A Blackthorn Winter

Spring is finally here, a new tender year well on its way and the Cornish hedgerows are already thick with flowers; primroses cover the banks here still, with large patches of Dog Violets amongst, the Blackthorn is out, (late this year), and the lanes are sweetly scented with drifts of Alexanders.  Last year was strange indeed, much time being taken up looking after my lovely daughter who continues to suffer terribly with ill health.  Work is grabbed in short bursts, days are unpredictable, and our world has shrunk in its geography, but within the tangle of these challenges is a focus on the here-and-now, and an appreciation of the small beauties surrounding us.  In this first blog of the Season I will endeavour to write about my wildflower paintings and where they began: with Blackthorn; the promise of Spring and the Time of the Flowers.

For a long time I have been daydreaming about how I might record the feeling of travelling repeatedly within a familiar landscape, noting the tiny changes that happen daily as we hurtle through the months and seasons.  This began fifteen odd years ago, as I was pushing my infant daughter in her old ‘60s carriage built pram, ‘The Zeppelin’, on our twice daily walks down a pot holed farm track from our home on the Lizard.  Time was measured in watching for the Wood Anemones to come up, looking for Lords & Ladies, or judging when the wild strawberries were ripe enough to pick.  Not so much has changed, though these days I’m pulled along by The Beast, (dog, not child) through the ancient lanes of the Roseland, lined high with Cornish hedges and across on the other coast.    

I imagined that this recording would consist of inky journals, found objects and gathered flowers: pressed, and drawings of familiar terrain folding out like an OS map.  But, I’m also faintly surprised to find myself using Instagram as my dailyish method of capturing; an imagined paper timeline being replaced by an electronic one, and a method of storing phone camera memories of fantastic cloud formations, badger footprints in muddy gateways, or the plants and berries as they come and go.  The idea of a working life being spent entirely outdoors is wonderful, but the current practicalities of caring for my girl have drawn me to studio work and Still Life, (alongside the infamous Cornish mizzle).  I draw in the hedges, bring treasures back, (broken bird eggs, feathers, flowers, sparkling lumps of milky quartz picked up in the mud), but a still life set up is like an calm anchor in the chatter, and I enjoy the quietness of it.  

For me the daily lane walks around where we live are my sanity; change is everywhere and nature does its thing regardless of my thoughts and worries.  Green is always there, even in the depths of Winter: small Penny Bun leaves, tiny Hedge Bedstraw plants, perhaps a rogue pink Campion.  Early signs of Springs awakening in February are seen in snowdrops and even Primroses in the shelter of the valley, but when March brings white blossoms on the dark bare branches of the Blackthorn, the hedges are lit up with their light and hopeful signs of life creep back into the landscape.  Blackthorn has her own Folk memory: The Cailleach and her Blackthorn Staff, and the wind blown confetti petals when St Bride finally arrives – Magic stuff.

This year the blossom is late, out well into April.  I gather branches and tie together in a jug from the Aldermaston Pottery near where I grew up, carefully avoiding the sharp thorns – Blackthorn is floral with a bite!  The set up is arranged on top of a tall cedar wood chest of drawers, made by beloved hands, which sets the perspective high and at sight height.  A stash of background fabric yields a remnant of 1930s cool sky blue silk satin, and two seashells that twist and shine fit either side: three is the magic number.  The act of painting is slow, first the composition is worked out in charcoal stick on an earthy pink burnt sienna ground, then loose underpainting starts mapping out the tones and shadows.  The wood burner is lit to try and keep the cold out, and Radio 4 is often drowned out by the amplified sound of raindrops and hail stones hammering the curved Nissen Hut roof – the last blast of a Blackthorn Winter before the warmer months come.   The sessions often start with a vague plan of attack, making sure that information is collected from the flowers that will fade quickly, but the best painting is done in that in-between place when you are lost in it and your mind is quiet. 

My lovely Mum described Still Life as being a way of contemplating things that might otherwise be unobserved or fleeting, which I love.  By the time this painting is finished it is late May.  In the studio the white flowers are fallen, or dried on the branches, the burner is cold and ash filled, and outside ‘Queen of the Hedge’, the Hawthorn, is out and fading.  The Season’s growth is speeding dizzyingly every day towards Midsummer, Ferns are unfurled, Dog Rose and Honeysuckle are appearing and the Cowparsley is now brightest in the hedge.  The little tree that gave up its flowers is now covered with small hard green Sloes, some of which will be pricked with sugar and Gin in a matter of months, ready for Mid-Winter – and so the cycle continues.  The painting is framed and delivered to The New Gallery, where, hopefully it will convey to someone else some of the pleasure spent, the calm and stillness, and some of the vital energy and hopefulness of Blackthorn.