JANE

When I draw,

I need to feel my way in through touch, both real and imaginary. When I draw, I search out what it means to be you whether you are a root, a twisted oak or my mother.

In drawing you, I draw you close to me, I understand you more and find that my world grows richer.

6 weeks of drawing together, as Autumn became Winter, I can now look at the drawings I made and am ready to listen to what they say to me about how to ‘Winter Well’.

We were invited to make visible the invisible, to draw the underground life of Winter. I made studies and mapped the root structures of plants in my garden. Through these drawings I have discovered that a key to Wintering Well is the sensitive negotiation of obstacles and an ability to adapt and change course.

I found a unifying pattern of life as I searched out and drew distorted, knobbly branches, trees that hugged close to the hillside and the curved, bent spine and twisted arthritic fingers of my mother. The forces and storms that each have been exposed to leave their marks. These drawings speak of the role of resilience and endurance in challenging times.

Monochrome… black and white, black on black, the subtleties of greys...speak not only of the starkness of Winter but also of the mistiness when things become unclear and indistinct. Drawing in the darkest night without a torch, depth perception diminishes, and shapes merge; a tree trunk and a patch of shadow become one. These drawings teach me of the mysteries that winter holds.

The drawings I made of the delicate and the precious, layered between transparent papers and revealed by letting light shine through them, were quiet drawings. These drawings lead me to treasure the peacefulness of winter, a quietening down and a call to live our inner space well.

I discovered the value of letting one drawing lead to another. I discovered that drawings can converse together regardless of whether they speak the same language. They may argue or agree, add to, or detract from what each other is saying but a dialogue is created and with this there is an incubating of the new within the old.

I realise that not all my drawings will Winter Well. I am excited to meet the next one!