Fruits of Her Labour

egg tempera on panel, 36 x 29 cm, framed St Ives style, October 2023

‘He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist,’ Francis of Assisi.

After I set up this still life, it lurked and I swooned at the colour and tried to decide what I was going to say. The semi-intentionality of setting up a still life is the launchpad of my painting, it’s part of the hard work. The hardest part, for me, is waiting to get started, letting things percolate, giving way to the life of life, before beginning something new.

Perhaps I’m saying that there is art in so much of what we do: the flowers we grow, the fruit we choose to eat, the way a table is set. Art as life and that the assemblage is who we are, or at least who I am.