Cate Hamilton:~A Brush With Art

New Year in June ~ Crazy Love

2010-06-10T06:18:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time since I was here.

It almost seemed a shock to me that spring even arrived this year. Somehow, I was still stuck in the mists and fog of last autumn and the darkness of the winter that closed in. Time passed, the days lengthened and grew warmer and the vibrancy of the new leaves on the trees and the growiing grass seemed to assault my eyes with their intensity.

I clung to winter as a child clings to a blanket and wrapped myself in it's chilled isolation.

Changes and losses of last year seemed to have immobilised me and it was difficult to push ahead with any plans and indeed I lacked the enthusiasm to make any.

....and then came April and the start of the horse racing season in Jersey which saw an exhibition of my equestrian paintings in the Member's marquee at Les Landes and life seemed to brighten....

I can scarecely believe that June has finally arrived and my youngest daughter is leaving school.

Today, there is a lightness in my step and song in my head : Van Morrison's "Crazy Love".

Love IS crazy.

It can surprise and amaze,
empower and inspire,
uplift and propel,
sustain and comfort,
puzzle and perplex,
frustrate and confuse ....and should you fear or feel it's loss, love can frighten and dismay and cause you to succumb to grief or anger and despair and feel that life is barely worth living.

Love IS crazy....

....and yet, when it finds you and fills you, it is euphoric and ecstatic and defies adequate description as no words roll from the tongue to compare to kisses that spill from the lips in a language known only to those lovers who share the miracle that transforms your life when your soul recognises itself in another and you see the best part of yourself reflected and perfected in another's eyes.

A NEW YEAR BEGINS

2009-12-31T06:51:00.001-08:00

I spent Christmas in the Annecy in the Rhone Alps and had the unusual Christmas lunch of Cheese Fondu in a mountain restaurant overlooking a gorge as the river thundered below and the snow fell all around.

The highlight of the trip was watching Carpathian Wolves in the Jura Mountains and I shall be including the photographs of them together with a European Brown Bear and other wildlife very shortly.

I wanted to wish all freinds a wonderful start to the new decade and will return soon after the holidays.

~Cate

IN PRINT

2009-11-26T23:38:00.000-08:00

I have a Dog's Fancy dress Party to attend next week.

I am one of the judges apart from being invited in the capacity of photographer!

It has occurred to me that FAR better than handing a ticket out or asking people to look on the net and better still than running the photos through the lap top and just viewing onscreen....it would be wonderful to have a printer which is more portable than my studio ones and one with which I could turn out INSTANT PHOTOS up to A4 that I could then even pop into frames for people.

Hey presto~ Instant result!

Kodak do a couple of potential ones....may just invest in one as I can see possible uses for it stretching away into the distance....race meetings, more dog shows, horse shows, cat shows....PARTIES of the HUMAN variety...and so on....hmmmm...is this a good idea or is this a GREAT idea?

For anyone with half a mind to do this sort of thing....

Kid's parties with COSTUMES to wear so little ones can be shot ( in the nicest possible way! ) as characters such as fairies or pirates. An asistant would be needed here to help dress and do makee up....but a thought?

Anyway, I have a photo shoot today involving a dog and a cat and then I have two horses to do later as well.

No rest for the wicked ~ I must be heading for Hell on a handcart!

Noah's Ark

2009-11-26T00:06:00.000-08:00

I now have a Noah's Ark of commissions to complete and I have the Golden Retrievers I mentioned a couple of days ago on the drawing board, all sketched out and waiting for the paint, together with a beautiful German Shepherd Dog on another canvas.

I have going to immerse myself in this today and hopefully I will have some images to share shortly.

Golden Opportunity

2009-11-23T01:21:00.000-08:00

I just received a great commission to paint two lovely Golden Retrievers.

People sometimes seem to relate to animals in a far more open, direct and honest way than they relate to other human beings.

I used to work with Riding for the Disabled. I was a volunteer for seven years and in that time, I saw much of a subtle interaction that went on between the children, some with quite severe challenges in life and the ponies and donkeys with whom they interacted.

Sometimes, there would be a tremendous transformation. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that animals have no expectations of us, no aspirations for us and no goals for us to have to achieve to earn their respect or love.

Animals take us exactly how they find us and don't care who we are, what our abilities or disabilities are or how well we communicate. They just evaluate us on how much love and attention we can give. We don't have to put it into words or even into very many actions ~ they just KNOW and return that feeling without question or hesitation.

Is that what gave the children their confidence and put so many smiles on faces?

Maybe.

Whatever it was, we have a lot to learn from the "take as you find and value for what that is" attitude of animals.

As for Golden Retrievers....here's one I painted earlier!

Bah, Humbug?

2009-11-22T00:36:00.000-08:00

I've yet MORE "Spring cleaning" to do here. Does it never end?

Yesterday, whilst purchasing dog food of all things, at the nearest garden centre with a pet department, I had a browse though all the Christmas decorations with a view to hanging some in the studio and office to keep myself and clients cheery. I became increasingly uncomfortable however, as I came to wondering this....

We live in an increasingly secular society and yet the celebration of "Christ~Mass" seems to become ever more immense and intense by the year.

Why?

With the lessening emphasis on something meaningful and fulfilling, do people look ever more desperately to the material to fill a spiritual vaccuum?

Surely this is banging a square peg into a round hole?

Why, in the midst of a continuing financial crisis do so many seem to bend the plastic to spend MORE?

No, it's not a case of "Bah Humbug" as Scrooge would have said.

Are we SO far out of touch with how to appreciate those we love on a daily basis? Are we SO busy in our daily work that we are too tired to show our loved ones how much they mean to us? Do we have to make "dates" with our partners, make too much of an effort find time to play with our children....do we assume that gifts can make up for time a embraces and communication? How much does material success mean if at the end of the day you are not able to share it.

A couple of days ago, I heard some terrible news concerning a former work colleague and friend.

She was in the prime of life. She was on holiday with a loved one. She was enjoying life and happy.....and then, with no warning , she was involved in an accident and killed instantly.

How do any of us know what really lies ahead?

At the end of the day, if our lives were to end sooner rather than later, would any of us wish we'd spent another hour in the office or another hour with a loved one?

Will our work colleagues post an obituary which reads " Beloved company director, darling partner of the firm, adored by his subordinates, always in our hearts...."

I doubt it?

I admire ambition, commitment, hard work and achievement, but if "success" means the failure of personal happineess, is it really "success" at all.

This returns me to the matter of Christmas.

Do the ever more extravagent parties or the ever more lavish gifts mean that we love and appreciate the people in our lives any more?

May none of us ever substitute those things for the one most valuable gift we can give love ~ means everything, costs nothing at all.

Children give it most freely of all.

Maybe that is why in the Christian story ~ the foundation the celebration on December 25, whether you want to acknowledge it or not ~ God became an infant to be born into the world in the form of a little child filled with unquestioning and unquestionable love.

Not all of want to be parents, not all of us are able to be....but we have all BEEN a child ourselves and most of us can well remember what it is to love unconditionally, parents, friends...even if we don't want to admit it ~ siblings!If we could love like that once...we still can ~ if we can move on from the hurts that life has allowed us to experience along the way and let them matter less than our ability to hope and love again.

Whether you are a Christian or not, there is deep significance in the Christmas story for all.

Whatever your faith or path in life, may Love and the time to share it's matchless riches be yours today.

~Cate

A Winter Spring Clean

2009-11-21T01:26:00.000-08:00

Today it's a case of knowing that the "housework" in the studio will not do itself.

Before I deck the halls with boughs of holly, I dare say I ought to clear them of a year's worth of DUST!

Actually, the studio could do with rearranging and the pictures changed. It all looks as it did the last time I entertained a client over some commissioned work a year ago. I never did even move the chairs on which we sat. When I made a commitment to working for the bank at which I spent the best part of last year ( or was that the worst? ), something in me didn't want to break the spell of that last piece of work and so many emotions that went with it....but a year has gone and much has changed, the spell is broken....and Sleeping Beauty's Castle needs to be cleared of the brambles that grew thick and fearsome around it.

So, hi ho, hi ho, to work with broom I go!

Wrong Fairy Tale!

Still, both Princesses Aurora and Snow White were woken by true Love's Kiss, were they not?

Back To The Drawing Board

2009-11-20T08:22:00.000-08:00

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"

It is a question most kids hate, especially when asked by relatives they see only once in a blue moon who also comment on how much the child has grown whether they have or not.

I never minded this question. I always had a list of answers that changed like the weather and anyway, no one who asks this question is actually remotely interested in whether you want to be a doctor or a drop out , a lawyer or a layabout any more than they want to guess whether you will reach six feet in height. This individual just wishes to appear interested in your mother's main raison d'etre as she watches from the shadows to make sure you kept your promise and didn't turn the other cheek when clasped to an invevitably ample bossom and embarrassingly kissed in front of your family.

My replies to Aunts and Uncles, real and courtesy holders of the title, included a vet, a nurse, a hairdresser, a ballerina, and actress a horse riding intsructor.... and a masseuse....I have to admit that I added the last one when I became a teenager just to see the reaction it got.

Silence was pretty common.

As it was, I did none of these things, at least not for money!

I have been a dancer, a teaching assisant, a fitness instructor, a "girl friday" for a publishing company, a clerk in two different major retail banks and also a milking assistant on a dairy farm....but none of these jobs have lasted long and the role I have undertaken on and off since leaving school is that of an Artist.....and I suppose it goes to show that however far you run, you can never get away from yourself.

What was the point again ~ "What do you want to be when you grow up?"...I should have simply said:~

"MYSELF."

I quit the last "proper job" I had in the summer at " The World's Local Bank" to return to my place behind the easel, a location which has always suited me better than behind a PC or a counter.

When I first squeezed out the oil paints on my palette again, they evoked a feeling of confidence, a certainty that in THIS role at least, I am on top of my game instead of being at the bottom of the pile as I have always seemed to be in an office environment.

Armed with a good number of pre~Christmas enquiries, I have begun work again and this will be a diary of my experiences....

Watch this space !