Mannofield, trees

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Mannofield, trees

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Aberdeen, Mannofield, trees, autumn

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Aberdeen, Mannofield, trees, autumn

oil on card, 24 x 25.2 cm - available

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Mannofield, apple trees

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Mannofield, apple trees, oil on card, 14.2 x 14.8 cm - available

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Mannofield, trees, branches

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Mannofield, trees, branches, oil on card, 14.5 x 17 cm - available

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Mannofield, trees in sunshine

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Mannofield, trees in sunshine, oil on card, 144.5 x 13.9 cm - available

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Mannofield, trees in a garden, September

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Mannofield, trees in a garden, September, 

oil on card, 18 x 20.6 cm - available

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The avenue I walked down

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 The avenue I walked down

 avenue 

 

I came on Sunday. 

I wasn't feeling too well. I had a sad feeling, I felt pointless too. The bad part of Sunday, the mooching around, the irritation, the boredom. 

I had a thought about how thirty years ago I had the same feeling. You might think that one's emotional life would develop over time, so that such negative states no longer affect one. But it seems to me part of the essential misery of life that one never really escapes the treadmill, even after learning that one is within it.

 

 A twig representing how I felt

 

I had passed this avenue on the fast road, an exquisite road with endless, tall dreamlike Scots pine, rising with such heavenly aspiration anyone would feel enchanted there. When I passed this entrance, I always thought, " oh you must stop there one day." I must have had that thought over three hundred times.

And so, I went there with the Lumix camera, a lovely black metal thing that fits snugly in the hand. 

From this entrance you follow a track through woodland, and then, you meet a fenced parking area and a kiosk with sign with bold acronyms, telling you that it pertains to a work-based social organisation of some sort. 

Then, over a sandy path you reach a fine narrow beach and the Atlantic.

 I felt, when I met these facilities somewhat like a trespasser, a bit uneasy. The mood in Brazil has become less laid back lately, even in touristy areas. There`s a sense of suspicion that I feel wasn't present when I came here 16 years ago, and this affects people's behaviours in these areas- you don`t have the sort of ready conversations that you used to- I`m sure I`m not imagining that. Though I must say that the only person I met, a woman with two small children, smiled and said hello in a pleasant way, a way that made me feel all right.

Oh how strange that my sentiments might be moved by such an easy thing as a lady`s smile? What is the point of thinking at all, when ones feelings jump and rise or fall with the predictability of a pin ball on a warped board?

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This is a shell I found lying on the sand-

The shell in my hand

I'm not going to show a picture of the ocean. Imagine it yourself.

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As I drove off, I heard the Velvet Underground song ¬Ocean¬.

I can find two versions of the song, one on an early Lou Reed Album and the other on a posthumous released Velvet Underground compilation called VU. The Velvet Underground version is earlier and more surreal. The song that I heard in my head was the Reed`s solo take and is also intense and troubled. But it is more coherent, with scenes of drowning and desperation, of castles and towers and warlocks - rather Shakesperean. Whether the lyrics have directed meanings or are meant as imagistic poetry is not clear from the commentaries I have found, but I suspect the former. 

 However, it is argued by David Caune on Quora that Malcolm is a reference to the son of Henry Melville, author of Moby Dick. Malcolm`s suicide, a result it is argued, was the result of violent abuse from his father. Lou Reed was subjected to Electroconvulsive Shock Therapy, an attempt by his parents to control his homosexual tendencies, and Caune sees in the song a refence to the trauma that this treatment caused him, which he parallels with that of Melville's son.

Castles glowing at night, towers above outfright

Warlocks decapitating

Malcolm he lives on hate, Serve your brain on a plate

Feasts on your mouth for dinner

The song ends-

Here comes the waves

 

 

Following Caune, these waves might then be waves of ECT therapy. And you hear the music rise into a crescendo, loud and more pain filled, a music which seems to not just describe but glamourise destruction. 

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There was something self-pitying and just plain crappy about how I handled the day.

 But it's just like that sometimes.

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Tall pines

 

 

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Tall pines

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Looking up a little

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Looking up a little, Rio Vermelho

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Claw

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Claw

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Praia Mole, trees in sunshine

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Praia Mole, trees in sunshine  AVAILABLE

 oil on card, 29 x 24 cm

This one is rather like one of the Scottish Colourists

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Tall pines, April 2020, Praia Moçambique

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Tall pines, April 2020, Praia Moçambique, oil on card, 24.5 x 21.5 cm- unavailable

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Smaller trees, Santo Antônio de Lisboa

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Smaller trees, Santo Antonio, oil on card, 23.5 x 25.7 cm unavailable

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Time Spent Among Trees Exhibition, Meffan Gallery Scotland

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Tweet announcing the exhibition

I am pleased to say that I've two pochades at the Meffan in Forfar, in ashow organised by the Society of Scottish Artists.

 The show continues until the 2nd of November.

This is a theme of considerable interest to me and I would love to do an exhibition entirely based entirely on it.

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Araucaria

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 Araucarias, near Urubici I, oil on card, 14.5 x 15.5 cm  unavailable

It would be impossible to over-praise these magnificent trees.

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Santo Antônio de Lisboa, little tree

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Santo Antonio de Lisboa, little tree, oil on card, 13.7 x 11.7 cm - available

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Woodland

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 Woodland, trunks, oil on card, 14  x 15.5 cm  unavailable

Painted up near Canasvieiras.

 The weather has improved, and I should be able to go painting more readily. but boredom is eating into my mind like a kind of dry rot. I count the days before I go to Peru. Part of me thinks I should have gone to Chile for longer, and I'm now regretting that I didn't give myself two months reprieve in Peru. But there would be difficulties with this, most obviously with maintaining students here.

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Canasvieiras, woods

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Woods, Canasvieiras, oil on card, 20 x 18 cm- available

Broken branches, roots, soil, Canasvieiras, oil on card, 8 x 22 cm- available

Two more from the ongoing series of the woods. I am happy with the abbreviated style, somewhat angular, like André Derain, and the colouring, which takes a palette that is new for me.

 I feel confident with the larger scale and ready to conquer New York in October.

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Canasvieiras: the woods

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Forest, Canasvieiras, oil on card, 18 x 22 cm   -unavailable

A further scene from the woodland area- being harvested- up in Canasvieiras.

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A sun-filled valley; Parana

 Trees in sunshine, oil on card, 15.5 x 17 cm   -unavailable

Painted in a valley a few miles into the state. I have used oil pastels, which lend a greater variety of textures. 

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It occurs to me that a drive up to Parana is in order. 

I am especially interested in the regions bordering middle Santa Catarina, Perhaps I will cross the border with Santa Catarina near Porto União then follow the road to São Mateus do Sul, and on to Lapa, before winding back to Floripa, all in a leisurely 5 days.