatles albums and sings in a low confidential way as if to us. He tells us that the Beatles lyrics are wonderful and how profound George Harrison's words for 'All you need is love' which he proceeds to sing in the low gentle voice with great sincerity it,s rather moving. He said that someone had asked George Harrison towards the end of his life if he thought that was still true and he had said yes. When R get up to go to Reception as it's now 3 o'clock, he tells me he's a poet and asks if I would like a poem and creates it spontaneously about the Waiting Room. The bed is now available so I thank him for the poem. When we discussed it later, wondering who he was or where he came from, Richard said perhaps he was an angel and I wonder if that is why he was bent over as he sat on the chair - to accommodate the wings we couldn't see?
During the evening I'm reclined in a chair with feet up in front of the wide open window gulping in the fresh air to ease a period of shortness of breath when Rob Whittle rings and speaks to Richard, asking if he could e mail images of a few available paintings for him to forward to one of his clients in Yorkshire.
Rob rings early to tell R they had received them in their new format and have already been sent off. Beautiful flowers arrive from Henrietta, Kev, Isaac and Samuel. A little later more beautiful flowers are delivered from my sister Gill and Howell. Gill rings from Montrose in Canada and is rather perturbed that I have answered the phone telling me that rest is as essential as the antibiotics; I assure her that at 1.30pm I had only just come down stairs in my dressing gown and was sitting at the kitchen table to eat the two boiled eggs and soldiers that Richard had prepared for me. I don't dare to tell her that I had sent him over the road to get me a small painting from the studio to work on sitting at the table in front of the aga where I expend little physical energy (as dear R gets everything for me) but it does keep the brain and creative process active.
Cheque arrives from Brian Sinfield for the little painting Questors which he sold a week or so ago.
Thursday 27.3.08
Friday 28.3.08
Saturday 29.3.08
Sunday 30.3.08
Monday 31.3.08
A sweet e mail from dear Margus (the Estonian Ambassador)saying he was concerned to read in my diary that I had pneumonia; he'd also sent a lovely Easter card; I reply to assure him thatI'm making a steady but gradual recovery
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