A New Angle on Things

Hubby likes to have lots of projects to keep him busy.
Ever happy to oblige I have been known to suggest a few things
to keep his programe ticking over.

With the extemely cold weather he's moved the area of operations
from our cold garage, where he is re-building our patio table,
into the house.

This doesn't mean he's brought the bare bones of the table,
timber, clamps, saw, sawdust, etc. indoors.
I,m not completely nuts (yet)!

No, it's not his carpentry skills he's imported inside,
but his decorating ones.

Yesterday it was the kitchen and bathroom ceilings
that became that wonderful
brilliant white
beloved of emulsion manufacturers.

Today he was preparing to put two coats of emulsion
on the bathroom walls, so everything was moved out.

The ink on paper picture I did years ago
that you see above,
usually lives on the bathroom wall, thus.

The three birds,
and little bucket of roses
my mother bought me when we were
on holiday together years ago live
on a shelf opposite,
like this.

Plonking them on the bed
while clearing out the bathroom,
they suddenly became a whole new composition for me.




It's given me a raft of ideas for future painting, after I finish the
Autumn Abstractions
I'm working on at present.

Isn't it remarkable how
looking at things a new way can inspire us.

We know that Kandinsky was transported by coming across one of his works unexpectedly upside down.

Suddenly he saw how a painting could be read in an entirely new way.

Similarly a modern painter whose name I can't remember
tells how seeing his living room from outside,
when only able to see the tops of furniture,
and the wonderful shapes, colours, and spaces,
opened up new horizons for his work.

Many of us, like me,
regularly turn work upside down to check colour,
compositional, and tonal values.

It makes perfect sense to me that if our pictorial senses
can be revitalised by simply
exploring a different viewpoint
from the one we usually employ,
then we can only benefit from trying
to see as others see
once in a while.


Lord, You know I can get awfully fixed in my own rut,
only seeing things from my point of view.
Always wanting things to go the way I think is right and good;
wanting them my way in fact.

Take away my fear of letting go of this narrow,
(not to say fixed),
way of seeing.

I give you permission to unsettle me
by turning things on their head once in a while
if I can't be budged out of my comfort zone
any other way.

Surely to understand more, is to forgive more.
Even to love more.
Ah! Is that what I've been afraid of all this time!