The day that the rains came down…

Yesterday, parts of Dominica (in particular our part) had the highest rainfall in living memory.  Our loss was limited to the water pipe intake that leads from the river and the three-legged chair that I made some months ago (See diary entry for June 1^st).  The flood swept both of them away.  As can be seen in today’s picture, a village down river from us did not fair as well.  

We’ve only just had electricity restored, so busy catching up on many things. 

Photo Credit DNO

The Call Of The Wild…

Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there’s nothing else to gaze on…?

So asked Robert Service in his poem The Call Of The Wild. 

How I wish I was gazing on the naked grandeur of Dominica’s Waitukubuli National Trail rather than spending my days cooped up in the studio writing about it.   Alas, in the time I have available for putting together the guidebook for the trail, there’s no time for walking. 

Working from notes made by others – as I’m having to do - is like trying to paint a picture from a photograph.  I need to smell, see and feel the real thing in all weathers from beginning to end.  To fuel my frustration I am constantly being seduced by the beautiful 2.5” to the mile OS maps that cover every inch of the trail. 

Today’s picture shows a small segment of the trail on one such map.  The trail is the broken green line highlighted in yellow.  As you can see, at this point the trail splits into two alternative routes.  The contours and romantic place names have me spell bound.  In my imagination at least, I’m out there, picking my way over a boulder strewn footpaths, wading rivers and walking through dense rain forests.

Scribbles from the past…

Today, while searching through packing cases, a found a small sketch book diary that recorded a visit I made to the South of France over twenty years ago.  The purpose of my visit was to sketch Frenchmen playing boules.  However, as I glance back through the entries, it appears that my love for churches claimed equal attention. 

Here are two sketches that I scribbled down during a service at Nice Cathedral.  I discreetly tucked myself away on one of the back pews, not realising that the cathedral’s mighty organ was on the balcony right above my head.  On its first thunderous cord, I jumped out of my skin!



Not by bread alone…

Just as the Bible proclaims that man shall not live by bread alone, so too must the spirit of the artist resist the restraints of art alone. 

Michelangelo’s diaries are not confined to painting frescos on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, nor are Leonardo’s notes limited to painting The Last Supper.   Their interests ranged from architecture to astrology and from poetry to politics.

Likewise, I see no reason why these diary pages should be limited to my work as a painter and sculptor.  If, as of now, my days are spent recording a trail that stretches from one end of Dominica to the other, then that is what I’ll write about.  If the National Trail project is followed by the invention of a machine to wash dasheen, so be it.  Perhaps this approach will help art students to develop an interest and a passion for all things.

I’ve been up since four this morning, writing about the trail and walking the trail.  I’m exhausted and ready for bed.  But before I go, here I am, with a member of the trail management team, at a rest stop along the way.  If you think that looks tame, you should see the terrain that comes before and after.



Feast or famine…

One day, there’s no prospect of work, the next day I’m inundated.  The National Trail project was confirmed at midday today.  Within a couple hours, I got a call to say that a major engineering project, one that has been hanging fire for weeks, was all set to begin.  Too late, I’d already dipped my mapping pen in ink. 

Here’s an overview of the trail.  As you can see, it covers the length and breadth of Dominica.  The task now is to map and describe it in detail.  The distances and walking times given to the left of the map bear no relation to reality.  You can’t measure adventure by the mile or by the minute.



I’m sure that my grandfather had similar feast or famine dilemmas in repairing church clocks and church organs.  For months they’d tick and shrill without problems and to make ends meet he’d take up his ladders and clean windows.  Then, when one broke down, so did the other.

Here’s a sketch of a church organ undergoing repairs.  Many of the church organs in the Caribbean were built in the West Riding of Yorkshire.  Alas, there’s no record my grandfather travelling this far to make repairs – or to clean windows! 

Gone fishin’…

Just in case, after a couple of day’s absence, you’re suspecting, in the words of the classic Louis and Bing recording, that I’ve gone fishin’, you’re wrong.

For the next six weeks, it looks like my attention will be diverted from painting and sculpture - and even engineering - for I am to be given the task of putting between book covers all the information that you'll need to walk the Waitukubuli National Trail.  If that’s left you scratching your head, don’t worry, you’ll soon be enlightened.  The trail is the most important discovery since Christopher Columbus first set foot on Dominica over 500 years ago and it ranks with the world’s premier long distance walks. 

To walk the trail from end to end is a major accomplishment and getting it down on paper in six weeks borders on the impossible.  But here goes…

In contrast to the tropical heat of the trail, today’s painting goes back to the depths of winter and the canals of the industrial North of England.  This is the “lost” painting of the yellow JCB that I mentioned some months ago.

 

The field vs. the corn…

John Constable was always ready and willing to sell his finished paintings but reluctant to part with his sketches.  As he said, “I don't mind parting with the corn, but not with the field in which it was raised.”

Today I came across a small sketchbook that I had almost forgot about.  Many of the sketches are of church interiors, a favourite subject of mine.  They range from the simple to the ornate.  Either way my pen takes up the challenge with alacrity and with a freedom that at times makes the resulting sketch difficult for even me to figure out. 

Here, for you to figure out, is my sketch of the ornate pulpit of Sir George Gilbert Scott’s All Souls Church, Halifax, Yorkshire.  Incidentally, the painting sold!

In my mind’s eye…

I am sometimes asked if I paint and sculpt every day.  The answer is, yes I do and no I don’t.  Days, weeks, months and sometimes years can pass, without my brush touching paper or my hands modelling clay.  On the other hand, it is rare for a day to pass without me creating scores of images in my mind’s eye.

Over the last few days, my workload has included devising ways of packaging rum cakes, turning spherical bearings, motivating a workforce, editing a guidebook, battening down for an approaching hurricane and….

In my mind’s eye: capturing the smile in eyes of someone who I see daily in passing, sculpting two figures locked in a passionate embrace, commemorating the memory of a friend in stained glass, painting the figure with such abandon that I no longer count fingers or labour over ears, allowing verse to interweave with my paintings and sculptures and…

How can I illustrate what is in my mind’s eye?  Perhaps the stained glass panels that made up my Christ Triumphant church window, propped at random before installation, one against the other, fairly represent the images that night and day race around in my brain.

Grab a chance and you won’t be sorry for a might have been…

Here are two photographs of the 80 ton Yorkshire Keel Brookfoot, one of the damsels in distress that I mentioned a few days ago. 

Yorkshire Keels were sailing barges that once plied the canals of the North of England.  Brookfoot was built during WW2 (the last of the line) and never rigged for sailing.  Instead, she was powered by a three cylinder Gardner diesel engine.  The gentle rhythmic sound of the engine – as against the thumping of the two cylinder Lister diesel engines installed in the other canal barges -  led to her being know by the old-timers as, “the sewing machine boat”.

A year’s work went into converting Brookfoot into a home and studio.  She was my means of escape and for two years she faithfully carried us through the lean formative creative period of my life.  On turning my back to an engineers' drawing office, I had taken to heart the advice: “Grab a chance and you won’t be sorry for a might have been”*.

The first photograph shows Brookfoot just after she had delivered her last cargo of coal - and just before I purchased her for the princely sum of £200 – and the second shows her two years later, moored on the canal at Bruge. 

* Arthur Ransome We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea

In the limelight…

Publicity can be a mixed blessing, but the artist that shuns the media shuns the public at large.  I have never been one to stand aloof from the crowd.  Indeed, the nearer I can get to the crowd the better.  Hence, I welcome a recent spate of interest in my work from the Caribbean media. 

A few weeks ago, the up-market glossy MACO Magazine featured my paintings and sculptures.  Close on Maco’s heels the regional art magazine ARC carried an article about these diary pages…and today the BUZZ, a new television show that focuses on Dominica’s Entertainment Culture, filmed an interview.   If the combined coverage inspires just one young talented person - and there are hundreds of potential artists out there - to pursue the arts, the publicity will have been a real blessing.

For today’s feature, I worked on a portrait bust of my nine-year-old son Tristan. 

The wow factor…

Yesterday, when listing my damsels in distress, I mentioned the Bolton Brow Methodist Assembly Hall, the building which served for eleven years as my studio in the UK.  I can’t put my finger on a “before” shot, but here’s the restored interior.  From the main entrance at street level, visitors went down a flight of steps before dramatically entering the main hall.  Invariably, when reaching the bottom step they paused and gave out a breathless “wow”!

As is the usual with properties purchased from the church, we had to sign to a formidable list of covenants:  no alcohol, no gambling, no illicit behaviour, etc, etc.  A couple of years after purchase we were visited by the church trustees, all of whom were in respectable old age.  I hurriedly draped my nude figures – surely they violated every covenant in the book - while Denise kept them talking on the stairs.  My heart sank when one of the straight-laced ladies lifted the drape from my most revealing figure.  She gasped.  Then, contrary to my fears, exclaimed, “How beautiful”!

The photograph was taken from a small observation balcony forty foot above the studio floor.  For scale, look for the full-size upright piano on the mezzanine level.   What a studio, what a daunting task, what memories. 



Rescuing damsels in distress…

As an incurable romantic, I have spent the best part of three score years rescuing damsels in distress.  They were all beautiful, at least to eye of this beholder.  Let me tell you about just a few of my amours.

Brookfoot was the last surviving Yorkshire Keel Barge, a direct descendant of the square sail Viking ships.  When I found her, she was languishing at a coal wharf in the industrial North of England.  I rescued her, restored her, and sailed her through the French Canals.

The Gardner 2 LW marine engine that served as the auxiliary power for my 16-ton gaff cutter Born Free, I bought unseen: for the very good reason that she was sunk in eight foot of muddy water on the Bridgewater Canal.  With the help of a diver and crane, I rescued her and spent two winters restoring her to her former glory.

The Bolton Brow Methodist Assembly Hall is a remarkable listed building in the North of England.  She was built in 1882.  Denise and I found her, neglected and forlorn in 1995, when we were searching for a studio.  Restoring her was a Herculean task, not least because of her huge barrel vaulted glass roof.

In comparison rescuing and restoring the Office Letter Press shown in today’s picture was child’s play.  None-the-less, when “she” arrived at my workshop - en-route to the dump - a couple of weeks ago, even this Sir Lancelot doubted the feasibility of her rescue.  But like all my damsels, she awoke from her sleep with the sparkle of a princess.  In her new life, she’ll be pressing hand-made paper made from all kinds of fruits and grasses grown on our land.   

The Painters’ Bible…

On the shelf above my engineers’ drawing board is a copy of Machinery’s Handbook.  Known for nearly a hundred years as “The Engineers’ Bible” and now in its 28^th edition, the definitive tome contains 2420 pages of tables and formula.  When working in my machine shop, I refer to it on a daily basis. 

The painters’ equivalent is Robert Henri’s The Art Spirit and Charles Hawthorne’s Hawthorn on Painting.  First published in 1923 and 1938, they are now available in paperback, by Harper Row and Dover Publications respectively.  Both books consist of collected notes that delve into the why and wherefores of the creative soul.  As such, they are worth more than all the “How To” books put together.

I first came across Charles Hawthorn on the shelf of the Kings Lynn (UK) public library in 1970 and I found Robert Henri in a Boston (USA) Bookshop in 1989.  At one of my exhibitions in England, I met with a lady in her nineties who, as an aspiring art student, had been taught by Robert Henri.

A quote at random from The Art Spirit:

A work of art which inspires us comes from no quibbling or uncertain man.  It is the manifest of a very positive nature…

and from Hawthorn on Painting:

We must train ourselves to keep and preserve our fresh and youthful vision along with all the experience of maturity.  If we do, we’ll be great artists – if we don’t we’ll be academicians…

Buy, borrow or steal a copy of both books.

Erratum…

In the frenzied heat of the moment, I misquoted my extract from Sheila Hyndman’s poem Daughter of Time.  The second line should read, Hardened by hurricane winds.  The mistake dawned upon me in the middle of the night.  At first light this morning, before the wrath of Sheila rained down upon me, I made the correction.   

Incidentally, the secondary figure in “Version 1” shown yesterday, was based on the above watercolour sketch.  Perhaps the pose is too subtle to be picked up easily in clay.

Bas-relief, Version 1 and Version 2…

Here are two versions of my bas-relief. 

In “Version 1”, I feel that the secondary figure distracts from the main figure.  It needed a lighter touch.  I removed it - easily done with clay - added more text, and arrived at “Version 2”.  

When finishing a piece of work, I am rarely sure of the value of what I have created and doubtful if my first intensions have been fulfilled.  I’ll sleep on it. 

In the meantime, let me know what you think.



Daring and restraint…

Two opposing forces that, in art and life, need not equate to dull compromise.

The errant watercolour wash that runs down the page to be caught at the last moment.

The clay that is applied at fever pitch and then defined just enough to reflect the soul of the sitter.

Revealing the passion of the figure yet retaining the purity of the nude.

Sailing small boats across oceans but remembering that the sea does not suffer fools for long.

A whole lot of daring and the restraint went into today’s painting.  The scene is a wind blown beach on the island of St John, USVI.  One brush stroke more, or one brush stroke less, would have spelt ruin.



Work in progress…

On the sculptural front, my work in progress is the bas-relief shown yesterday and in earlier diary pages (July 20^th and July 28^th).   Had someone commissioned the work, I might have been bound, by way of a drawing or maquette, to a foregone conclusion.  But as things stand, I’ve no one to please but myself.  I can make changes as the mood takes me.

Thus, true to form, I am improvising on my theme as I go along.  Just supposing, for instance, I fill the blank areas of the relief with rough line sketches of the figure in different poses, similar to the drawing below.  Or, how about scratching in a couple of lines of verse? 

The photograph focuses on a detail of the figure in its present rough form.  As always, the challenge will be to avoid refining.  The suggestion of the breast is worth more than the breast in detail.

The heart has its reasons…

Selling my soul or my skill and other recent entries on the vicissitudes that beset those that precariously live by their art, have resulted in some sound advice.  Alas, I only take sound advice in order to do the contrary.  As my brother said on visiting us for the first time here on Dominica, “Why can’t you for once in your life do something sensible and normal?”

All I know is this.  Whenever I take a chance, Fate somehow or other sees me through. Whenever I play safe, the Gods take delight in upsetting my apple cart. 

During my time in the UK, when one sculptural commission followed another, the Inland Revenue made a full-scale investigation into my earnings.  They suspected that I was cheating the system and there followed a full-scale investigation.  After a year of delving into invoices, receipts and bank balances, they found that they owed me, rather than me owing them. 

The inspector in charge asked, why I struggled with this kind of work when there is so little financial reward.  In reply, I could do no better than quote the 17^th Century French Philosopher, Blaise Pascal:

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.

So Fate, take note!  Here’s my bas-relief beginning to take shape...perhaps you can conjure up a buyer.

The colour white…

A few weeks ago, I featured my poem The Colour Black.  I do not have a poem for the colour white, because in watercolour there’s no such thing.  The only white, is the white of the paper.  This taxes the painter’s ability to handle the medium.  Before the first wash hits the paper, you have to know where to leave space for the whites and highlights. 

Okay, I admit, you can use a masking fluid, but I’ve no time to mess about with such devices.  I cannot put passion on hold while I dabble with chemicals.  Moreover, I can always tell when a painter has resorted to such tricks: the end result is all too slick for my liking.  Better by far to catch a wash at the critical moment and guide it away from a no-go area. 

Today’s painting is unfinished, but it illustrates how I anticipate my whites.   To the right you see three figures and towards the centre, you see a space left for a possible forth.  If I decide keep to three figures, I can paint over the vacant space left for the forth, but once the white of the paper is lost, I can never get it back again.



Selling my soul or my skill…

For over forty years, when push came to shove, I shouldered my sketch bag and headed to the streets to sketch away my very soul in order to make ends meet.

However, this time around, on returning to the Caribbean six years ago, I decided that it would be my skill as an engineer, rather than my soul as an artist, that would save the day.  And so it has.  My machine shop has kept the wolf from the door and I have welcomed the challenges that have tested my engineering skills and ingenuity.    

But the downside is this.  The street scene from the North of England that I featured a couple of days ago and today’s street scene from the Caribbean, were painted at times when my sketch bag was the only means of survival.  In other words, I had no alternative but to get out there and paint. 

Yes, it’s hard to sell your soul, especially for a pittance, but the best in art is born from the soul.  Maybe the time has come to oil down my lathes and milling machines and return to the pavement.



A happy accident…

Watercolours, by their very nature, defy control.  At best, a watercolour painting is a happy accident.  You might qualify that statement by saying, the better the artist the more often the accident happened in his favour.

Today’s painting is another from my series of my old home town of Halifax, Yorkshire.  The green double-decker bus might be the very same one that I mentioned a few days ago.  This time around there was rain – my God you can feel it – but no wind to carry my painting under the wheels of the bus. 

The painting soon sold and this small photographic print is all I have to remind me of the happy accident of washes merging and dividing in the rain right there on the pavement.  The subject is in total contrast to the palm fringed beaches of the Caribbean, but what a subject!  

My careful choice of subject was confirmed when one wet, carrier-bag laden shopper asked, “Can’t you find anything better to paint than that?”

To utter the unutterable…

My diary pages from England dwelt mainly on my working methods as a sculptor.  The pages followed work in progress, in logical sequence, one day to the next.   This time around, it’s a different kettle of fish.

When working on my figures and portraits, I try to get down to the naked soul.  In a similar way, I want these diary pages to say something about the whole business of creating a work of art. 

Today, while glancing through my copy of  Byron’s love poems, I found that years ago I had marked a page with a copy of a poem by James Kirkup.   It is titled The Poet but the sentiments could equally apply to all who toil upon the forge of art.

Each instant of his life, a task, he never rests,

And works most when he appears to be doing nothing.

The least of it is putting down the words,

What usually remains unwritten and unspoken,

And would so often be better left

Unsaid, for it is really the unspeakable

That he must try to give an ordinary tongue to.

And if, by art and accident,

He utters the unutterable, then

It must appear as natural as breath,

Yet be an inspiration.  And he must go,

The lonelier for his unwanted miracle,

His singular way, a gentle lunatic at large

In the societies of cross and reasonable men.

How do I find a picture to illustrate today’s entry?  Equally by chance, I stumbled across a faded black and white photograph taken in the UK studio when working on one of my controversial NHS figures.  With the dedicated help of Ganeen, my model, I tried to utter the unutterable.



A ray of hope…

Dominica, along with many other countries in the world, is going through some difficult times and one can easily to become despondent.  However, today, at the closing performances of the Old Mill Summer Arts Programme, I witnessed a ray of hope. 

Over the last couple of weeks, children between the ages of seven and seventeen have had a wonderful opportunity to experience all aspects of the creative arts.  If, starting from scratch, so much can be achieved in that short space of time, just think of the potential talent that could be nurtured over a period of years.  Their performances were inspirational.  

I witnessed a similar achievement on the island of Tortola in the 1980’s.  Two visiting music teachers from Canada took children who previously had played nothing more than a recorder and, in the space of a couple of years, formed one of the finest fully fledged school orchestras this side of the Atlantic.  Their repertoire ranged from the classics to jazz, from calypso to pop.  They toured the United States to rave reviews.

Here is the next generation of creative artists ready to move the world.

Dodging prosperity…

Alas, old pal, we’re wealthy now, it’s sad beyond a doubt;

We cannot dodge prosperity, success has found us out.

Again, I’ve taken the above lines from Robert Services’s poem The Joy of Being Poor.  I experience relative prosperity for a brief period in the mid 1980’s.  However, in terms of creativity, it was my least productive period.

Today’s painting dates from 1996 – twenty-four years on from yesterday’s picture, but I'm back to a precarious financial state of affairs.  With my wife Denise and our two young daughters, I had left the warmth of the Caribbean and set up shop in a Church Assembly Hall in the North of England.   To keep the wolf from the door, I worked on a series of forty paintings and drawings of Halifax, my old hometown.   

One wealthy businessman who had watch me paint his premises expressed an interest in purchasing the finished picture.  In high hopes, I framed the painting (one of my best) and on a cold and windy winter’s day carried it for him to see.  His response was lukewarm – he’d have to think about it.  As I penniless left his office to go home, a gust a wind tore the framed picture from my hands and sent it shattering under the wheels of a double-decker bus.  Ah, the joy of being poor! 

                           

The Barclay’s Bank Building from the series Views of Halifax.

And I had but a single shirt and not a single care*…

* From the poem “The Joy of Being Poor” by Robert Service.

Poverty is all too often is the lot of the artist.  Curiously, and for no accountable reason, it is during financial hardship that an artist’s creative zeal is often at its best.  Favour us with comfort and we procrastinate. 

The year is 1972 and the place Southern Ireland.  Our home and my studio was a converted village school.  We survived on next to nothing.  Our only means of transport was a bicycle.  With a desire to see more of the country we set off on a two hundred mile walking tour, pushing our camping gear and my sketching bag before us on an old pram.  (The “we” at that time being my first wife Norma and our six-year-old daughter Diana.)  We lived on wild strawberries picked from the hedgerows...and I had but a single shirt and not a single care.

This is one of the paintings I made en route. 

Three remarkable women…

This is my tribute to three remarkable women who have entered my life.

The first is Sheila Hyndman, a Virgin Island poet with the potential to move the world.  I first met Sheila when we took part in a radio panel discussion on the arts.  At that time, Sheila was still at High School.  In later years, I illustrated her volume of poems.  Sheila had a huge creative impact on my work.  As her mentor and fellow writer Jennie Wheatley said, “…you soared to heights unknown (and) what you garnered at those heights you brought to lesser mortals…”

The second is Jane Toye.  Jane was a thalidomide baby - the drug responsible for one of the biggest medical tragedies of modern times.  However, neither deformity nor disability could quell Jane’s humour, drive and jest for life.  We served on committees together.  Jane's diminutive size never stopped her from getting a word in edgeways and together we fought many a battle for the West Yorkshire town of Sowerby Bridge.

The third is Clara Baron.  When we first came to Dominica we purchased our fruit and vegetables from Clara’s market stall.  I have never known Clara not to have a wonderful smile on her face or laughter in her voice.  The smile was there even on the day when Denise and I visited her in hospital after she had her leg amputated due to diabetes.  Over the years, she became a firm friend and every week we’d talk over the phone.  My calls were meant to keep Clara’s spirits up, whereas in fact, she always turned the tables and kept my spirits up instead.  Clara was the most courageous and caring person I have ever known.

Sadly, all three of my good friends left this earth suddenly and all too soon:  Sheila in 1991, Jane in 2006 and Clara just yesterday.  I miss them all.

I never had chance to paint Jane or Clara, but here is a sketch I made of Sheila.

Nurturing new talent…

On Wednesday, I painted a portrait for children attending this year’s summer creative arts programme at Dominica’s Old Mill Cultural Centre.  Claudia, a student who had just celebrated her ninth birthday, was my model for the session.  Thank you for modelling Claudia – the painting is yours as a birthday present.

There can be few creative art venues on earth as invigorating as The Old Mill.   I first visited the centre in 1990 and it was one of the main reasons for relocating my studio to Dominica six years ago.  Over the years, Raymond Lawrence and Pearl Christian, together with the rest of the staff, have become good friends.  Their talents cover all facets of the arts: music, dance, theatre, writing, painting and woodcarving.  I look forward to working with them again in the near future.

Our son Tristan is on the front row and he's enjoying the sessions immensely.

The Colour Black…

Forty-five years ago I declared myself as an artist on the pavements of France.  Last Friday I declared myself as a poet at the opening night of the Dominica Literature Festival.  My daughter Tania – the real poet in the family - was also selected to read.  Unfortunately, she came down with a virus and had to stand down.  The Dominica Writers’ Guild had asked for submission on the theme of colour.   Tania’s unread poem was titled, The Colour Of Her Soul and mine, The Colour Black.  

Black,

At a cursory glance

All shades are reduced to just that.

But to the painter, poet and lover

A hundred hues compete,

With the jet of her cane-row hair

And the pale saffron soles of her feet.

 

Put aside your tubes of Scarlet Lake,

And erase cloy similes of peach. 

Look instead at freshly tilled earth

Or a wave-washed volcanic sand beach.

Cinnamon bark and breadfruit leaf,

Coffee beans in the warmth of the sun.

These tints her whole being encapsulates,

With nature’s own colours, she’s one.

From the dark areola of her breast

Brown madder and yellow ochre merge. 

While sienna reds and blues subdued

In deep purple shadows converge.

Bold washes from her shoulders run

To trace the curve of her spine,

Elsewhere they accumulate

To hide a forested secret - that’s mine!

False mascara need not disguise

The warm sepia bloom of her cheek.

And applied loud rouge cannot improve

On rust-red coral - to her lips unique.

Just as her spirit cannot be bound,

To the pallid accepted norm.

Nor can the colours with which she abounds

Deny the race to which she was born.

Thus, to mellow tones my muse awakes

With shades of the islands beneath her feet.

With fervent passion I respond,

My sketch from life is complete.  

I dedicated the poem to Denise, my wife and model. Denise courageously read the work on stage.  A daunting task when your audience includes some of the Caribbean’s finest poets and writers.  Today’s picture shows Denise in her more familiar role, encompassing all shades of The Colour Black.