“You guys have no idea how painful it is to have been young during the absolute peak era of the greatest empire in human history and now be forced to watch it all unravel. The saddest part is that we are doing it to ourselves. Absolutely agonizing experience. Like watching the most beautiful person you know slowly mutilate themselves”
American writer Peachy Keenan, she adds:
“16 years old, two American girls running around London, backpacking around Europe on a shoestring, getting cultured, having adventures, zero danger, no problems, no crime, no fear. A moveable feast of delights now totally lost forever to the mists of time.”
I have written about how difficult it was for me to adjust to civil society having been brought up on RAF camps until I left home to go to art college. To move from a society in married quarters stratified by rank, a society structured around rank and enforced by its own police, the RAF ‘snowdrops’ into the random individualised mess of ‘civil society’ was, ‘interesting’…especially in the adventurous years of the mid 1960’s when civil convention was being challenged in hair and dress styles, music and film, in culture generally. Very unlike the socialist conformism in the English arts today.
As I learned the skills that enabled me to live as an artist and designer (which I have been now for over 60 years) I tried to learn how to live within the randomness of English life, to see the patterns underneath, to understand the ‘rules’ of behaviour as they were. Maybe the stratified service life I had lived within (believe me a snowdrop using his webbing belt on your 13-year-old legs gives good reason to understand the rules) gave me an ability to see the layers of command and control in a way perhaps others did not – after all I came new to this society, a refugee from a different culture, and observed with different understanding. I have always felt I stood apart.
Acrylic on 330 gram paper with oil pastel additions. 27x 16 inches. POA
As I developed as a painter then my work began to reflect this understanding. As I have written previously in my piece entitled ‘Decay’
“As society has become more complex so those rules have become more complex till they’ve reached the point where they know they no longer hold any truth for many of us”
And I have continued to reflect on our society since. In 2015 my own decay began when I was diagnosed with cancer and this blow restricted my physical mobility, but fortunately I live in a corner of England renowned for its beauty. I discovered that beauty had pretty useless guardians and was being allowed, even encouraged, to decay. In this I saw parallels with the carelessness of our elites – not just politician and senior civil servants, police etc., but the guardians of the soul of our country, the Church and the Royal Family. Giving leaderships that were meaningless: politicians; an archbishop who professes to doubt the existence of God; a King who talks to flowers in a family riven with dissent both contrasting strongly with the strength of their predecessors. It was inevitable that self-indulgence would take priority over pride.
‘The Last Bolt or the End of Empire’ Acrylic on 330gsm gesso primed paper oil pastel and charcoal additions, glazed. 27 x 16 inches POA
So as my coastline decayed, its decay has mirrored and tracked the decay of a nation. I followed in Salter’s footsteps in my walks. My processes differed from his wood cut procedures but were just as disciplined in exploring technique and colour using skills developed in colleges in the late 60’s. For nigh on ten years I have wandered, recorded and transcribed my seeing decay into paint through notebooks and works on paper and canvas. Now as I watch our nation slide into the terminal stages of decline and collapse I seem to have also reached the end of this line of reflection. I think the two images I show here, and the photograph that is the header of this piece showing England Bleeds, draw to a sorrowing conclusion and mark the true end of Empire.
My 77 years track the wasted opportunities that result from the lack of true vision of the nation we were. I approach my own end determined now to close my eyes to the fall, to focus again on the immutable beauty of our country, my garden. A new thread will come from this retreat, new work will appear. I will try to find contentment in my decline. I wish my countrymen joy in the struggles ahead.
“Show off your best moves
And do it with a smile so he doesn’t know its
put on, put on, put on
strut the fuck around like you’ve got nothing to lose
show off, show off, show off your best moves”
from ‘Gaslighter’ by the Dixie Chicks
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