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Much of last month was lost trying to sort out problems I had with my eyes, and then October moved straight into festivals. Swansea Festival was the first week, when thousands of children attended to Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea for a real celebration of children's books. The following week I woke up in Cheltenham wondering where I was. For the next three days I was driven through beautiful places in Gloucestershire, by Hannah from the festival, to wonderful schools full of children bursting with questions.
During my sessions the children asked me questions about my paintings, about stories and writing and music and we talked about dreams and maths and the surface tension of water, pirates and dragons, Beowulf and balloons. This was all followed by a slide show in the most glorious Everyman Theatre, which looks as if it came out of a story book. I hear that they have been working on stories and pictures inspired by the sessions and am looking forward to seeing what they have done. At one of the schools I was given a sticker, which is now in my sketchbook. Back home there seems so much to do, getting ready for the exhibition and trying to settle into painting again. First reviews for Can You See a Little Bear are looking promising and the book is a joy to read to large groups of children of all ages. Autumn seems to have arrived while I was away and stripped the ash tree in the garden of all its leaves and the days are full of wind and rain. But yesterday (19th) was one of those magical days when the veils between worlds seem thin. Rain was sweeping in across the sea and rainbows hung in bays and arched from land to water. The last swallows are flying alone or in pairs and flocks of starlings and rooks whirl into the air in great numbers. Have sent off writing to the Academi to try and get a bursary to buy time to devote solely to writing. The gallery, Against the Grain, is looking wonderful, but I am getting very nervous about the opening on Sunday 23rd.Paul and Lizzy have worked so hard to make the space beautiful and filled it with wonderful things.
And the poetry book is progressing slowly. The image below is for the back endpaper.
24th October, day after the opening of Against the Grain. The exhibition went well and it was great to see lots of old friends and meet new people. The gallery looked beautiful, such a wonderful space to hang work in. To enter through the doors of the gallery and view some of the exhibits click on the image below.
30th October. The wind was like a demon today, ripping the last of the leaves from the trees, flattening the browned bracken and washing like a wave over the top of the hill. The week has been a mix of rain and sunshine with water flowing from the hill, over walls, making waterfalls and rivers where none were before.
I have been painting and working on a rough black and white dummy for Singing to the Sun, by Vivian French. To see the progress of the weeks work click here and you should see a series of photographs taken over days of the front cover for the Barefoot Book of Classic Poems appearing, like ghosts, out of a white piece of paper.
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