The U Turn Portraits-Part 3
“There are very few honest friends–the demand is not particularly great.” Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
One of the greatest consequences of the blog and drawing people again, is the realisation that an awful lot of those “people” were my friends. During the four year drought apart from making one or two new uni friends, it is true that in keeping my head down and surviving the rigours of study I managed to temporarily “mislay” some of the old ones.
“ A true friend never gets in your way unless you are going down.” Arnold H. Glasgow
It was an unexpected gift from a uni friend and the stoking up of old memories by the drawing that made me nostalgic for coffee and DM’s (deep and meaningful chats). Hayley (aka cloud girl) was always posting pictures of clouds on FB. The images are amazing and at some point I suggested that they would make a great book, not thinking that Hayley would actually make a book and actually send one to me. It came out of the blue- (no pun intended) on a grey miserable day when I was feeling distinctly overcast. Well-it was like the sun coming out! Each page an ethereal and fiery manifestation ripe for projection-I see Turner and Tiepolo. It is now one of my most precious possessions.
Yes’m, old friends is always best, ‘less you can catch a new one that’s fit to make an old one out of. Sarah Orne Jewett
Fig.2 Newish friend Timandra relaxed which enabled me to-no posing just chatting. It is interesting how when someone isn’t posing, they might move around a bit but repeatedly fall back into habitual and familiar (for them) shapes.
“Friendship is a harmonious blending of mutual, private bigotries.” Edward Ashenhurst
Sarah one of my dearest and oldest friends (the friendship part not her age) lives a long way away but fortunately we have a great phone relationship, punctuated by occasional face to face visits-all too far apart. Although she knows me very well she never takes advantage of my weak spots and also never gives false praise but occasionally says things like this: “Ps. love the drawing of Kyri, even if it wasn’t a portrait of a much loved it just has that essence of young boy.”(See Fig. Post ) I could probably tell her anything.
“A relationship, I think, is like a shark, you know? It has to constantly move forward or it dies.” Woody Allen
So this week Sarah and I met in London and found: some Rembrandts, a couple of Van Gogh’s a Manet and a Monet, all old friends-but re-visited, re-evaluated and re-instated, just like our friendship. We ended up speaking in hushed whispers in the hallowed halls of the Tate Modern with another old friend, Rothko. Seen through another lens now but just as dear to me.
“Go often to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path.” Ralph Waldo Emmerson
Coming soon, actual watercolour.
