Obstacle 2

Return to me 
mixed media on canvas 30x26"
Megan Chapman 2006
private collection

Hello, there studio blog readers, 

Thank you to everyone who read last week's post. I appreciate hearing from you across my social media channels. Always good to get feedback, hear if something resonates, or just to see a friendly hello, a name and a face. 

Today I am up at dawn monitoring the breathing of my cat, feeling how small he has become and how soft and delicate. I turn the light on in the darkness to see how his eyes look and I plot my next course of action. He needs to eat - today is the day I open the forbidden small tin of food - to mix some in with his prescription that he only licks these days. He needs subcutaneous fluids too. And after the sub-Qs, he will get a bit of an equally forbidden lick-e-lix treat. We have played by all the rules for so long, we have done our very best, and now we are tired - we need a few rewards. 

Before warming the fluids and brandishing the needle, I tidy up the kitchen and let him linger by his water bowl unsuspecting. As he sits "turkey style" staring into nothing and everything, I look out the window watching the world wake up. I put things in order, walking quietly for some reason and yet moving with decisive action. It reminds me of the past. 

It reminds me of hearing the calling at 3am and rolling out of bed to float up the stairs to my attic studio to put on my headphones and get lost in music and paint. Dancing upstairs with Alizarin Crimson, Orange Oxide, Gold, and Phalo Blue...  

"I'm gonna pull you in close

I'm gonna wrap you up tight

I'm gonna play with the braids that you came here with tonight..."

(I am back there now - dancing in the attic to Interpol - walking and working in dream time, painting for you and you and you and I am still in my 30s and it seems like all the doors are still open). 

And then the track changes and I am back sitting here at the table. My sick cat is resting, tears are close to my eyes and I am 51 living in Edinburgh, Scotland. I have closed a lot of the doors and I have had more than a few closed on me...

And I am sitting with all this space and I envision doing something out of the ordinary - you know like painting or drawing... How did this happen?