The two pictures are a year apart. The first was taken a few days after Hurricane Maria and the second was taken this afternoon.
Nature has made an amazing comeback. Flora that I thought was lost forever is blossoming again. Our bananas, oranges and limes are again there for the picking. Even the river has reverted back to its old course.
How I wish that building back structures could go at the same pace. In my case it's not so much a case of Kipling's "building them up again with worn-out tools". The tools are okay, it's more a case of worn out me.
For weeks my days have been spent putting things back together again. And there's a lot more to do before I can get back to painting.
Just as I started picking up the pieces from last year's hurricane, Tropical Storm Isaac headed directly towards Dominica. This time around it was torrential rain rather than hurricane force winds. Nevertheless, outdoor work is on hold.
As sitting around doing nothing would drive me insane, I've spent my time making a shirt. Over the years I have frequently been reduced to making my own shirts and shorts. The reason being that here in the tropics it's impossible to find clothing suited to a hot climate. Shirts are in polyester and shorts come way down below the knees. My shirts are in light weight cotton and my shorts are even lighter and shorter.
Today's picture picture shows Marcella's torso doubling as a tailor's dummy. I'm sure that when she finds out she'll claim the shirt as her own!
Incidentally, some years ago I launched my own fashion label for the tropics and named it, "Bare Minimum".
It is almost a year ago since Hurricane Maria wracked havoc to my island of Dominica. Luckily, my main studio and workshops survived but our gardens and the gazebo that I used for life classes did not fare as well.
After the hurricane I was on a creative high and up until now my time has been spent painting and sculpting rather than repairing the damage. But for the time being I have exhausted my creative muse and vacant and pensive moods have taken hold. Fortunately, for this malaise I have a cure: that is to throw myself into hard physical work. Hence, I am now picking up and putting back together the pieces that Maria blew down.
The curious thing is, when my muscles ache my hands are blistered, my muse shyly begins to favour me again.
V. S. Naipaul, to my mind the greatest and most perceptive Caribbean writer of the 20th century, died last month. In memory, I am re-reading (I've lost count of the number of times) his masterpiece, "The Enigma of Arrival".
In that book he refers to a writer friend's "admiration of certain writers and artists (and) his wish to do again, but for himself, what they had done.."
How true of myself! In a hundred year's time I doubt that anyone will bother about my work as a sculptor, regardless of my admiration of Rodin, although it is as a sculptor that, during my lifetime, I have received some degree of recognition. However, there is a chance that someone will re-discover my watercolours, especially those in my series "Daughters of the Caribbean Sun".
Today's painting was hurriedly chosen at random from hundreds of paintings in that series.
