On the Bright Side

Bright Side K Howell 2012 Pastel on Paper 14cm x 21cm

Autumn. A Reduction.

• Taught classes. Killed Clutch on the inside lane of a roundabout (fun). Had a level tow (very fun).

• Traveled by train a bit. It doesn't seem to matter where you go by train in the North West, it takes two hours. On the bright side, it's beautiful.

•  Read Martyn Bedford's Acts of Revision, easily one of the best books I've read lately. 

• Considered Values. Avoided the internet. 

•  Came creeping back, because I like seeing other people's work without traveling two hours by train.

There are so many ways of reducing visual information to essentials - I'm looking for ways of simplifying overall shape, giving weight to colour contrast, juxtaposing stillness with areas of energy and retaining the essential light of the moment.

Winter holds promise. It will snow...

Shedding Leaves with Marcus Aurelius

Excuse me, have you dropped something? 

Look beneath the surface: never let a thing's intrinsic quality or worth escape you.

     I have a thing about Marcus Aurelius. I was introduced to his meditations when I was a charming adolescent at the rocky heights of wisdom and humility. Something of his voice must've penetrated my thick skull because I still have his book and he turns up now when I most require his Soundness.
     Men exist for each other, he says. Then either improve them or put up with them. These are fine thoughts to hold on to when things get irritating on public transport.
     Marcus Aurelius understands the Immediate. He appreciates transformation and our tiny role in the greater cycle. Only a little while, he says, and Nature, the universal disposer, will change everything you see, and out of their substance will make fresh things, and yet again others from theirs, to the perpetual renewing of the world's youthfulness.
     The ground beneath our feet is covered with a scattering of gold and copper. Autumn's alchemy. Swirled in the cold breath of approaching winter. Beautiful.
     So it is to Marcus Aurelius that I turn when I see a man out with a turbocharged leaf-blower. What a piece of equipment. The noise! The futility! Why, Marcus? WHY??

Clarity

Limber K Howell 2011 Pastel on Paper 14 cm x 21 cm

  
Mornings have been foggy. Very atmospheric. Quite conducive to contemplating the yogic exercises of trees.
    
I love the rich reduction of autumn. A new clarity in the bare trees. Crisp line and hanging mist. The sharp smell and cold air preparing the way for winter.
   
 Don Paterson, in his Book of Shadows, says:

     The trees in winter, those exact diagrams of all our dead yearnings.

   
It's a terrible thing to be distracted from work by an aphorism.
   

Rupture

Rupture K Howell 2011 Pastel on Paper 14 cm x 21 cm

     Being as it's fireworks season, minor explosions seem to be everywhere. Burning sofas, glittery sparklers and those keep-your-cats-indoors whistling rockets... I thought I'd been ignoring them. But I see that a seasonal theme is inescapable.
     I've been painting this fallen tree quite regularly, it's constantly changing. But today, it was bursting apart in the sun. We've had some spectacular autumn days; and the studio space is getting messy with experiments and work underway. So... flee!
      Today, there were deer. A pair watched me watch the tree. Emboldened by the sunshine and the quiet, they stood about for ages.  I might've been beneath their notice, but their indifferent company was enjoyable.