At the Clare Art Club

Halfway through...Finished

Isolated in art since I started to paint eighteen months ago in the midst of the first lockdown, I thought it time to meet some fellow artists. The nearest group appears to be the Clare Art Club, which meets once per month for a talk followed by tea and biscuits, and tonight, having paid my entrance fee at the door, I am welcomed in as a guest. Some members are fellow septuagenarians, although some are younger, but none is below the age of 50, and all seem keen watercolourists with an interest in pretty pictures, of which tonight's speaker is a keen advocate. He is clearly an accomplished professional artist, who proceeds to show us how it should be done. His blank sheet of paper is taped to a board before which he stands, his palette in hand, waving his magic brushes to conjure up an impeccable image of a Cambridge street scene. Halfway through, we pause for tea and a biscuit before he resumes his brushwork and with a final flourish the last cyclist is in place and the job is done. We have a perfect image to lighten a dark hallway or adorn a greetings card. 

I have been asked why I don't try to do landscapes or everyday scenes such as this. My answer is simple: I do not want to. I will never have the skill for such intricate architectural detail, or even the eye to cropping the photo to make a pleasing composition. The majority of my work has been portraits, mostly from pictures I have taken myself of family members or friends or neighbours with a face that interests me. I love the contours of the human face, the details the shadowing can enhance, and the wonderful sensation of seeing character emerge as I mix paints on the canvas, wet-on-wet. My technique may still have far to go and result in many failures on the way, but I value the challenge and the chance to portray some inner quality of the person I am painting. 

Fighting Still

I am so tired of this life fight.

If I were young,

ready for fresh eyed conflict,

it would be so much easier

than the battle of lines

and walking canes

but life,

is never done

until the final breath is sighed

and the breast is stilled

beneath the ice cold grave.

by Annie Elliott

Yesterday, I had another 'routine' blood test prior to my oncology assessment later today. Again I had to partially strip in the carpark before driving up to the tent and hang my arm from the window for the girl to do her stuff. But it was all very quick and efficient. The results were available online this morning, and continue to show a slow decline in many of the measures, especially haemoglobin (I am quite anaemic) and white cells (leukopenia for the technically minded). Indeed, my leukopenia is now low enough to be classified as a Grade 3 severity on the oncological scale of adverse events, and I have known clinical trials be stopped if any subject reached this threshold. I can only wait to see if they will stop my own treatment, or give it one more go. Hey-ho for the merry-go-round.