The colour of things… The spirit of things…
My life, and I assume yours, is coloured and recoloured daily…
Sometimes the colours and pigments that stir and dawb the surface of our lives make a confused mess. Sometimes the views can be kept in-check, geometry maintained, balance and harmony constructed. More often for me an abstraction and uncrafted disjunctive perspective dominates.
Like an ongoing painting, our spirits are momentarily and daily reworked in various ways…
As I sat earlier eating my Thai Sweet Chicken McCoys and my Shippam’s crab paste ‘n’ salad sandwiches (with the kids home-grown cress), I was reminded of the above: we are a product of our senses. Our spirit is a product and reaction to our encounters. We make decisions and assumptions based on a cumulative effect of our experiences, but essentially it’s down to our reception of our world.
Back to my sandwich; Shippam’s in Newlyn closed in 1980s – my crab sandwich reminds me of Newlyn in Cornwall. Despite now living as far from the sea as is possible in the UK, I regularly see birds, or the sky, and truthfully imagine that the Cornish ‘North Cliffs’ and Godreavy are but a mile away. I would die if I couldn’t recall this ‘spirit’ from Cornwall. Despite knowing we are essentially alone in this world, among other things ‘the spirits of life’ are one thing that keeps me from unraveling.
All things come to an end but spirit can be strong.
Simple strong base layers…
My Cornish childhood spent a stone’s throw from the vast ocean will never leave me and is always present. I guess we all have things that we cherish that are essential parts of our make up.
Recent news about the RNMDSF building in Newlyn Cornwall ‘up for sale’ reminded me of times when, as a small lad, we would go to a Sunday evening ‘service’ at the said Fishermen’s Mission and one song amongst others springs to mind.
I recall a large smoky room, fishermen’s shadows in corners, a snooker table taller than me and plaques, awards and a sense of refuge. I recall songs about anchors, safe-return, loss, toil and light. The sound of my grandmother and the colour and spirit of this song, might fade but will always be present:
When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed,
When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count your many blessings, name them one by one…
Yes, there are many other tunes that have coloured my outlook, by The Jam, Tchaikovsky, The Hothouse Flowers and Nina Simone etc. They all lie under the surface of my life’s painting, under the colours that are mixed up daily.
I value greatly the underlying colours that underpin my perspectives.
I value foundational spirits in a picture that’s made up of many levels of encounter.
I am pleased that it’s still being creatively worked on daily.
Yes, the colours often blur and run…
But I think the colours we live with, the spirit/s that keep us truly alive, should be shared.
Here’s to the reality of spirit; to flavours, colours, images, sounds, thoughts and feelings…
Less fabrication, polish, and plastic. Less catalogued lifestyle, less click and collect culture.
Were you there when the sun refused to shine? (Were you there?)
Were you there when the sun refused to shine?
O-o-o-oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble! tremble! tremble!…
Here’s to more recognition of our “spirit” ?
Jules P Richards 