Radiant morning with fish cup, 12 April 2020

A rushing wind from the south west loosened a piece of tin on the shed so that it made knocking noises just before dawn. I dreamt that the noise was people thumping at the door, and that they had come into the house and stood eerily against the light at the foot of the bed so that I couldn't see who they were. But I woke to a shining morning, the phantoms gone, children calling like birds in the next backyard, looking for Easter eggs. The phantoms are like people on Zoom, blurry and sometimes sounding indistinct, their faces distorted by the angle of phone or computer. I hope we don't get too used to seeing people this one-dimensional way. It reminded me of the dark silhouettes seen by the imprisoned people in the story of Plato's cave. They thought the shadows of people passing against the dim light of a fire inside the cave were the whole of reality, never believing anyone who had managed to get outside the cave and returned to report on the astonishing burning light of the sun. They preferred the safety of the world they knew.  It will be a new world out there when all this is over.

Diana Wood Conroy, 'Radiant morning with fish cup',Watercolour on canzon paper, 15 x 21 cm 12 April 2020

Morning forest with palmette, 11 April, 2020.

I am sure the sky has got more crystalline, as no planes fly over. This morning a spindle shaped cloud hovered in the blue, like a message. The tiered trees on the forested hill seem to have woken up since the dense smoke of summer and started moving and stirring in the clear air. My sister told me that sometimes in Japan people from cities go 'forest bathing', just sitting amongst trees, breathing.

The palmette ornament is a replica from the Acropolis Museum in Athens. It's a tree-of-life device, known to Hittites, Sumerians and Egyptians and adopted by the Greeks as the crowning ornament on tomb stones, or high on roofs. It could be emblematic of a date palm, or derived from the fringe of a lotus flower. It's a reminder of 'physis', the Greek word for nature, meaning everything that is born or generated, a good image for death or a protective device against roaming evil for people in houses. Quite useful at present.

Diana Wood Conroy, 'Morning forest with palmette',watercolour on Arches paper, 15 x 21 cm, 11 April, 2020

Flowers with incense burner, 10 April, 2020

A windy day which began with a blanket of clouds drooping over the hills. I picked pineapple sage, salvia and zinnias from the garden, all grown from cuttings or seeds given to me by friends.  Spinebills love the trumpet shaped salvia flowers. In the distant sweep of the coast I can just see the suburbs of miners' cottages, reminders of harsh lives. An Indigenous friend rang up today, quite indifferent to the virus crisis. Her Wodi-Wodi family had lived in Port Kembla  long before the settlers, and when they came, her family experienced plagues of measles and other diseases, which decimated the population. Nobody helped. She obeys the rules, but shrugs at Covid 19.

I love the poetry and paintings of the Welsh artist David Jones (1895-1974). He wrote "I find it impossible to define what I want to do in painting, but it has to do with  a certain affection for the intimate creatureliness of things... with a pervading sense of metamorphosis and mutability."

Diana Wood Conroy, 'Flowers with incense burner' watercolour on Arches paper, 15 x21 cm, 10 April 2020

A sequence of objects with leaves, 9 April 2020

The number of leaves on a tree is uncounted and in a whole garden there must be numberless myriads, falling frequently at present. At night the cypress tree rustles and moves.Today the stories from friends were all about baking. Kay was making sourdough bread as she had discovered kilos of bread flour in a crock, and taking the warm loaves to her family.  Anne was making hot cross buns to distribute to a sick brother and fragile neighbours. The objects on the window sill in front of the leafy tree seem to have their own personalities. After all, the various areas of a vessel are named after bodily parts: lip, mouth, neck, shoulder, belly and foot. And made from clay out of the earth, in which the trees have their roots.

Here is Semonides of Amorgos, 7th century BC: "The man from Chios said one thing, the most beautiful thing. 'Like the generations of leaves are the generations of men'. Few mortals who have heard this have taken it truly to heart, for hope is ever present in everyone, hope which takes root in the youthful breast. For when a mortal has the lovely blossom of youth, light heartedly she hopes for impossible things... she does not know that the time of youth and life is short. But now that you have learnt this, treat yourself to the good things of life."

Diana Wood Conroy, 'A sequence of objects with leaves', watercolour on Arches paper 15 x21 cm, 9 April 2020

Nearly full moon with pomegranate, 8 April, 2020

The moon appeared briefly last night in scudding clouds, nearly full as we get near Easter.

The dim pomegranate reminds me of a tomb excavation in Cyprus. Workers were digging to lay a sewarage pipe in Paphos  and came across a finely constructed stone tomb with steps leading down into the earth, and inside, arched niches for bodies, with painted decoration.  I was called in to document the paintings, and stood in knee deep water with a miner's lamp on my head to draw and trace the images. Hidden underneath an arch was a vividly coloured fresco with scattered symbols: loaves of bread, gourds, a fish, a bird and red pomegranates.  Poised above the slab where the body lay, the painting was still breathtakingly beautiful after being in darkness since the fourth century. It might have been the story of Jonah, restored to life after being in the deep belly of the whale.

The pomegranate was linked to Persephone who returned to earth from Hades every spring to regenerate living things. Like the cycles of the moon, the season of hope and growth returns. 

Diana Wood Conroy'Nearly full moon with pomegranate',watercolour on Arches paper, 15 x 21cm, 8 April, 2020