Frances-Ann Norton: Poetry

At Marcia’s Where ever I am at or up to in a painting Sometimes it helps to repaint The under painting If it’s got lost in darks Go back put in a white grey underpainting Back in carry on with the glazing. glaze layers I can put more than one colour on at a time And over-layer colours I don’t always have to use liquin, sometimes Fast-dry paint medium is enough. I have to go to a point, and pass it. Some paintings Began as oil paintings and were oil-glazed Over the top. At this point – it was the end of December and is now the end of March Three months of oil-glaze medium painting I have a surface that is Perhaps six to eight layers deep Of oil-glaze medium. Thick, viscous, deep pools On some boards. At last some of the images are coming through Beginning to become resolved Taking a pleasing shape The depth of the hue, the intensity of the layered of colours Became glimpses of that which I was searching for ...

Banana Skins for Mo Jupp: Sometimes life is funny The wholeness of an orange Before peeling it, the unpierced skin, the layer of pith, the segments enclosed, all perfect. But it’s unbroken, so how do I know it’s perfect? Because when I’ve peeled it previously that’s what I’ve found. I was looking at edges today. The way edges are made, the way I have chosen to represent edges. Selvedges, the edge of a weaving, the edge of a newspaper, not straight cut like the Pudsey Times but pierced with a small pin made hole and crimped. Once Mo Jupp said to me that a skirt on a woman was an edge, dividing the legs from the body. When I paint an edge it’s about separating the paper, the support from the layer of paint. Mo was from the old school. Old school potter. I went to meet him in my best charity shop dress. And felt like I was in his category of woman. Being young and agog. Not yet ready to think, not yet ready to have an opinion, a question. In my...

Polished Stones: After Meg Bateman’s Lapidary. I like the idea of creating poems of Hand polished stones Revealing the hidden depths of colour. Trapped rutile, sparkle of quartz In the stone Grey or ochre Or black. A window is ground With carbarundum Water Friction Force Until the poem is revealed Trapped slice of thought Suspended in luminous beauty In glowing colour and hue. In oil medium glazing Layers of colour in the resin The slices of tints and shades in shapes Trapped in the layers of glaze. The oil glazed painting Is like a hand polished Poem The painting in words The slices of thought Suspended in layers of time A polished window on the Grey exterior of lifes patina of repetition Show the inner light. The icon luminosity No external light can produce this No blonds or redhead spots No halogen desk lamp Can throw internal light on These images and words. The poems hewed from dreams Ab...