Heart Sung

Here in the hills of Scotland, for the first time in what seems like too many years I feel as though I am my right size. Just as Alice struggled to find her right size in Wonderland, I've found too that living too close to cities and buildings, advertisements and supermarkets that the human forms grow too large and uncomfortable. In that world, the human noises are loud and authoritative – booming voices and opinions pushing and shoving one another like passengers crowding to get on a train. A train that will leave any second and whose doors will close without any regard for you or your companions. And if you are one of the quiet ones it is all too easy to be shoved and bumped and bruised in all the commotions. 

But here, here nature is the biggest thing by far, her silence is the loudest thing I hear,  her weather advertises and chooses my wardrobe, her scenery is my television and I am small again – just the right size.

So now that I fit into my studio again, the paintings have begun. I'd forgotten how much I love the smell of paper and paint and the sound of a paint brush being swizzled in water as I'm drawn to a change of colour.

This one began it's story a while ago but has now finally found its way to completion.

It is a picture of a gentle melody,  a song for Nature the illusionist. Never revealing her secrets of how the acts are performed she is forever changing the scene before our eyes.  A beguiling mixture of composer, conductor and magician – the cast of plants, birds and animals keep her rhythm as she sings and performs her repertoire of always familiar but never the same spectacular show.

A gentle heart-song

an evensong for all

who will sleep

beneath Winters blanket

A soulful calling

of Northfilled winds

laying silent snow

and hiding small snug

creatures and

their warm lullabies

beneath