In Search of Characters – Six Beginnings

Today Wendy and I battled our way through persistent fog – both literal and metaphorical (I hate to disagree with T.S. Eliot but February is the cruellest month ) to arrive at the Hartlepool Art Gallery. I’m glad we did as we were richly rewarded for our efforts.

The gallery is housed in the converted and refurbished Christ Church. It is a welcoming and inclusive space and I was surprised by the number of visitors, although the ranks were swelled by the extraordinary and beguiling life sized papier mache figures of Philip Cox, currently on show.

In April and May the Gallery is mounting an exhibition of portraits from its collection, entitled – In thy face I see. Among the exhibits will be Lucien Frued’s Head of a Woman and Nahem Shoa’s Giant Head – Ben –  just two of the stories waiting to be told!

In the same way that Tracy Chevalier’s Girl With A Pearl Earring was inspired by the artist Vermeer –

The idea for this novel came easily. I was lying in bed one morning, worrying about what I was going to write next. (Writers are always worrying about that.) A poster of the Vermeer painting Girl With a Pearl Earring hung in my bedroom, as it had done since I was 19 and first discovered the painting. I lay there idly contemplating the girl’s face, and thought suddenly, “I wonder what Vermeer did to her to make her look like that. Now there’s a story worth writing.” Within three days I had the whole story worked out. It was effortless; I could see all the drama and conflict in the look on her face. Vermeer had done my work for me –

so we can be inspired by the work of great artists  – and I can’t wait to see the pictures in the flesh.

Paintings can and often do engage all our senses, provoking strong emotional responses in the viewer.  They pose questions about the sitter and about the painter too and perhaps more than the photograph they give room to the writer, being somehow less defined, thicker in texture and mood. I’m sure some photographers would disagree with me here, and I certainly don’t wish to underestimate the power of the photograph as stated in my previous post  (scroll down and take a look) but I do think there is a strong connection between painter and writer both of whom work directly from brain to hand (I still do a lot of writing in notebooks by hand)  to pen or brush, without the intrusion of the lens.

So I’m looking forward to the Spring exhibition just as I’m looking forward to the Spring. In the meantime, in this difficult hiatus between finishing a novel and waiting to see how it’s been received I have decided not just to enjoy the creative space but also to embark on a small project of writing six beginnings (just fun to start with nothing onerous) to six short stories, inspired by six portraits. Six sketches for what might become fully fledged short stoires or who knows even a novel or may just stay in embryonic form. Who knows?

Here is the beginning of  a story I started several days ago in response to the Taylor Wessing photographic exhibition I visited last Monday at the NPG in London and the photograph – Bag (scroll down for photo)

The bag was empty, moth- white, no logo, nothing to announce its provenance. It crackled when you touched it, like it might disintegrate, like frozen washing on a line, not linen, more muslin. A caul, that’s what she thought, splitting open with loops for hanging, rabbit ears, good enough for covering a wound. That’s what they’d used, hadn’t they? She’d taken the groceries out; the salami, olives, humous, tangerines, pitta, oh and the vodka…

‘Liv, is that you?’ Mike’s voice drifted down from the bedroom.

‘Yes, I’m back. You want some lunch?’

‘Sure, you know me babe always starving.’

She hid the bottle of vodka behind the washing powder under the sink, put the other purchases on the table along with cheeses and some left over walnut and beetroot salad. She opened a bottle of Shiraz and stuck the pitta in the toaster. She crumpled the bag into a ball and pushed it in the fruit bowl where it bounced back, blossoming like crystal flowers …

One down and six to go!