Excerpt | Intermittent • Constant: Helen Glassford

Excerpt

Intermittent ¡ Constant Helen Glassford

An excerpt from the full book, which can be read at helenglassford.co.uk

Artworks on paper created during the Covid-19 Lockdown of 2020

Helen Glassford

May 7th 2020 Day 47

This project was conceived to enable me to keep doing what I know and love best at a time of huge uncertainty. The worldwide threat of Covid-19 has affected us all in ways we could never have imagined only a few months ago. Our understanding of freedom has been uprooted and shaken and change in our lives has taken place at an alarming rate. Along with the feeling of futility in the face of something greater than us we have to adapt and alter.

We face social reconstruction in order to safeguard lives. We are experiencing fear towards something that is intangible yet lethal.

We cannot meet, face to face, our loved ones, our friends and acquaintances, all those people who add value and validate our everyday lives.

In response to this change my mind has turned to the human need for the constant and the routine – for at times like these we are told that routine is good for us. It helps us structure our day and our thoughts. It makes us feel safe.

But at times of stress and change this can be harder to achieve.

Our minds are interrupted by myriad concerns – about health and physical threat, future work and finances, home-schooling...

Normal concentration levels are difficult to maintain. Despite our need for the constant, we may find that the intermittent becomes the new normal. Might this be better in the long run? Some of us need change to thrive. The surprise and intermittent are qualities of life I relish and to them I feel profound gratitude. Perhaps exactly these qualities are the most beautiful and enlightening. If everything was expected and predicted would it continue to be valued?

This project has gained momentum over the six weeks (so far) of Lockdown and has gradually developed in response to it. Even the word ‘Lockdown’ summons psychological connotations of being trapped, being unable to reach the usual places where we go for a sense of ease. But escape, whether mental or physical, is often essential. My wish has been to create windows into that part of the physical world we cannot visit just now, to act as visual aids that allow us to venture wherever our minds will take us. Memory plays a huge part in all of this. To gift the sense of the drama and beauty of the far-flung places in Scotland, and to tell stories of the liberating adventures in remote places is my goal.

The well-known intermittent qualities of the Scottish weather will forever be a source of inspiration for me; in all their gloom and glory.

It is predictable in its unpredictability.

I aim to reflect the intensity of our situation in each of these paintings: whether directly with the suggestion of foreboding weather, or mindfully with calming bands of colour allowing breathing spaces for the mind to rest. Glimpses of sea aim to give hope, along with the scarred rocky shores – a suggestion of times once lived and survived.

Each painting is in mixed media, sometimes graphite to start, acrylic and pastel. Some lighter in touch, others more menacing and gestural.

For me, this body of work reflects the times we are in whilst also offering a piece of Scottish escapism to ease the spirit.

Painting is my constant, and I will continue to paint – somewhat intermittently – the constantly changing personality of the Scottish Landscape.

May 2020 Read the full eBook at helenglassford.co.uk Physical book coming soon

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