A Turn For Grace
I read a headline many years ago titled ‘A stage for the performance of heaven’. The article* discussed how the Calder Valley had been poet Ted Hughes ‘tuning fork’. I loved the notion of inspiration as a wide open plain. It seemed boundless, yet active.
I have the article pinned above my desk – it feels like a talisman, a reminder to stay in my lane, plough on and stretch out into infinite possibilities.
It seems the sea is both my ‘stage’ and ‘tuning fork’. it is the place I draw inspiration and it is a deep well. Making this painting was long and challenging. Made in fifty-plus layers of heavy oils, it was my largest sea painting to date, and the process, while (comma) often filled with joy, was at times tumultuous.
Hughes referred to Scout Rock (the view from his childhood home) as ‘”my spiritual midwife at the time, and my godfather ever since”. It is the perfect summation of my relations with the sea – a place of possibility and renewal. I am guided by it. This painting being a case in point. When the going got tough, a little too challenging, a gap seemed to appear in a wave and guide me on to grace.
Oil On Canvas:
152cm x 152cm
In Slip Frame Ready To Hang