Lately I’ve been working on some smallish prints inspired by the work of Tom Phillips, who created the art-piece/ novel, A Humument, a page of which is pictured below:
Phillips created beautiful art work as well as a whole new story by painting/ drawing over the pages of a Victorian novel. He leaves certain words visible, and his novel has an actual narrative with recurring characters – lovely, and so original.
I decided to do something similar in spirit, but with a different aesthetic. I’m not quite ambitious enough to attempt a whole novel (plus it’s already been done!) so mine are more like short poems. It reminds me fridge poetry in that you have a limited choice of words, but can the results can be surprisingly lyrical. Here is my attempt, done with ink and watercolour on vellum over a page from Alice in Wonderland. The drawing itself was inspired by a Julia Margaret Cameron photograph.
It is entitled, So Very Dear to Her, and prints are available in my shop.
This weekend we went for the most beautiful walk in a very quiet, sweet little neighbourhood in the south of Montreal called Point St. Charles. It’s very close to where we live, just south of the Lachine Canal, but somehow, in our nearly two years here, we’d never been before. There’s not much in the way of stores, restaurants, etc., but it’s very green and residential and so tranquil it almost felt like being in a small town rather than a city of millions, and somewhat from another era as well. There were many lovely little houses very typical of the Montreal style of architecture, and I fell in love with the area. I thought I’d include a few pictures so you could see how pretty it was...
This place reminded me of something out of a fairy tale - beautiful but a bit decrepit and tumble-down,
as though it's been forgotten for years. Here's a picture of the doors (I had to fight the urge to go in!):
