Lead Kindly Light

Lead Kindly Light

I painted yesterday. It started out to look like another day when I would end up with nothing but a fuller bin. It turned out to be instead a day with a happy accident. I had started to paint something else but I was not at all happy with it. My concentration level would be slipping because of this and so the mistake occurred. I lifted the wrong colour. At the speed I paint there is never a coming back from that. But I did like what had happened on the canvas.

I made a coffee and stood looking at the happy accident. As those who follow my blogs know I have been walking the coastal path near where I stay. I intend to do it all, and the way I am doing it in sections walking out and back, when I have finished I will have seen it both ways. It is 150km so I will be having a few walks.

As I looked I saw different aspects of the walks I have been having. I put them together to come up with this painting. It is a painting of nowhere and lots of places. One of the little fishing villages, look at it from a distance. The lighthouse I saw the other day.

One or two people have seen it. One of the lads I was talking with yesterday thought I must have been in a gloomy mood when I used these colours. My wife felt the same, asking me why I chose to use such a dark palette.

They were both wrong. I did not choose the palette the happy accident did. I felt far from gloomy I felt peaceful and calm.

Why the title I have given it? I was a parish minister for 20 years and I loved nothing more than a good sing. Sunday after Sunday I was able to slip into the service a hymn that I liked to sing, and then I got the pleasure of blasting it out in full voice.

As most of you know I cannot sing anymore and yet after all those years, I still find myself humming some of those tunes as I paint. Often the song I am humming without knowing why gives me the title for the painting.

I having been discussing with Ruby the importance of the titles of paintings. I think they point people in the direction you would like them to be thinking as they look at your work. They should though, also allow the person to put their own interpretation to the work and fill in the gaps for themselves.

So here it is, Lead Kindly Light. For those who know the next line I think this painting just about fits the bill.



This blog is linked to my other. I Am Alive and it is a Good Day