Sleeping woman, carved in elm.

A woman sleeping: the shadows cast by the trees brush across her body in rippling waves.  They create pools of darkness that hide her features, then the sunshine flashes out again, bleaching her form.  She sleeps so peacefully, unware of the drama of light that plays across her.  She will always sleep.

water rain stream

 

          Some images of water-related carving on side planks
          and posts...............it's raining again, down from a                                grey sky, onto a greening world, and into the streams
               that gush and gurgle, the water straining in its bed
               and pushing, splashing, rising and falling, jumping                  and sliding
 over stones and muddy edges in its haste
           to arrive at last....where?  At the next hurdle, the next
              blockage,  under another bridge, hitting another
                  bank and each wave jostles the next, creating
                       a momentum of racing energy
                 that is dizzying to watch,
            a restless rush of weaving water waves
        edging and elbowing in streaming
                currents
                   noisy in their enthusiasm
                       to get to where they will
                           get to, but I want to know
                              is
                                   how                                                                                      
                                          do                                                            
                                                                                                          the fish
                                                                                                                 survive?

In a forest 2/4/12

I am in a pine forest.  It is at the top of a hill, and here the trees gather the sighing of every breeze and the sighs of every soul from miles around, and stir them together in their swaying.  I look up, and in the stirring gap between the tops of the trees I see the bright sky.  It is trying to speak, but its sound is drowned by the sound of the branches.  It is a dumb light, that also cannot penetrate the darkness around me, a place of shadows, and beyond the shadows, of night.

A deer appears not far away, pauses and watches me.  As I do not move, it walks on, followed by a second deer, and then a third.  They merge into the shades of tree trunks and tree gaps, making no sound.
There are no baying hounds, there is no terror.  I am not Artemis, watched by another, whom I will have to condemn to death.  There is no pool where I might have bathed.  I am a shadow myself, a watcher, and I am waiting to see what will happen next.
Then I see the swimmers.  There is water after all, cascading silently, and two figures half submerged.   Their hair streams behind them, rippling with the current and the ripples run across their bodies, distorting them below the surface. There is no sound, although I see that they are calling to each other, invigorated by the stream that gushes and runs, flowing out of the darkness and on back into the darkness, barely catching a glimmer from the sky that is dumb, and barely stirred by the wind that waves and sighs so strongly around me.
I wrap my blanket closer around me.  I cannot sleep, and listen to the orchestra of sound from pine branches that stroke the air.

Four Dreams

Dream One
My father died recently.  In the dream, I meet my father coming up the road from the Nursing Home where he died.  He is vexed as he looks in his pocket for his wallet, in order to pay for coffees, (as we are about to go into a cafe) but finds he has no money.  I'm not surprised, as he hasn't handled money for quite a while, and slip him a ten pound note.  Then it's my turn to be vexed.  He has no shoes, and is hoping to collect them from home.  My mother and I had just been discussing how to dispose of his shoes, as of course he has no need of them any more.  How can I now explain this to my father?


Dream Two
My father appears, and we joyfully greet each other, hug and kiss.  He smells good - fresh laundered shirt.  I'm so very, very happy to see him, although I know that he is dead.  He is cheerful, and it's so extremely comforting that he is here.


Dream Three
I'm at a shop, at a desk, trying out new computer equipment.  Behind me is my daughter and my father.  I turn to appologise, as I feel I will be a while getting to grips with the technology.  My daughter is still and silent, seated with her laptop on her knees, its white glow enveloping her in the surrounding darkness.  My father smiles and lowers himself onto a settee, and says that's fine, as he'll be busy too - his way of saying that he'll just take a nap while he waits.


Dream Four
Its late at night, and I'm locking all the doors in my childhood home.  The cellar door won't lock - it leaves the house vulnerable to something that might enter while we sleep, and I'm slightly concerned.  I turn to see my father in the lobby.  How did he get in?   Did he slip up from the cellar?  There's the potential for a scary moment, as I also think that he might have slid in through the walls, but actually I'm not frightened.  We greet each other cheerfully - again the smell of his freshly laundered shirt.  I go before him down the corridor and up the staircase, calling to my sister and mother that my father is here.  They both need time with him too.

Dream Five (February 2013 : many months later)
Papa is in white - a white suit with white bow tie.  It's some event - a wedding?  Other people are dressed up too, but none in white - none so glamorous as my father!  He climbs up onto a chair to see better.  He looks well, not so elderly.
I don't smell his fresh-laundered smell - I think I'm slightly further away from him, more a witness to what he is doing.  I don't remember him acknowledging me - maybe he didn't see me.

The Head Boards

March 14 2012  

The Head Boards, the men boards

Where did this man come from, heavy with sleep as he sprawls across the head board?   He is young, hunky, my female friends will say.  His sex lies softly, asleep too, and his hand falls down the bed post, reaching out in his sleep towards the ground. 

But he didn’t come alone.  At the same time as I drew him, another young man came, asleep also, on the board below him.  Are they together?  Do they know each other?

Do they imagine that they lie on bunks, and will sleep away their time for all time, as they flaunt their male bodies so beautifully and carelessly?       I‘m not sure that they are aware of their situation, arriving so freely into the narrative of my bed.  They are un aware, vulnerable possibly to what might happen to the bed, and will be carried along in its journey whether they like it or not.  Should they fear this?

Will they ever wake?   I will carve them as they are, asleep.  But they might dream, or maybe they will feign sleep, and listen to what is going on around them, amused perhaps, puzzled perhaps.  They will never leave.

14th March 2012

     Today I lie in bed in a fever, sunshine filtering in through a small window.  The shadow of a cat blocks most of the light, a dark cat-shaped shadow, my cat, my black husband's cat, blackness where yesterday there was just blankness.  

     Yesterday , for the whole day, we were held in a white fog that surrounded the house.  We were like a tall ship at sea, with no knowing where we were, no landmarks, until the whooosh of a car and yellow headlights broke the spell for a moment.  The drivers were not doubt caught in the same reverie,  driving in a sea of mist that hid all familiar forms, and they saw our lighted windows as ships might see a lighthouse, guiding them past the danger of a foggy twilight.

     My fever holds time as a physical thing that floats on and on, around my bed, as I grow too hot, incapable of grasping it, and I cling to the bed in its heat and grittiness.  The sun sinks.  The cat has taken its black form to my elbow as I write, and looks into my eyes.

Work in Progress

Work in progress in the studio - posts, with images and forms that link the horizontal pieces.  Above is a swimming figure.  I hadn't planned for water to figure on the bed as it seems so un-bed-like ....but figures swam in all the same.

Two lovers dancing.  These are behind the elm head board, and as yet not fully carved.  

Above, a flying figure.  Again, I hadn't planned to do this, but I supposed as flying figures have been part of my work for a while, this one flew in.  He will be above the foot board, so the first thing to be seen when you wake up from the bed.