Queen Joker
Victim
Prostitute Gambler
Saboteur
King Guide Servant Judge Mother Child Lyn Bainbridge Vampire
Basildon Essex UK
T
he family joke is that I was born clutching a pencil. Put simply, writing and art have played the central role in my life. The eldest of five children and leading a peripatetic early life due to my father’s work, these two things were more than play. They became the way of understanding a shifting world and explaining it to myself. I have strong Hermit and Seeker archetypes. I often stand back but need to see the things and people who surround me and to discern their essential qualities. This has shaped my working life as a teacher of English and Creative Writing and as weaver and portrait artist. My Buddhist practice teaches me see directly without judgements. Seeing with my whole being is the best way I know to understand myself and to bear witness to the wonderful diversity of the world we inhabit.
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Following a major illness in 2018 I was looking for my way back into art. I needed my Magical Child again and decided to set myself a challenge that would take me away from the precision of portraiture. I decided to play with nonrepresentational forms with a limited palette of colours that simply appealed to me. Mars Black, Titanium White, Cadmium Red, and a delicious Phthalo Green were applied to gessoed paper with no outcome intended. Layers were added and overpainted just to enjoy the process of handling the paint. It was a surprise to step back and see ghostly figures moving across the paper. I saw the interplay of all my Archetypes, my whole history. Ghosts is the result. It gave such pleasure and reconnected me with my love of painting. I hope to develop the image into a series of abstract paintings and weavings building on this feeling and these themes.
