suspend disbelief…

The passage of time… the wonder, the playfulness and the terror of a very young child, the joy of youthful exuberance, the devastating grief on burying a parent is captured here in a stream of consciousness first published in touches of sense…in 2014 .

All the episodes described are tied to places in Britain: lying in a summer field, cloud-gazing as a four or five year old, lying in bed and being afraid of a monster revealed in the shadows of curtains, careering down the Lakeland fells as a youth on holiday, inviting you to discover the tree in the garden - my best friend as a young child, standing in a hillside cemetery, as a 40 year old, in Somerset, looking up across the levels towards Glastonbury Tor.

The eyes of this child, his contemplative, imaginative way of making connections with nature remains in the adult. If I was asked to express how I see the world, what emotions are present in my meaning-making, my mark-making, my art-making then I would perhaps offer you these words.

If I remain an atheist, I have a strong sense of spirituality.

If I don’t believe in life after death, those who are dead remain alive for me.

I am an artist exploring the ephemeral nature of life via figuration and abstraction, flow and scribble, intention and serendipity.

When I am dead but not buried, maybe someone will feel some sense in what I have done and be touched.

The sky an epiphany in blue, the back of my scalp is rested and given form by wirily-summered meadow. I am bathed in foetus warmth.

Way above us, our gaze is lost amid an unfolding story of the clouds. I am in wonder, I am four or perhaps five years old....and now you lie beside me.

Who would believe us now, when we recount the fluid sense that was there, that instant, speaking to us?

Lambs aleaping.

Youthful momentum rebounds from rock to rock, I go careering down the hillside. With each bound I am flying, I am part of all and electron libre.

Freedom, you can see me now.

Mid-way down the slope, I am in flow, joy, exhilaration. The summer sun is ecstatic, the mountain laughs but lets me live.

I inspire, sheep bleating echoes from the valley.

You are far behind me, less carefree, more calculating perhaps, but witness to grace.

One breathless leap...you are there.

We are together.

A secret to keep.

It was mine. It was my friend, the tree in the garden. We enjoyed so many adventures together. Even felled, he lives on in these leaves.

Seeing as you're here, I shall let you share my branch, just this instant. Shh.. make no noise for fear that the giants break our hide.

Tread carefully, the passage over the wall was my secret.

Not even my brother knew about it...before you came.

If you dare, you can follow me, your foot there, your hand here.

Let yourself slip.

Noone can see you, now.

That my friend is the secret tunnel away from the wall.

Don't worry, I've been here loads of times.

Keep your head down.

Oops.

Ha ha ha ha...

Rewind for fear.

I can't swear, I don't have permission. I am way too young now.

Thank goodness you are there.

The curtains are moving.

The monster, the wolf is here in the shadows.

Making meaning, making terrible meaning the breeze from the window ajar.

I am convinced, I am afraid, I am its prey...

if it weren't for your presence, downstairs in the kitchen.

The wolf is kept at bay by cutlery clattering in the sink.

My grief is standing on a slope.

His frame is boxed rudely. The weight is taken by Dickensian extras dressed for typhoid victims.

Death is so bloody unmodern.

The weight of the earth was stacked up around the rectangular drop, disguised for the occasion by red velveted carpet.

Wind-swept rain pricks and veils my tears, standing lopsidely on a shallow slope.

This is how it happens, to those one loves.

No denying the brutal melodrama of an absurd separation.

Unable to bare the enormity of the scene, I look around, across to the Tor anchored away on the levels.

Defiantly a child-drawn rainbow appears.

It gives me closure and hope.

He lives with me now. He is not gone, his gouache is etched in my soul.

I shall bear grief with joy.

We don't end my friend, we become particles for a child's studious science.