Following on from the aborted photo-opportunity at Brancaster a few weeks ago, I went to Overy Staithe with the same friends to show them one of my favourite painting spots on the Brancaster side of the staithe. It's a photogenic setting and we planned to get some good location pictures for the website. The track that side of the staithe isn't suitable for my big easel and trolley, so I had brought my pochade box and rucksack. This was a subject I painted at the same site a couple of weeks previously, looking west. On that occasion the light had been somewhat grey, but today we had a vibrant blue sky, one of those days which, if it weren't for the crisp edge to the air, might pass for summer, and we had high hopes of getting some good photos. Unfortunately, our plans for a photo-shoot were scotched once again, this time because it was discovered that the camera still had a macro lens fitted from a previous session of close-up work, which meant it was no good for this job. So there was no point in taking the camera, but as things turned out it was fortunate that it was left safely behind in the car... Having followed the track down onto the marsh, we found the path extremely muddy. My friends were reluctant to go any further, but I was unfazed. 'I've tackled muddier places than this,' I assured them, ' - follow me.' I led the way through the mud, but they hung back, still dubious. I cast around, trying to find an easier way for them, only to slip and land on my backside in the mire. This elicited the remark that if only the camera had been available the scene would have made a perfect film, especially if played back in glorious slow motion. Undeterred, and biting my lip against the escape of an apt retort, I struggled to my feet, found what seemed to be firmer ground just a couple of feet away, and directed my companions there. Gingerly, one of them slithered alongside me, only to find that the tussock I was standing on was an isolated piece of firm ground in the middle of a bog into which he was now sinking. In the next moment one shoe was sucked clean off his foot and he was down on all fours, attempting to spread his weight. I tried to assure him that he was perfectly safe, it wasn't the kind of bog that actually sucks people under, and had he stayed upright he would only be ankle deep at the most. But it was a bit late for this, because he was now face down doing the breastroke, and getting thoroughly slathered... Meanwhile, my other friend nearly lost her balance in a heart-stopping show of mud-skating, before she mercifully regained her footing. She wisely decided not to go any further and focussed on trying to retrieve the lost shoe which was well embedded in the mud - it eventually came up with a great sucking noise, full of black water and unwearable. With the shoe retrieved, we now had to extricate ourselves and get back to terra firma. Bad turned to worse, and every attempt we made to rescue each other ended in more of a communal mud bath. Overy mud smells distinctly of dead fish. And by the end of it so did we.
We squelched back along the track to the car, an uncomfortable experience for the one who was obliged to tramp down the road wearing only one shoe and a soggy sock. I tried to cheer my friends up by saying, 'Of course, one has to suffer for one's Art'. They were familiar with the saying, but couldn't quite understand why it had to extend to their suffering for my art! More results of my artistic suffering can be viewed on the Landscape and Marine pages.
25 Comments
|
Judith Key
Judith Key is a Norfolk based artist, working in watercolour and pastel. She has exhibited with the Society of Graphic Fine Artists and New English Art Club at the Mall Galleries, London. Her paintings are in collections worldwide. Categories
All
Archives
May 2018
|