Up in my studio....

I have four  paintings lined up against my studio wall, each one sort of clamouring for my attention like pesky kids sometimes do; and I catch myself sneakily peaking at them (like an over anxious mother does!) on occasions when my concentration and focus is meant to be else where! Pinks and greys and oranges and blues....all seated in confidence with the belief that they alone command the most delight of all; whilst objects and figures jostle together, elbowing and nudging one another to hold their rightful place for my consideration.

I know when a painting is finally finished because it sort of doesn't allow me to fidget with it any more. It rejects even  my surreptitious attempts to gain re-entry into its formation; and on those few occasions of stubborn insistence to impose and not heed what the painting quietly suggests, I have maimed and destroyed their inherent energies irrevocably.

A finished painting holds a space of it's own. You interact with it something like the way you engage with your adult child: in the knowledge that it comes from you; but often within a space where it turns back to teach you something from it's separated existence.

As an exhibition date nears I also love the swelling up of my studio with the work that fills its space - like a pregnant belly, ripe and ready to yield something you know; yet full of nuanced surprises that hold you equally in awe and anticipation.

Different friends hop off the shelves of my library and whisper different things to me. Manuscript paintings and favourite images become animated in the passion of mingling my senses into their intoxicating vibrancy. I strut around my studio wrapped these days in colourful sari's and bling bindi's, with the excitement of a performer preparing for my deliverance.

My studio reverberates with music these days. Joan Baez, Miles Davis, M.S Subbulakshmi, Indian Ocean, Zila Khan....three angels hold a new born infant on a pink background. This is the painting that calls out the loudest to me today. By this evening it may become quieter and need me less.