Celia Paul, 1976. Photograph: image courtesy Celia Paul

"Graves, in their neat rows like houses in the streets, their doors firmly locked, are our attempt at preserving the boundaries that identify an individual life. But the dead rise up into the upper air and are possessed by anyone who breathes. There is no such thing as respect for the dead and we are all grave robbers."

Letters to Gwen John by Celia Paul.

Celia Paul (British, 1959), My Window onto the British Museum, 2019. Oil on canvas, 56 x 56 in.

Celia Paul - My Mother in a Green Jumper

 “La segunda vez que vine a Estados Unidos fui a Yale. Cuando llegué, estaba nevando. La nieve tuvo un efecto sedante que atenuó la ansiedad de estar fuera de casa. Pero había algo mejor: la galería del Centro de Arte Británico de Yale tenía gran parte de tu obra. Tus pinturas me parecieron fragmentos esenciales de una vida arrastrada por el océano, como pétalos de rosa en una tormenta: delicadas, rotas, inacabadas pero al mismo tiempo intactas y evocadoras de un mundo secreto y aromático, un jardín de rosas protegido”

Cartas a Gwen John, Celia Paul.

Retrato de Gladys Jones (1878 - 1953) seudónimo Gwen John

the language of painting—this subterranean language that speaks most powerfully to lost souls

I had ventured out to the Frick Collection and found consolation in Rembrandt’s great masterpiece: his Self-Portrait dressed in gold, the postcard of which I keep on the shelf in my studio in London. I looked into his shrewd, kind, knowing eyes and felt more grounded suddenly. It made me aware of the urgent importance of the language of painting—this subterranean language that speaks most powerfully to lost souls.

—  Celia Paul, Letters to Gwen John (New York Review of Books, April 26, 2022) 

Celia Paul Daffodils 2022

Books Read in May:

1). Running in the Family (Michael Ondaatje)

2). I Capture the Castle (Dodie Smith)

3). Fruits of the Earth (André Gide)

4). Matrix (Lauren Groff)

5). Ghosts (Eva Figes)

6). The Siege (Helen Dunmore)

7). The Gate of Angels (Penelope Fitzgerald)

8). Stet: An Editor’s Life (Diana Athill)

9). Self-Portrait (Celia Paul)

Rounding up my 2022 reading! 😊📚

Rounding up my 2022 reading! 😊📚

As we approach the end of yet another year (where *does* the time go????) I face up to the difficult task of trying to sum up my best books of the year. Many admirable bloggers manage to pick out top fives or tens or whatevers of their books in an actual countdown to a single favourite book!!! I can rarely manage that, and I put this down to my grasshopper mind and the number of different types…

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“The poet T. S. Eliot, whose poems would be important to you, I know, was right in describing April as the cruellest month, ‘stirring / Dull roots with spring rain’. I have been feeling torn apart by two conflicting emotions - as Eliot puts it, ‘Memory and desire’. “

From Letters to Gwen John by Celia Paul

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

Subspace Rhapsody

STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS 2x09 "Subspace Rhapsody" behind the scenes

"It's such a cool concept. It's not a musical episode. It is an episode about very real people being stuck in a musical experience." - Anson Mount, The Ready Room interview, Aug 3 2023

Source: Official clip

On the shelf in my studio in Bloomsbury are four postcards of paintings that I love: The Blue Rigi, Sunrise by J.M.W. Turner; Stonehenge, a watercolour by John Constable; Self-Portrait by Rembrandt, dated 1658; and The Convalescent by Gwen John.

Just one look at this reproduction of Gwen John’s painting and my breathing becomes easier. The whole composition is a symphony in grey. She must have mixed the colours on her palette first—Payne’s Grey, Prussian Blue, Naples Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Brown Ochre, Rose Madder, Flake White—then all the other colours would be dipped in this combination so that every form is united in grey: the dark blue of the girl’s dress, the thrush-egg blue of the cushion behind her back and the tablecloth, the rose pink of the cup and saucer echoing the delicate pink of her fingernails and lips, the teapot like a shiny chestnut. The wall behind her is flecked with mustard-coloured dots placed randomly and precisely, as marks in nature always are, like the speckles on an egg. The painting is as fragile and robust as an egg—the structure of the composition holds everything in place; this delicate painting will endure.

Gwen John instructs the model to loosen her hair and part it in the middle. She wants the model to resemble her. Before Gwen starts the painting, she positions herself in the wicker chair and tells her model that she must sit in exactly the same pose. Gwen lowers her eyes and holds a small piece of paper in her hands. She is completely still, and her stillness pervades the space around her. The room becomes silent. The model now copies Gwen; she looks down at her hands, and she doesn’t look up until she has heard that Gwen approves.

—  Celia Paul, Letters to Gwen John (New York Review of Books, April 26, 2022)