An Act Of Love

I watched my beloved elderly Aunt talking yesterday, and the way the light fell through the window onto her face.  At 85, she finds recovering from her ill  health more and more difficult; her time is precious but she is still strong willed and beautiful.  I saw how tiny she had become, and I saw the way her brown eyes looked large in a face that had always been beautiful but was now ethereal, painfully thin and utterly exquisite .  If I could paint you, I thought to myself, how would I do it?  If I had you in front of me, as you are now, and my paints, how would I see you?

 She moved her tiny hands with grace as she talked softly and slowly.  Her hair, smooth and soft, shone in the sunshine that lit her pearl necklace and earrings . When I was about 10 years old, watching my Aunt apply her make up as she sat on the floor in front of her mirror on the coffee table, made me long to do that too for the rest of my life.  I wanted to paint my eyes with brown eyeliner and put on green eyeshadow.  I wanted to wear a pretty under-slip and sit cross legged on the floor in the morning and put heated rollers in my hair, wearing pink lipstick.  I wanted to do everything she did and be as breathtakingly beautiful as this wonderful Aunt. 

  Oh how I love this brilliant, talented, funny, lady. How her grandson and all of her many nephews and nieces do.  As I watched her skin catching the sunlight, as I saw how deep her eyes had become, and as I admired the softness of her now white hair, I realised that every brush stroke I applied to a painting of her, would be an act of love.  An act of love to capture the pleasure her beauty has always given me, to capture the wit and fun of her nature, to capture the wonder that is her.

When I paint someone for A Graceful Death, there too each brush stroke is an act of love.  Though I do not know my sitters as I know my Aunt, the love and respect I feel for each person who contributes to the exhibition is the same.  Watching my Aunt yesterday, gazing at her face and tiny form, I longed to do her justice. That, I think, is how I feel about all  my paintings for A Graceful Death. I long to do justice to the life and the power of the person I am painting. I am in awe of the power of life, in awe of the mystery and extreme power of death, and am deeply touched by the journey that my sitters are undertaking. When I paint Stuart who is alive, and his wife Sue who is not, for the November A Graceful Death in Birmingham, I will want to honour not only Stuart who is living and making his future painfully day by day, but also Sue who by ending her own life has taken a most powerful and traumatic step and cannot and must not ever be forgotten.  I will want to honour them together and apart, as I want to honour the journey of Nushi who I have just painted.  Nushi has undergone cancer treatment and is changed in a way that is not only powerful, but deeply meaningful for the rest of her life.  In fact, looking at the painting of Nushi (which has appeared in an earlier blog called Cancer Chic), it is not quite ready.  There is more to do to it, and I know what I will do.  More on that when it is done.

If I was to paint my Aunt, I would paint my love of her and my gratitude for all that she is and was and means to me.  I would attempt to capture her soul before it slipped away.  Perhaps any painting for A Graceful Death is about capturing the soul before it is gone.  Perhaps each painting I do is about glimpsing the soul before it moves on to wherever it goes next, about honouring the extraordinary now-ness of life before it becomes death, and painting the vulnerablitly and awe of the human condition.

I will not paint my Aunt for this exhibition.  She would not like it and I would not ask.  But I may paint her anyway, just because she is so important and I would regret it forever if I did not. I will keep the painting with me for private viewing as a tribute to the love we have for one, single, private, funny, utterly beautiful lady, our Aunt.

.A Graceful Death is an exhibition that speaks of the power of dying.  It speaks of the power of life.  It changes and develops and follows a path that is about love and mystery and survival and death and always back to love again. And alongside the paintings are words, words from those who are being painted, words from those who are taking part and words from those who just want to be heard.  I sat with my Aunt yesterday, as frail and tiny as a whisp of mist, and it is interesting that it is not my Aunt that wants to be heard today, it is me.

Cancer Chic

Finally, the painting of Nushi Khan Levy is done.  I have Nushi's agreement to show it so now we can all say Wow Nushi, so this is Cancer Chic! You do it so well.

Nushi is full of colour and life.  She is also fragile and changing her life.  This painting, along with some text from our interview with her is now ready for the next exhibition in Birmingham in November 2011.  The venue for that will be St Martin in the Bullring, and the Opening Party is probably going to be Thursday November 3 in the evening.  I will confirm everything when I have all the details.  It will be very soon, I have a list stretching the entire length of the studio of things to do, people to phone, arrangements to be made.  I shall love showing Nushi there.  I also hope to have Stuart and Sue Pryde finished for November.  If you remember, Stuart came to stay from Scotland in order for Eileen and me to work with him on a work that remembers his wife Sue, who killed herself three years ago in August.  It feels very important to have Stuart and Sue ready to exhibit with Nushi.

Two important developments for A Graceful Death -

1.  Eileen Rafferty (www.eileenrafferty.blogspot.com) is now officially a joint exhibitor.  Eileen has been with the exhibition from day one, and does so much for it.  Her photographic work is invaluable for AGD and recently she has been adding sound and moving image to her portfolio.  She will be contributing her own work photographically, with sound, and with the moving image to work alongside the paintings.  I am so relieved.  Eileen is such a good artist!

2.  AGD is going to show in St James's in Piccadilly next year, 2012.  I am so excited about this.  It has been suggested that the exhibition starts on Passion Sunday and runs through to Easter Day.  The symbolism is profound.  The most painful and important part of the Christian calender is the time leading up to Easter.  It is a time to remember how Christ died and why, and is full of reflection on the end of life.  Christ's passion, as it is called, is the story of his death by crucifixion, including the despair of the days leading up to his arrest and his knowledge of all that he had to endure.  During this time of Lent, we remember our mortality and the hope of life after death which is symbolised with the Resurrection of Christ on Easter Day.  It is fitting that the exhibition will be taken down on Easter Day.  I am honoured that St James's in Piccadilly is allowing A Graceful Death to show at this incredibly sensitive and important time for Christians.  Thank you to Lucy Winkett, the Rector, and the Church council that have agreed to go ahead with it.

I am starting work on Stuart and Sue Pryde by the end of this month, and will post the paintings on here, subject to Stuart's approval, when I have done them.  So now, I had better tackle that list that seems to be growing in front of my eyes, and get, as they say, the show on the road.

AGD and Suicide

This last week Eileen Rafferty, the Photographer www.photosynthesis.blogspot.com came to stay so that we could work together on the A Graceful Death projects, paintings and interviews.  It was always going to be a strong week, it was always going to be hard work as we did not have an easy subject to explore.

Stuart Pryde came to stay from Scotland so that we could work with him on how to represent his wife's suicide for A Graceful Death.  Stuart took a hell of a risk.  This was a long journey to take, it was not a subject that is easy to talk about, and Stuart is a private and gentle man, who does not, I think, tell people his life story unless he knows them very well.  Eileen and Stuart were friends at University in Aberdeen, and though I was at the same University, I was far too arty and badly behaved to know Stuart.  I did however, know Eileen. (Who was not badly behaved).

Stuart spent Tuesday until Thursday with us here in Bognor and gave us his story.  I have no experience of suicide, I don't know what it is about.  Stuart lost the love of his life three years ago last August and is still struggling to find a way through his loss.  His wife Sue was, by all accounts unforgettable.  A powerful force for good, a deeply intelligent and troubled person, with a history of dreadful personal pain and possibly, deep deep depression by the end.  What makes Sue's suicide so extraordinary is that she wrote everything that she felt, did and wanted to do in an account that is lucid and touching in a way that I cannot describe.  She loved Stuart, that is obvious throughout her accounts.  But she hated herself.  She planned her suicide with meticulous and tender detail right down to the care she took to make her dying gentle and loving.  Stuart is living with this bereavement. He is living with the what ifs, the maybe if I had done something, the I didn't know.  Stuart talked from his heart with dignity and pain, and love and sadness, and hopelessness and darkness and always back to love again.

I have a painting of Sue and Stuart to do, I have text to use as part of the painting.  Eileen filmed and photographed our sessions in the studio and on Thursday morning Neill filmed a powerful and forthright interview of Stuart talking about where he is now in his thoughts and mind.  

On the Thursday evening after we had said goodbye to Stuart as he travelled back up North,  Sarah Crawcour came to do a session in the studio. Sarah has had cancer three years ago. A year before she was diagnosed with breast cancer, her partner died. Sarah's account of her illness following the loss of her partner is something that I want to use for AGD.  Two very important points that Sarah makes are that she objected passionately to the pinkification of breast cancer, with the pink ribbons and pink folders for her papers and the relentless upbeatness of the people around her.  Sarah is all for positive thinking, but felt that she wanted to scream and shout and say that her cancer is not pretty, not pink, nor easy to deal with.  This is her thinking, she knows the pinkness works for many women.  And the second thing is that when she got the call to say that her partner was fading fast, she absolutley did not want to go to his bedside.  That she would never have got there in time is not relevant, I am really taken with Sarah's instinctive conviction that she simply would not go and see him die.  

What Sarah offers I feel, is another side of the experience of being bereaved.  Not everyone wants to go to the death bed.  Not everyone can do it.  And Sarah offers a very good and powerful account of why she didn't want to be soothed by the pinkness, she calls it, of breast cancer treatment and awareness.

The painting I want to do of Sarah is going to be different, I think.  It may be black and white.  Sarah suits the strength of black and white.  We did not film Sarah, but Eileen did photograph her and we did a very good interview.

So now.  Off to work.  I have much to do, and a possible visit next week to Sheffield to visit the University  in order to show the A Graceful Death exhibition at some point.  It would have to be in 2012 as this year is moving on so fast, and Birmingham is coming up where the exhibition will be showing for the whole month of November in St Martin in the Bullring.

So now, a big thank you this week to 

Eileen

Stuart

Sarah 

and to Neill for filming on Thursday.

Thank you.

Reflections and Distance. AGD Moves On.

This blog has been quiet these past few months.  The last exhibition was in Manchester, the last big thing was the making of the film.  I had work to do, and paintings to paint, and exhibitions to organise.  I became exhausted and I think you will all say And?  We could have told you that would happen.  I did become exhausted and had to put this exhibition down for a while.  When you are so very deeply involved with making paintings, writing writings and showing shows, you can become lost in it and I became lost.  And so, I put it all down and closed the door.  I put all the paintings in bubble wrap, turned them to the wall, avoided this blog and tried not to panic.  If I am not doing the AGD, I said to anyone who would listen, it will not exist.  Patience, they all replied.  It is time to rest.  You are not being sensible.  It won't go away, it will wait for you to gather your strength and your senses, and it is time to stop.

If it is possible to feel grief for an exhibition, I believe I felt it.  This whole thing, the A Graceful Death started at a time of terrible loss and sadness.  I think I put all of my feelings into the paintings, into the production of each exhibition, and each time, I felt I had made a difference.  Each time I thought Yes.  This works because we all share the same story and we all share the same experiences.  Dying happens to us all and somehow I can paint it.  I want to paint it.  I want to paint the end of life, what it looks like, what it feels like for us to watch and most of all to paint a person at the edge of death who is still here.  Look!  I am still here! I am alive and I look like this and I am still here!  Putting the exhibition down and leaving it alone has made me anxious, afraid, lonely and worried that I can't do it any more.  I have done the right thing though.  I have come back to it with a calmer, fresher mind and I am astonished that not only did I have to leave it alone for a few months, but that I could not see it coming.  And though I have been reflecting quite painfully on what I am doing, and full of doubts and anxiety, I am aware that I love this exhibition and the work I am doing so very much, that I must be careful to keep myself strong.  I am not dealing with easy stuff.  I am not making paintings that you can take or leave.  I am not sitting with people who are in a good place and often there is more pain and distress around my subjects than I can imagine.  And I am a jolly, fun loving upbeat kind of person.  Something had to give, and so it did and I have been away from this exhibition for a good two months.  

But!  Here is what I have been doing while reflecting and being out of the studio -

•  I am volunteering at my local hospice.  Mainly I make tea for anyone and everyone, and see what happens.  I love being there, and love how the nurses do their job.  Amazing stuff.
• I am going to meet Felicity Warner next week (www.soulmidwives.co.uk) and see if this is for me.  It may well be, I have no training at all.  No counselling/bereavement training, no medical training, not even art training.  (I didn't go to art school).  This meeting with Felicity may be where I can do something practical.  I have spoken with Felicity and liked her very much on the phone. I will see her in the first week of September.
• I have nearly finished the painting of Nushi Khan Levy.  I will post it here when I have tweaked it a bit.  I need to show Nushi first too, to check she is happy with it.
• This week Eileen (photographer and friend extraordinaire) is staying.  Together we are working with a very brave and sad man who is coming from Edinburgh to stay here, to discuss how we can paint the story of his wife for the next exhibition.  His wife killed herself and we are working now on the subject of suicide.  
• I am meeting another lady this week with a view to including her in the exhibition as not only is she a young widow, but she is a cancer survivor.  What she has to say will be very interesting.
• I put some ads in the the mainstream media, and have been contacted by a newspaper for a possible interview.  Hope that happens, fingers crossed.
• The film!  We are going to start editing it soon, and will present a much smaller film than we first thought.  This is another learning curve - we have to start small and work our way into big.  Hollywood next time.  It will be a great film though, just much shorter.  
• Sheffield University is interested in hosting the A Graceful Death exhibition.  I will be going up there to talk it over in September
• St James's in Piccadilly is still on the cards for Easter next year, 2012.  
• AGD goes to Birmingham in November, to the St Martin in the Bullring church and for that, I will be doing workshops with the wonderful poet Penny Hewlett.  I will show Nushi, and I hope the paintings of Stuart and his wife Sue, who killed herself.  And maybe Sarah, the young widow and cancer survivor.
• My friend, the artist and artist in residence at St Barnabas House Hospice in Worthing, Stevan Stratford, is joining the exhibition in Birmingham with one of his thoughtful and lovely pieces on "being here and not being here".  I am so delighted that he has agreed to add one of his own deeply intelligent pieces to AGD.
• And finally - Eileen is producing a book for AGD , full of her insightful photography and prose.  This is a very good thing.  Eileen is no lightweight, her work is excellent and her standards high.  I can't wait.

So now, with a calmer mind and a fresher approach, I will do the next stage of the A Graceful Death exhibition.  I have even found a quartet of young lads who sing and play the guitar so beautifully that I am plucking up courage to ask if they will play for the opening and closing nights at the AGD exhibitions.  More on that as it unfolds.

To end, I will tell you what my dream for AGD is.  

To exhibit in St Pauls Cathedral, with enormous reproductions of Eileen's photos placed free standing around the paintings.  To have Verdi's Requiem playing and to have our film showing in a separate space.  To have a new section of paintings and words on surviving bereavement and what really happened to each person taking part (bereavement sometimes makes you act in a wholly outrageous way.  What did people really do and think?) and a section of paintings and words from those who are at the last stages of their lives.  Verdi's Requiem will certainly keep people on their toes.  I want hundreds of people to come and take part, write in the Memory Book and to tell their stories.  I want people to write poetry and ponder.  Oh and I want tons of tea and cakes and places to sit.  All in St Pauls, all in the aisles, and I want lovely flowers and scented candles too.  And perhaps to film the whole thing.  

Blimey.  I don't want much, do I?

Will You Help This Exhibition?

Will You Help This Exhibition?

A Graceful Death needs help from all of you.  I am painting again now, and creating more works to add to the next exhibition which will be in Birmingham in November 2011.  With each showing, the exhibition gets bigger and there is more to do.  Will you help? 

This blog has told the story of what I am doing, of what the exhibition means, how it started and the problems it encountered at first.  I started in 2009 with the very first exhibition of A Graceful Death, and there is much history in this blog for you to read.  You can see the paintings themselves on the top right of this blog, there is a small slide show.  You can read of the trials and successes of this exhibition and see how people react to it.

  I need your help though, I need you to come on board.  It is a wonderful exhibition and the work is piling up.  You can help by -

• Donations to the costs of running the exhibition.  I make no money at all doing A Graceful Death, and charge nothing for the work I do nor for the creation of each exhibition at each new venue.  I hope for my costs to be covered and generally they are, but the administration, the organising, the transport, the printing of invitations, the catering, the paperwork, the following up of individuals who want to be painted and the actual painting of the pictures (include in that the wood that I work on, the paints, the time, the travel time to see and interview them) and the costs of Neill filming new people and all that goes with it - all this I have to find the money for.  I do receive such generous help from those who can donate money to the exhibition and all the costs associated with it, and I am very grateful, but the costs are constantly ongoing.  Once I have finished one exhibition, the next has to be planned, organised and more work created. There is a dedicated bank account for A Graceful Death for this exhibition only.  Please donate to AGD.  My email address for you to contact me is antonia.rolls1@btinternet.com
• Donate services or time to helping with the maintainance and creation of exhibitions.  I have been amazed at the kindness and dedication of those who have donated services such as accountancy help, such as transport help, such as providing a venue for free.  Can you help with time or a service?  Services such as PR - helping to spread interest and understanding in the exhibition and the subject of the end of life expressed through art, help with marketing - interest people, organisations and fund raising bodies in funding and helping AGD.  Do you want me to give talks, with or without the paintings, on the end of life and art?  Do you want me to talk on the exhibition itself? Help with finding and supporting the exhibition in a new venue, help with contacting new people and organisations that may be interested in the A Graceful Death exhibition and what it stands for.  It stands for the opening up of a much needed and deeply longed for conversation of what it means to die and to be bereaved.  It does this through the medium of painting, poetry and film.   And also help with fund raising -  can you raise funds for AGD?  Are you good at finding funds from various bodies and organisations?  Can you help AGD to secure some funding?
• Are you able to take part?  Are you at the end of your life and do you want to donate yourself and your story through painting, prose and film?  Are you, or do you know of anyone, who may be interested in taking part in the AGD exhibitions?  I visit and talk with those who want to take part, to discuss what we can do and what image to create.  I like to take notes so that I can reproduce your story to show with the paintings, and at no time is there any pressure to continue if you feel it is not for you.  The paintings are shown only if you agree.  If you are interested then email me and I will contact you back.  antonia.rolls1@btinternet.com
• Are you a Survivor?  Have you survived the grieving process and want to be painted and say something?  Are you still in the grieving process and want to take part?  Have you survived a terminal illness or are you taking each day as it comes with a terminal illness?  Would you like to be painted and can you offer anything by your experience to AGD?  antonia.rolls1@btinternet.com

This exhibition and this work is my passion.  It comes from my heart and soul and I am moved to do these paintings, record these words and show you that we can face the subject of the end of life, and what it means.  I don't find it easy though, despite loving the work I do, and I am moved by the people taking part.  My next paintings include the lovely Nushi Khan Levy who is recovering from cancer, work with an articulate and brave man called Stuart who lost his wife to suicide, and with a lady who does not like the word Survivor, so I won't use it on her - Sarah has come through both cancer and the loss of her partner.  I am also very honoured to be able to exhibit the work of a very talented and deeply modest artist friend, Stevan Stratford, who is the artist in residence of a hospice here in West Sussex.  Stevan has much experience and a wonderful way of expressing his art.  All this will be exhibited at St Martin in the Bullring church in Birmingham in November.  

I am very grateful for your input and help.  Contact me, and I will call or email you back.  Thank you. 

antonia.rolls1@btinternet.com

Will You Join The A Graceful Death Exhibition?

New Paintings And New Interviews Required

A Graceful Death is now a well known and wonderful exhibition.  It makes a big impression on those who come to see it, and those who help it to move around the country.  The paintings are full of love, enquiry and passion.  The love is a response to the power of the human spirit at the end of life.  The love is for those who are dying and for those who are left behind, watching. The love is for the helplessness of approaching death and the loneliness of the person who will die.  And of course, the love started for me, with the death of my partner Steve.  I am still loving Steve through the work with everyone in A Graceful Death. 

The enquiry is about the process of ending a physical life.  How on earth does this happen, and what is it about?  It is what we will all do, we will all be dead one day, and we will all have to approach our death somehow.  What is it all about?  How does the body fold up and die, what is this thing called Life and when it has left a person, where does it go?  This enquiry is about the most important part of our life, the ending of it.

And passion?  That is the art.  That is the medium in which I am trying to explore this phenomenon.  I am a painter and my way of searching, looking, asking and presenting my enquiries, is through painting.  I paint with astonishment, looking at those who I paint for the exhibition with such curiosity, such a wish to understand, such admiration.  

I am a talker too.  I am making a film with my colleague Neill Blume, and I want to hear what those who are in the exhibition have to say.  I am intrigued by what they have to say - what is happening to them?  How are they feeling about dying?  Those that are bereaved and have watched someone else die, what happened to them in their bereavement?  I want to talk about dying, the end of life, the personal journey of each one of those who are in the exhibition and more.  I want to discover everything, I want to paint it, record it, and I want all of us to talk about it.  I want all of us to want to know too.

A Graceful Death is a wonderful exhibition.  It is expanding and more people are coming forward to take part and to be painted, interviewed and written about.  I am oh so thrilled with this.  This exhibition has dealt with death through illness, is dealing with death through suicide, has been approached to deal with the death of a stillborn child, is dealing with death through old age.  I am open to work with anyone who feels that they can play a part in A Graceful Death.  

If you are, or are with, someone on the journey towards death, and want to join the exhibition then please contact me.  Each person who I work with in the exhibition is different.  Each person has their own story and an image that suits just them.  Talk to me.  We will do what is best for your story.  If you are working through a bereavement and want to be a part of A Graceful Death, talk to me.  I would like to paint you as you really are, I would like for you to be as sad or recovered or mad or lonely or OK as you really are.  When Steve died, I was mad.  My behaviour was totally off the wall, and I have not found anything like it in any text book on grief and bereavement anywhere.  I painted myself in that state too.

Your stories and your images are part of the wider exhibition which aims to make it safe and possible to talk about dying.  I have found that those who come to the A Graceful Death exhibition and who have experienced the death of someone, wears that experience like a mist around them.  Not unlike childbirth; once you have children, the world changes and you see things differently for ever.  When I had my children, I remember feeling that no words could ever have prepared me for the enormity of what had happened.  But other parents understood, and it was all I could talk about for years.  I was turned inside out by the whole process of birth, babies, the changes in my body and mind, the pains, the fears, the bonkers idea that I could create new people.  Tiny needy wonderful babies that never gave me a moment to rest or think or even recover.

The experience of dying is as powerful.  It is where we need to find space to talk and make it reasonable so that when we do it, it is not an anonoymous and unspeakable journey.

If you want to talk about taking part, please email me.

antonia.rolls1@btinternet.com

Hiram Burnett. 
His daughter Cecil found him impossible to like but loved him as he died. 

A Graceful Dying.  Waiting in the Hospice

Alone Triptych.  All that is left is a pair of slippers.  I painted this of myself when I was in a dreadful mess.

Anne and Peter Snell.  Peter wanted to be in the A Graceful Death exhibition to help others by his dying, but didn't live to see this finished picture.

Dancing Steve Out Of Life.  He is pulling away as we dance into the future

Survivor.  I have survived the grieving process.  I need nothing in this painting but the colours, there is no indication that I have come through except the bright warm colours around me.

Talk to me.  I want to hear from you.

Strawberry Fairy, Bathtime Angel And More - Fund Raising Sale This Weekend In Wimbledon

www.antoniarolls.co.uk  for my website
www.jesusonthetube.co.uk for the Jesus on the Tube website
www.antoniarolls.blogspot.com for an account of an Artist and Mother in Bognor Regis

Fruit and Veg Fairies, Mood Angels and Handmade Earrings at Art Sale 

Fund Raising for A Graceful Death project and film

  Angels, Earrings, Fairies and Cakes by

Antonia Rolls

Strawberry Fairy.  5" x 7"

You are warmly invited to a weekend sale of Paintings, Prints and Handmade Earrings

Wine and Tea and Cakes 

     

Red Pointy Pepper Fairy 5x7"      Dark Angel 5x7"                 Calm Angel 5x7"

 

                                                         

 

Saturday May 21 10am - 9 pm to

 Sunday May 22 10am - 9 pm

   at

127 Worple Road, Wimbledon SW20

Bath Angel 5 x 7"

 Sale in aid of the A Graceful Death projects, the Film and the Exhibition.

 www.agracefuldeath.blogspot.com for more information

I aim to have this sale of Angels and Fairies and fun things while also displaying the latest information about the A Graceful Death exhibition and film.  The weekend is about having fun with all of you, with colour, fun, wit and humour, alongside the serious business of raising funds for the A Graceful Death exhibition and film.  

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The A Graceful Death Film Project -

Making a film of the effect an exhibition of paintings of death and the end of life (A Graceful Death, paintings from the end of life) has on those who are involved in the works, and those who come to experience them at exhibitions.   Showing how the exhibition is created and broadcast, and hearing what those who love it say, and those who don't love it, say.  And very significantly, showing how it feels to paint a sitter as they approach the end of their life, or as they face an uncertain future.  A section of the exhibition shows Survivors too, those who have come through illness, or the bereavement process, and are living again.

Click on the link below to see our video and to hear more and to donate to this important work. 

 

http://www.wefund.co.uk/project/graceful-death-film

 

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It will be great fun this weekend.  I will be at my dear friend Clarissa's lovely Wimbledon home, where the second showing of the A Graceful Death exhibition was held last year.  We are very much looking forward to seeing you all, and there will be many Angels and Fairies for you to choose from.  And if you don't see what you want, or if you have a fab idea for a painting, tell me and I will paint it and send it to you.  

The A Graceful Death project, by which I mean the exhibition and the film, is being considered by St James's Church, Piccadilly.  I am going to meet the Rector this Thursday to talk it over.  This would be excellent.  St James's is an inspiring church, it seems to want absolutely everyone to be welcome and to take part in its life.  There is a daily market outside its doors too, which I like.  A Graceful Death, I feel, would be at home at this church.  I have not met the Rector, but I have seen her!  She spoke at my dear friend Nicola Slee's book launch held at the church last month, and I am looking forward to meeting her properly.

I have sent off, finally, an application to the Arts Council for funding for a year.  This would help me to make the paintings and to research how to make the exhibition grow and be seen.  I am investigating two more possible venues, one in Manchester again and one in Yorkshire.  Once I have finished all the administration for the exhibition and the project, I will be delighted to paint for the next exhibition again, and will be painting Nushi Khan-Levy and I hope, another person too.  I would like to speak to my new contact on the very important subject of suicide.  We still have to work our what paintings would be best for his particular story.  And I would like to speak to another possible contact, who is probably a bit too ill to speak to me at the moment.

At some point, I would like to talk about bereavement.  I would like to explore the stories of those who have to go on with life, whether they like it or not.  How I behaved during my bereavement used to worry me, it seemed very odd.  I wondered if I was a bit strange.  But talking to other bereaved people has made me see that it is possible to be totally bonkers, while still being you, and what we do and how we get through our grief, is a very important life lesson and should be discussed so that those going through it don't worry that they are losing their minds.  I did not lose my mind, but I tipped over into quite out of character behaviour.  Looking back on it, I am glad that I did, it was a way of making real the dreadfulness of being without Steve.  Not because he went off into the sunset with someone else, but that he died.  I saw him, I held him, I could not mistake it, he died and that was absolutely that.

Bereavement is a very important part of the end of life and I will explore this for the next exhibition in Birmingham in November.

In the meantime - come to the Weekend Sale.  I am having a raffle on Sunday evening, and the prizes are as follows -

1.  A beautiful framed print of Jesus on the Tube.  Jesus on the Tube is the best known and most popular of my paintings and has a whole website dedicated to it.  Even the Archbishop of Canturbury has his own personalised Jesus on the Tube.  www.jesusonthetube.co.uk for more information.  Photographed by Eileen Rafferty, a superb photographer and print maker

2.  A framed oil painting of cyclamen in a spotty bowl. I  painted this for the sheer love of it, I love plants and flowers and when I have time, I love to paint them.  About 17" x 30".

3.  An Angel or Fairy of your choice - I will paint it and send it to you in the post.

4.  A custom made pair of earrings, you choose the beads and I will make them up for you.

This weekend of Earrings, Angels, Fairies and Cakes is of course, in aid of raising funds and awareness of the A Graceful Death exhibition and film. There will be opportunites to donate to this very important project, and I will be happy to talk with you about what it all means, what I am doing and where it is all going.  And in the meantime, come - buy Fairies, buy Angels, buy Earrings and buy the yummiest cakes to have with your cups of tea (or wine if it all gets too much).