APRIL 2024

Monday 1.4.24

We all sit and have a brunch of scrambled egg, gravadlax, avocado and toast before everyone departs. The boys have a three week holiday in which to revise for their exams, during which time I think Henrietta will be working from home a lot. Kev works mostly from home unless he’s presenting as he is tomorrow, a design scheme to an airport in another country. I do a little bit of pulling up weeds and collecting debris from the garden then my exercise routine, before commencing in the studio.

Hear back from Roger at SPG that he has managed to download the images OK. I now have to take the three small paintings out of their frames to paint around the small area of white gessoed wood that is overlapped by the frame’s rebate in case in future the timber shrinks slightly. I also need to paint properly the bottoms tops and sides. that the camera couldn’t see when Richard took the photographs.

E mail from Ellie at Paragon Gallery with a photograph of Walking the Dog as it will be displayed on its special stand in the foyer of the art fair.

Tuesday 2.4.24

Working on all fronts in the studio today. A big interior that I have only recently started (about six weeks ago), the three little paintings for the SPG and one of Paul’s two commissions.

A day of mixed weather, periods of bright sunshine and then rain.

Wednesday 3.4.24

Working in the studio on four different pieces and the lion still leering at  me from the bottom of my studio stairs is growing impatient.

Thursday 4.4.24

Exciting day as Florence e mails to say that the client  who has bought Street Party - the seven ages has settled; they have also been paid for my Returning The Lion To The Library. So my first payment from the Portland Gallery arrives in my account shortly after.

Still finishing off and refining the three little paintings for the SPG.

Interesting tweet by the Art Newspaper saying that the Marlborough Gallery are closing their galleries in London, New York, Barcelona and Madrid supposedly due to disagreements between the families of those who founded it in 1948. Richard remembers a conversation he had with Lionel, one of the two partners who ran the Portal Gallery in Grafton Street many years ago - R had commented that it was interesting that the Marlborough shared the same building at Lloyds Bank and Lionel said he thought it was quite appropriate because he thought they were set up as a way of moving money around the world to avoid the UK’s currency restrictions.

Friday 5.4.24

Working on Paul’s badger painting on the upper areas and have now continued the top third around the side of the frame, adding a whole cow and a cow’s head etc. in the procession.

Saturday 6.4.24

Continue working on Paul’s paintings, particularly on the outside of the frame as I’ve given a top coat of clear matt medium to the small paintings which R will now put brown tape and the hanging wires on.

I spend the evening trying to source a circular frame for one of two commissions from dear Margus and Tiina. I’m able to source bespoke circular canvases on wooden stretchers to the right size but have not been able to find a circular wooden frame that would be substantial enough for the composition and subject they would like. The second of his commissions is a rectangle so does not pose a problem.

Sunday 7.4.24

The lilac outside the bedroom window looks glorious as it’s now fully in bloom. I go out into the garden to admire Richard’s work - yesterday he mowed the lawn for the first time and cleared a lot of the moss and debris both from my studio drive and in front of the summer house in the side garden - that exquisite little summer house he built for me as a birthday present twenty seven years ago. It still feels as substantial as ever. I always enjoy wandering around it with R, admiring things that have survived the long winter and picking up the dead wood etc. I even planted a few seeds yesterday straight into the earth so we will have to see what happens.

Coming downstairs with pots of paint for the Lion who has now stopped leering at me and is now standing proud on our ten foot long kitchen table which Richard had covered with polythene. First I prime the beast with white gesso and whilst this is drying go up to the studio to add white clouds to the top of the frame on Paul’s badger commission. Come back down and start to paint ideas on either side but after an hour or two start work on his head to surprise Richard when he wakes up from his sleep; poor thing, he’s now caught the cold I had for most of the week and is sounding a bit throaty.

Monday 8.4.24

Order new fine sable brushes from Germany as although I bought a lot a year ago I’m now almost out of them. It has of course become somewhat more difficult since Brexit.

Mix up four pots of fresh paint for the Lion, using a yellow for my ground over the white gesso, which gives him more coherence as he’s basically lost his white expanse.

Very nice e mail from Margus saying they think they will go for a rectangular frame.

Tuesday 9.4.24

Order 25 metres of Italian poplar triangular section and 25 metres of a curved section that Sykes Timber will machine specially to my own pattern. I have in the past ordered 100 metres at a time of a particular pattern but this leaves me scope for changing to an alternative section especially as it is also a big investment.

E mail from Roger of the SPG with an invitation that Mandell’s Gallery in Norwich have designed and put together. Very touched as it features my Angel and Tiger in the Sunflowers, especially as I think I am their newest member. It is limited to thirty five members. I’ve now written on the back of the small paintings for this and whilst I am working on the lion Richard is constructing one of bespoke quadruple thickness boxes for sending the pictures.

Nice call from Henrietta. Her cold is much better now and we wonder if Nathan had also caught it over the Easter

Wednesday 10.4.24

As my cold seems to have made a resurgence we write to Clare the head of Alderman Knight special school, to ask if we can set up our meeting at a new date. I’m presenting them with my horse sculpture Midnight to accompany the one they already have - Pantomime Horse. So we are going to discuss Midnight’s installation ad I’m going to inspect Pantomime since he probably needs some touching up having been there for twelve years.

Richard takes the box with three small paintings to post Special Delivery to John Paul who is arranging  an art courier to deliver and collect the works to Mandell’s.

Thursday 11.4.24

E mail from Carrie at the hospitals trust saying she will send the Urban Hygiene varnish for the lion directly to me and also attaching an invitation to the launch in May.

Do some work on the bottom of Paul’s badger commission frame and then return to the large Interior. I’ve now eradicated the first figure that I painted in several weeks ago so also need to mix up fresh pots of paint for this.

Friday 12.4.24

Mix another new pot of paint for the Interior which continue to work on, adding a new figure to the table but also looking at the two small works for Ellie to show at the art fair in a couple of weeks time.

Very nice e mail from Thomas who worked for the Met for several years before moving onto the David Zwirner gallery and has now opened a gallery of his own in Brooklyn.

Saturday 13.4.24

Reply from Thomas vanDyke who suggests they could meet us in Oxford on Tuesday at noon but sadly I have to decline as R has an appointment with his consultant early that afternoon. I then suggest he could see four of the paintings at the Portland. They can’t meet on my alternatives of Thursday or Friday as they leave London on Wednesday for the Venice Biennale but he suggests we might be able to arrange to meet up when they come back to do the north of England.

Richard has already cut the grass in my studio across the Lane when I come down. I go over to admire it and start pulling ivy from the little central pedestal in the front garden which leads us on to doing more cutting back and I manage to reclaim a little Cotswold stone wall that Eddie had built about twenty four years ago. The ivy had taken a liking to that too. Richard manages to find some very prickly brambles that have entwined themselves amongst shrubs and lilac; he then has another go at his topiary. We must have been out there for two or three hours and it’s so nice not to have a big coat on.

E mail from dear HE Dr Margus re the commission

Then return to the studio to continue with the Interior.

Sunday 14.4.24

Another spell working in the garden in the sunshine, though its not quite as warm, before returning to the studio and working on the two tiny paintings  that Ellie at the Paragon Gallery will be showing amongst the seven works of mine that will be on exhibition there. Although she picked them both out, she wouldn’t have noticed that the sides top and bottom the frame were not fully painted.

Henrietta ‘phones in the evening and as always, lovely to catch up with what she, Kev and the boys have been and are doing

Do another stint on the large interior in the evening

Monday 15.4.24

Today is sadly the day of Hilary, Ian’s sister’s funeral. He has been organising so I send a note to let him know they are all in our thoughts and prayers.

Also send a note to Florence at the Portland to ask if she could show Thomas van Dyke of the vanDyke Gallery NYC, my four works tomorrow when he and Ivy are going to call in.

Have another bash at trying to finish off the two tiny works. Manage to get them nearly there

Tuesday 16.4.24

We’re waiting  with baited breath for Richard’s consultant to ‘phone in the afternoon as they will have analysed R’s blood which was taken last week. It is so good to hear that the results show everything is “all fine” and he reiterates the findings on the scan that the radiotherapy treatment he underwent late September, early October had been successful in totally eradicating the lymphoma tumour that had wrapped itself around his right lung. So we continue to be jubilant and so very grateful to his doctors and the NHS.

This followed shortly afterwards by an e mail from Florence saying that the Americans Thomas VanDyke and his partner Ivy have been into the gallery where she chatted to them and showed them the four works I had there. They were apparently intrigued by the three dimensional qualities of the pieces. They obviously discussed their new gallery with her and she thought she could see my work fitting in well there.

Wednesday 17.4.24

David Elder arrives at 2, a very affable and interesting man. He gets several of his books out of his rucksack and presents me with one in which he had reproduced five of my paintings “Literary Cheltenham”. I had forgotten that he’d written to me about twelve years ago. He’s become quite a specialised writer on the region having also written books on Cirencester, Gloucester and Tewkesbury plus plays and anthologies. He is here to interview me for a book he’s been commissioned to write called Extraordinary Cotswold Women.

Thursday 18.4.24

I’m now back working on the Tango Dancers and two of the other small works that are going to the Art Fair - seven in all. Richard’s going to put more brass plates on the back of Walking the Dog for its debut in  the foyer.

There’s now a Sold sign on my little interior The Family in the SPG exhibition at Mandall’s Gallery in Norwich, bought by my lovely Australian collector Paul. He’d like it to come back here at the end of the exhibition so that it can be shipped with the two large commissions I’m working on for him and the little painting of Shakespeare’s Bottom that he bought towards the end of last year.

Friday 19.4.24

Continuing with the Tango painting that Richard has now unscrewed from its frame so that I can paint the white gessoed canvas that was hiding behind the frame’s rebate.

Saturday 20.4.23

The SPG exhibition opens today in Norwich. Unfortunately we weren’t able to go as I have to finish the edges of the paintings for Ellie to collect for the Fresh Art Fair on Monday and then go straight back onto the hospital charity 3D lion.

When I go over to the studio I spend some time in the garden where the cherry and apple trees are all in blossom and look exquisite in the bright sunshine, almost luminous. And each morning when I enjoy looking out of the bedroom window at the lilac I see a myriad little insects busily to-ing and fro-ing, many of which will be different varieties of bee collecting pollen to the plaintive trill of the robin.

In the studio busy painting round the edges of the large canvas today whilst Richard has been bending more brass plates to fix it back into the frame.

Sunday 21.4.23

A day of to-ing and fro-ing working both here in my upstairs studio on two tiny paintings and It takes two to Tango as Ellie is going to come and collect them tomorrow for the art fair. Plus four from my ground floor studio across the Lane where I’m doing a bit more to the very big Walking the Dog painting, particularly on the top of the frame. In fact I’m working over there when Henrietta rings and find that there is one particular spot that is good for reception whereas when I move across the room I sometimes go out of range. It actually takes much longer than I had anticipated so I end up working through the night…

Monday 22.4.24

…just after I turn the light out at 9am, Richard tells me we’ve just heard back from David Elder who says that when he comes again next month he’s hoping to have written a draft of the text that we can go through and that he would like to use Doubla as one of the images on the cover of the book (Extraordinary Cotswold Women) if the publishers agree. So I’m very pleased that Wallace has agreed to loan the painting back  for me to be photographed with.

Richard sees Ellie when she comes so that I can sleep until just after 3. I receive a ‘phone call from Ben of Sykes Timber who tells me they have cut the fifty metres of two different profiles of Italian poplar . He’s very nice and says how much they enjoy cutting them for me and that he has seen images of the paintings and how imaginative my use of the timber is. This is particularly nice as I know they also prepare wood for musical instrument making. It is a family firm and they have been in business since the mid 1800s. All the wood is dried naturally in the traditional stacking to let air circulate around the timber whilst still keeping it straight.

In the evening start the tiny commission for Tom.

Tuesday 23.4.24

Ellie comes promptly at 2 in a large van she has hired, especially for collecting Walking the Dog. Richard’s wrapped it and they carry it between them to the van which it enters at an angle. Just before she comes. ‘phone call from Ian (of Ian and Maeve) who are checking that we will be there on Thursday evening - they are going to arrive about 6.30. Interestingly he mentions the Lion that I told him about last time we met. He also asks if I know that the Star College now has its i-walker? They had made a generous donation to it and it is a most fantastic piece of physiotherapy equipment that increases not only the agility of students but also strengthens heart, lungs etc. They are such a kind and compassionate couple

Am now free to resume work on the charity lion. Make quite a lot of progress. It is quite difficult to work out what will  make a pleasing composition.

Wednesday 24.4.24

As I’m getting ready to go down to the dentist an e mail pings up from Ellie with a photo of the stand that has been especially made for showing Walking the Dog. It has a small raised platform to the front that presumably the actors will stand on when painted as part of the painting at the weekend, turning it into what Ellie has called ‘living art’. It is very imaginative to have come up with the scheme. I e mail back to her - ‘ the stand looks fantastic’.

After the dentist we come back home for an hour before I go down for my Covid jab. Shortly before we leave the ‘phone rings asking if the team who are hanging Talking Heads can put two battens across the back as it is very heavy to be supported by the temporary wall, which I OK.

Back on Mr Lion whom I’m still struggling with.

Thursday 25.4.24

‘Phone call from Jane who doesn’t seem to have received my last e mail or invitation to the art fair, then discovers it in the spam. Sounds very intrigued by the ‘Living Art’ company who are naked apart from their vitals  and going to be painted to echo my large painting Walking the Dog and then move/dance in front of it. So she says she might come along on Saturday or Sunday afternoon.

Then whilst I’m getting ready to go to the pv Nathan rings for a chat. He’s on the way to a concert. He says how pleased he is that Richard’s last two appointments with his consultant have been so good. He’s working on a job that will have to go to Prague for in about a month and contemplating doing a film in Germany.

Then we’re off to the pv. It’s already crowded there by 6.30 and the staging that has been built for m painting Walking the Dog looks amazing. Ellie sends for the photographer who is one we have known for years and he takes a series of photographs of me, me with Ellie, me with Richard, then with the architects who are partners in this venture then another with Emma who is the regional director for Bonhams the auctioneers and interestingly mentions that they are auctioning the paintings that are going to raise money for the Royal West of England Academy in the Summer. They are foregoing their commission so that the RWA gains that. So far I said I knew they had a pledge from the Bert Irvin  estate and John Hoyland’s estate, also Elizabeth Blackadder and Eileen Cooper etc. She wonders if I have an idea of a good reserve price to put on my newspaper painting.

Also when I arrive Ellie tells me that my Little Angel & Tiger painting was the first one to go, before the fair opened and sold to another artist. So I assume it might be one I know but later in the evening on the Paragon stand they told me that the purchaser wanted to meet me and was coming to do just that. But her husband Rory arrives first. A very affable man who tells me they have a connection with my daughter to which I am surprised. He says they owned the house in Wandsworth that she and three of her fellow students shared. I am surprised and hope they didn’t leave it too much of a state remembering that it was beautifully decorated and furnished and felt too good for student accommodation. His wife Sara then appears, a lovely woman who is a sculptor getting a first at Bath and a Henry Moore scholarship and just has just received the first payment for a pubic commission she is creating for Worcester. She says she kept the postcards I used to send with cheques for Henrietta’s rent and always loved the images and has kept them all this time. I’m so very touched.

Wallace comes back for supper with us although Martin declines and Sue & Andy have to get back to walk her Mum’s dog. Wallace has kindly brought Doubla, my self portrait, so that David Elder can photograph me with it for his book Extraordinary Cotswold Women. We sit and chat over Richard’s fish pie and fresh pineapple fruit salad until well after 1am.

Friday 26.4.24

We go back to the art fair and one of the first people I bump into again is Maureen; she and her friend have been to one of the watercolour painting workshops. I also met her here last night with her daughter in law Melissa. Also meet Anne Strathie on our way to see Arabella Kiszley who is looking wonderful vibrant in a turquoise loose top with white spotted trousers. She’s sitting underneath and just to one side of one of her abstract paintings which is a similar blue turquoise, a seascape with some beautiful slashes of orange. Arabella’s aways fun to be with, she has such an effervescent personality; we first met when she was president of Cheltenham Open Studios when Niki Whitfield asked if I would become their Patron. She tells me that one of her friends has bought one of my paintings and it is Sara Ingleby-Mackenzie who she knew as her husband Rory was in the Scots Guards with her husband John. When I tell her the story of them being Henrietta’s landlords she tells us a story of when they were moving out of their accommodation in Germany and left Sara in charge of the children.

Saturday 27.4.24

When we arrive at the Fair I’m amazed to see how beautifully painted the two dancers, Renako and Sara are and how beautifully Pixie and Sarah are painting them with their multiple shallow containers of body paint colour they work swiftly and with great concentration. They far surpass my expectations and are hugely professional (both having won awards). They have mimicked my brushstrokes, colours, textures and character remarkably well. The body paints have to be of the right constituency to allow the skin to breathe as that is what it is painted directly onto. The illusion of them wearing the clothing I have created is quite stunning. Sarah painting Renako the dancer and Pixie painting Sara. But the magic really begins after they have completed their transformations. Jane Colston who runs the company Beyond Repair Entertainment tells the dancers to slowly move and then turn around. The movements, which must be intuitive seem to be so well synchronised, the movements a sublime slow motion are exquisite and I am delighted that Ellie’s plan has worked out so very well. They do this slow mesmerising dance for some time before leaving the little stage in front of the painting and slowly make their way through the Fair up to the Paragon stand where they again pose in front of my paintings - the whole thing is totally magical especially when Jane the Director of Beyond Repair Entertainment tells them to undulate in front of my Corrugated painting Talking Heads.

Richard and I linger on the stand to talk to the girls who are manning it for Ellie when ‘Becca introduces me to a young woman who is contemplating my little painting The Open Door. She teaches art at Cheltenham College Junior School and says they have a catalogue that belonged to the previous head of art there of my 2006 exhibition A Day at the Races at Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum and each year during the Cheltenham Gold Cup Festival they get it out to inspire the children to paint A Day at the Races. I’m so touched and say I would be happy to give a talk to the pupils and she looks amazed. She goes to have a coffee to consider if she should buy this painting she can’t really afford. It’s not until later that evening that I get an e mail from Ellie telling me that she had gone back to the stand and bought it that I am touched to learn she has .

Sunday 28.4.24

We’re back into the fair and intrigued to see that the two body artists have changed sides so today Sarah is painting Renako and Pixie is painting the dancer Sara so t’s interesting to see that they each have a slightly different take on their new figure and how to interpret my brushstrokes.

Meet Anne Strathie again who we had seen at the opening but she came back because I had told her about the body artists artists and dancers bringing my painting to life; which will also have been very pleasing for an artist who works in felt, who had created an ice-scape piece which particularly appeals to Anne as she has written books on Antarctic explorers especially Herbert Ponting the photographer etc. An interesting incident as I am taking photographs of the two dancers making their way elegantly through the huge exhibition hall and a young woman steps out to asks if she can take a photograph of them. As they move on they turn and say “that is the artist” pointing to me. And she asks if I’m PJ Crook and  tells me she is head of art at Cheltenham College. So I tell her I’ve met her collegue who teaches art at the junior school. I also tell her that my son Nathan was an art scholar at College and when she asks what he went on to do I was able to say that he did eventually study art, getting a first in Bristol and then going to the Slade and that after becoming an art director he got the MTV award for Adele’s Rolling in the Deep video and more recently the British Independent Film Award for his production design on The Kitchen. She then requests a selfie in front of Walking the Dog.

As we’re leaving we see the amazing Tracy Spiers who has just achieved her PhD in ‘playfulness in art’. She is the most brilliant person who writes wonderful articles on different places in Gloucestershire for Cotswold Life whilst also studying illustration. I had the great honour of presenting her with her Masters degree at the University a few years ago which was on its own an achievement as she has five beautiful daughters including seventeen year old twins currently doing their A levels one of whom has helped her today doing the exciting Dr Fun workshops for children.  Yesterday her older sister who is studying illustration in Birmingham, who was equally delightful was helping Tracy with her creative workshop too. Their older sister has just flown to Nepal. Tracy has been named by others as Dr Dynamo.

Then it’s back home to work on the Lion

Monday 29.4.24

Spend the time working on the three dimensional lion who is standing proudly on the kitchen table surrounded by pots of paint mixed especially for him.

Lovely ‘phone call from Henrietta. Isaac had his first day of Photography A level paper which she had been helping him work on over the weekend whilst Kev and his brother in law Nick took Kev’s Dad John on a walking weekend to celebrate his birthday.

Tuesday 30.4.24

Today we have Lou the new CEO of Linc coming for lunch. She arrives with a beautiful bunch of red tulips. Luckily Richard has put out cheese as well as the gravadlax, new potatoes and pomegranate salad, as she doesn’t eat fish - it was very remiss of me not to have asked her in advance. She’s a good conversationalist so we cover a lot of ground combining personal history with the future events and ambitions for Linc and the work they do with their patients. Linc achieves some wonderful help for people who are diagnosed with blood cancers; one young woman who had Leaukameia  recently recieved help with funding childcare whilst she is having treatment which can mean solitary confinement for six weeks; or funding a dog walker for another patient. These things which can sound relatively small but are hugely important to lift the worry from patients whilst in hospital. They also fund clinical psychologists to work with the patients and in many other ways to equip the hospital or out patients units.

We chatter on ’til 3.45 when Lou leaves - she has two young sons who I presume her husband (who also works for a charity)will collect from school.

We then drive over to Tewkesbury to the Alderman Knight special school to see Claire the headteacher. Whilst we are waiting for her in the reception area we look at the very moving memory corner dedicated to one of their young pupils who very sadly died after she had a heart attack in school and was taken by air ambulance to Bristol Children’s Hospital where she died a week later. The secretary was telling us how heartbroken the school is to lose one of their much loved pupils at such a young age. Although she did have a health condition, this wasn’t expected that her life could be curtailed so tragically early.

When we are looking at Pantomime Horse with Claire quarter of an hour later, I suggest that when I repaint him in the summer holidays that I could write the little girl’s name in gold paint. Claire tells me that she loved horses and that they are going to buy a bench in memory of her with moneys raised and are going to replace the three curved wooden benches around Pantomime who has become rather weathered on his back etc.

We then go and look at the lawn on the other side of her office, in front of the school, where Midnight the new horse that I’m presenting them with, will live. It looks like the perfect position to me as from this vantage point you can see through the window into Claire’s office and out through another window to the courtyard where Pantomime stands.

It’s so good to see Claire as we haven’t seen her for a few years; lockdown curtailed our visits. When the school was rather smaller (it now has a sixth form) we often invited to join them for their Christmas lunch.

Then it’s back home to continue work on the lion. Can’t believe we are at the end of the month already.