Purgatorio 1 - The Drunkards Path (2nd Posting)

I've been wrestling with my ideas and trying to turn them into a painting. There is part of me that is purist and want to use only paint, but, because of the patterning in this one together with the textile angle and title, it makes sense to use fabric. I'm enjoying the layers of meaning but am having to fight to make them all sit happily together.

This is white cloth painted with acrylics, and then overprinted with a paragraph from Dante's Purgatorio, which seemed appropriate to me. You can only see snippets as it's now cut up and rotated, and will be further covered with paint. But it's there, hiding!

I confess I had to have several goes at reading it to get the gist. Here's a copy of the verse for you:

It's Canto 4.

When by pleasures or pains which one of our faculties receives the soul concentrates wholly on that, it seems to give heed to no other of its powers, and this is contrary to the error which maintains that one soul is kindled above another in us; and therefore when a thing is heard or seen that keeps the soul strongly bent on it the time passes and one is not aware, for the faculty that listens for it is one and that which holds the entire soul another, this as it were bound, the other free.

In my very humble opinion, it could have done with a few more commas!

The fabric is then backed with bondaweb to stop it fraying and this also enables you to iron it onto the canvas. I then added a layer of acrylic medium to ensure it was stuck and to seal the cloth.

Here's the patterning completed....


I've just begun to overpaint with oils using mostly white with bits of my favourite turquoise and aureolin, together with olive green, silver, black, and prussian blue. I have started to knock back the coloured fabrics, but will have to decide how much further to go with this, when the rest of the painting starts and I can judge the balance of colour.

I have also added some aureolin around the body in an effort to give it a glow. The sides of the background have prussian blue in them.

I always feel I am battling against my own shortcomings, both in inability as a painter, but also against naivety and the trite. But I keep telling myself that I'm not trying to make paintings that sell, or even wow with their technical abilities; I'm just trying to make an honest narrative of my life.

New Piece - Patchwork finds it's way into Purgatory

A year or so ago, I did this painting of a pair of Goths, called United. It's on a piece of cloth which has had the whole appliqued with fabric rectangles, which were then painted over.

I didn't necessarily want to have the same approach for this next piece, but it was in the back of my mind to put textiles into the next few paintings as I may be doing a textiley exhibition in the summer months.

So given that I've been thinking about Purgatory for the last few days, as a more interesting option than Hell, I've decided to do a series of paintings taking a separate theme for each eg hate, despair, loneliness etc.

A couple of days ago I was walking my dog through the woods at the bottom of the road, and it was miserable. It had been raining for most of the day, and there was a decided nip in the air. I took shelter under a tree whilst I waited for the dog to have a sniff around, and after a few minutes, realised that deeper into the woods towards the back, a man was sitting on the ground in a slumped position. He was alive and looking vacantly around him, but was soaked to the skin. He'd obviously been drinking heavily; there was a bottle in one hand and several on the ground. It struck me that quite a few people are in purgatory without dying first.

So here we are. I'm calling this Drunkards Path, in honour of the chap in the woods, and because the patchwork block is called that. The pattern will disintegrate as it makes it's way across the canvas; I'm not sure of the colouring yet but it will probably be in 3 similar shades of pale blue. I want a faint pattern which isn't too obvious. It's only a pencil outline at the moment; the blue splodges are just to remind me of the darks on the pattern. The ground is made up of snakes which are curling around him. He's naked and you can't see his face; I'm hoping the body language will speak for the both of us.

Boxes almost done

Nearly there, just one or two tweaks and changes of colour on the connecting bars, and I'm done with this one. Sadly I can't seem to capture it's colours on the photo very well but I'll see if I can't post a more accurate picture when I'm done. It's 32 inches x 40 inches and is oil on canvas.


I'm having troubles getting DH to pose for me for the next painting. I need a naked man....(add your own jokes here please)..........sitting cross legged with his arms out to the side holding a flaming arrow in one hand and Barbara Cartland's head in the other. Not too much to ask I would have thought, but there you go.

I'm going to keep on painting for a while because it's such a challenge, and I like to battle against the odds! Do you ever look around you at all the wonderful talent out there and want to throw everything in the bin? Courage is what I need; that and a mince pie.

Dipping a toe into purgatory.

I don't drink, don't smoke, don't do drugs, don't wear make up, don't wear jewellery, don't drink caffeine, am not in debt, and try to eat 5 portions of fruit and veg a day, and I have been trying to decide whether I'm too puritanical, so I looked it up in the dictionary. I'm happy to say I'm not, as it means, "having or displaying a very strict or censorious moral attitude towards self indulgence or sex." Each to their own is what I say. As long as they don't make some of the more strange human mating rituals compulsory, I'm fine ta.

Whilst I was in the "pur" section of the dictionary, I had a look at purgatory. (for the Hell painting) As far as I can tell, purgatory (in Catholic doctrine) is a sort of half-way house between Hell and Heaven, where sinners go to confront their sins and make good before ascending to Heaven. The word Purge has the same route and means to rid oneself of something, including memories and feelings.

So if you're not religious, and not puritanical, purgatory is probably just concience. Catholics presumably must have their own purgatory judged against religious doctrine, but I was wondering what governed my concience. Is there an innate goodness in all humans or is it something we are taught? I would never willingly hurt anyone or any creature (I even pull the logs apart to check for woodlice before putting them on the fire!) but I also know there are people who couldn't care less about what they do and who they hurt. Why. It surely can't be as simple as being taught differently?

I'm going to away to consider my sins! I'll start off with the easy one. Hate. All the things I hate and shouldn't. Turtles bums, Snitterfield, Barbara Cartland, to name just three. I shall purge.

Boxes - Aureoline/Pthalo Turquoise

Small progress on the painting... and wallpapering (however, - ta da - curtains are made and up)

It's a bit of a riot isn't it? Hardly the place for your eyes to rest in quiet and meditation, but I'm hoping for harmony of colour and shape by the time it's finished.

I can always give it all a wash in a transparent colour when done if I don't think it's sitting well together.

Still, it's very me.

Book update - 2nd week

I've found that if I put "Book On Love" as a posting title, the stats counter goes beserk; I get an awful lot of through traffic from unusual places!! I imagine they'll all fairly disappointed too when they realize what I'm on about.

Not a lot done, but a couple more pages. Apples. Well, I'm from the west country so of course I love apples. But my family love that I love apples too. It's a standing joke, and they dissolve into fits when I try and discuss the finer points of apple breeding and ciders with them.


Warning: Rant. There are certain things I have a love/hate relationship with; turtles being a good example. I love turtles, I really do, but I get a bit cheesed off that every time there's a nature programme on the TV, we have to have a close up of a turtles bum laying ping pong balls in the sand. If I've seen this image once I've seen it a hundred times. I've started shouting at the telly now and telling it it's stupid. It's the exact same feeling I get when they keep going on about the 1966 World Cup (football for those in less obsessed countries). For Heavens sake it was in 1966 but they keep reminding us and trotting out the line "They think it's all over, well it is now" Apoplectic AAAAARGH.

Anyway, I love gardens and gardening, and so I've put my turtle in a garden to heal the wound. The words say "I love gardens, they make everything right".

Skulls and abstracts in yellow..again!

I have a friend who is a local artist, and asked him the other day if he could help me to draw a skull. Strangely, it's not the sort of thing I have to hand to copy, and I know he's a bit of an expert.

I told him I wanted to sink some skulls into the walls of Hell. He went away for a couple of days and came back with this for me which he'd made using latex and toilet tissue. Brilliant or what?! Exactly the sort of image I was trying to describe to him. He's just started making these for sale, so it was a bit of brilliant timing.


I have decided that one of the reasons for my hesitation with this painting is that there is just too much to put in, and it's crossing the boundaries too much....humour, style of painting, content etc...so what is really needed is a series of paintings.

In the meantime, I thought I'd whip up an abstract in yellow, orange and green/turquoise. Another one of the painted collages; must be about number 5 or 6. This one is quite large - about 30 inches by 40 inches.

At least I've finished something!

I have finished this self portrait now. I had to do more work on it as none of my family seemed to like it...or at any rate thought it wasn't a good likeness. I enjoyed the challenge of doing this but felt slightly odd staring at myself so much!

I'm going off now to start Hell.

Chained Library...update

I now have 8 books that are in the process of being altered (or abused). Half of them now have identical covers, and only 2 of them are completed. These latter 2 are my Bumblies.

When they are complete they will be put together on a stand and chained to it in much the same way as the Chained Libraries you see in some Cathedrals. Here's a link to Hereford Cathedral's chained library.


The first two books are called Bumble 1 and Bumble 2 and have a definition printed on the cover which says:

To Bumble

To Buzz or Hum

To Speak in a Confused
Or Indistinct Way

This not only explains the contents of the books but also explains me a bit! I buzz or hum and often offer half-baked reasons with only half a story.

The whole idea for this began by using an old book as a sketchbook. I quickly found that I enjoyed the process of scribbling over books and that no one was going to tell me off, give me lines, or put me in detention. I decided to let myself go completely and put whatever I wanted in them with no attempt to be anything other than spontaneous....a pictorial brainstorm. If I wanted to put a yellow daisy in wax crayon on a page painted pink then I did with little thought. It's a liberating process and enormous fun. It was not my intention to show these to anyone, as to do so implies judgement of them, and a perhaps desire would then emerge.. to please others.

So my Bumblies are full of free association.

I then decided to do a book for other various definitions. So now I am choosing to work on...

Fear: An unpleasant, often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger.
Word: A meaningful unit of language/a promise/ a short remark, statement or conversation.
Love: As explained yesterday.

There are still 3 more books after this but I have no definite plans for them yet.

I have promised to show them to members of AQL, (Alternative Quilt List, yahoo group) so now I will post about them here from time to time.