The Reluctant Muse…

One hour she said. It must be close to an hour now.

‘What’s the time, Mum.’

‘Not yet an hour’, she replied, not looking at her watch.

She was concentrating on painting of course, so didn’t want to be distracted. A little touch here, a little touch there. I couldn’t see what she was doing of course as I was the one she was painting.

My Mum was an artist, and I was her constant, and reluctant, muse. It was never easy just sitting there and trying not to move. I really don’t know how artists models cope with it. It’s supposed to be a compliment if someone wants to paint you, but I never thought like that.

It’s surprising how much you want to move when you’re not meant to. Those itches that suddenly appear and need scratching. That position that seemed comfortable to start with that now hurts in various places – and always the bottom. And worst of all, it was really boring. There was never much conversation as my Mum rarely talked while painting or drawing. For her, she needed the concentration. For me, I needed a clock to look at.

Then it would be,

‘Ten more minutes.’

And then,

‘Ten more minutes.’

It would usually be far more than an hour when I was released from my muse’s shackles, and even then reluctantly. I would then take a look at the work of art.

‘I’ve been trying to get your nose/ear/eyes/mouth.’

My Mum was a good artist, but never in her eyes. She never felt she was as good as she could be. She liked fine art, and graded Gainsborough at the top, and more modern artists like David Shepherd who paints African animals. That was the standard she wanted to achieve.

In the early 1980s, she took an evening class in drawing and passed her O level with flying colours. I have lots of her drawings from that time, many of course of me. Her tutor told her class, that if they were stuck for anything to draw at home, to draw feet. That, he said, would be a good practise. So there are lots of feet in amongst my Mum’s drawings.

In the photo above you can see some of my Mum’s work. On the easel is my paternal grandmother. Gran was very flattered to have her portrait done. On the piano is a harbour painting, and top left (just seen) is a sunset silhouette. The latter was coveted by various family members. (Oh, and me at the piano.) She also had paintings lining the staircase wall and other places in the house.

Despite being a reluctant muse, I learnt a lot about art from her – how to look at art, what to notice, what makes a good artist. So, I’m able to look at art with a critical eye, and try and view what the artist is trying to represent, their artistic skills etc.

I remember one holiday where we went to Cornwall (SW England). It’s a beautiful part of the country and a haunt for many artists. On one of the days we were there we visited St Ives, which is the centre of artistic life in Cornwall, and the Tate Gallery. I wanted to understand more about modern art and try to get behind the eyes of those artists.

There was one particular painting there that took my attention. It was a huge canvas and it looked like a photo. It was a landscape of the seashore at night. On closer inspection I saw that it was made up of tiny dots of paint, and yet on standing back it was like a photo. The realism was extraordinary.

I enjoyed art at school, but my education was so fractured by ill health that I never got round to really developing any talent. But by then I was concentrating on writing, so art never really got a look in. It’s only recently that I have had the desire to paint.

I’ve been reading about the Bloomsbury group, which included Virginia Woolf, but particularly about her elder sister Vanessa Bell. Vanessa was an excellent artist but, like my Mum, never in her own eyes. She is considered the first female artist to paint in the abstract style, and she was constantly looking at the European world of art to try out new ideas.

Vanessa was trained at the Royal Academy of Art and had some of her work displayed and praised at various exhibitions. She loved colour and embraced it in her home as much as her canvases. Her countryside retreat in Sussex is replete with wall paintings, along with furniture, doors and pretty much anything that could be painted. She lived in the house with her lover Duncan Grant, also an artist, and together created an internal masterpiece that is a labyrinth of colour.

My Mum stopped painting and drawing in the late 1990s. I think she lost her energy and enthusiasm for it. In her late 70s she took up digital photography, and was very, very good at it. She loved taking photos of wildlife – birds, insects, flowers. So, she remained artistic in a different way.

Various family members have inherited my Mum’s artist streak. One of my nieces is a talented drawer, as is one of her sons. I’m glad that it continues on.

Copyright © 2023 Charlotte Clark