Figurine with pomegranate and cockatoo March 28 2020

I look into the distance every morning as the sun rises out of the sea, shining on a big cruise ship anchored off the coast.  What have we done?  People's confident lives are undermined.  The habit of travel has proved a main culprit, and once again we are an island at the end of long voyages by sea.  Pomegranates were once painted in tombs, a symbol of the cycle of vegetative life, the fertility of the goddess and then a season in the underworld.

Diana Wood Conroy, 'Figurine with pomegranate and cockatoo', watercolour on Arches paper, 15 x 21 cm, March 28, 2020. 

Cloudy morning with omphalos 27 March 2020

Each day I instinctively select an object to paint not knowing quite why. The domed omphalos or navel stone is wound with soft wool, bound to make it like a necklace around the stone. It used to stand at Delphi in Greece, to indicate that Apollo, god of reason and the arts, had designated that site as a navel of the world. I bought the little plaster simulacrum in Athens. Perhaps the coast of the Illawarra is another point of grounding, as the Dharrawal people might suggest. This time of no travel (the usual situation for most people in the world) is a good time to reflect on wonders I have seen. 

Diana Wood Conroy, 'Cloudy morning with omphalos', watercolour on Arches paper, 15 x 21 cm, 27 March 2020

Figurine from Pompei and unseasonal gardenia March 26 2020

Diana Wood Conroy Figurine from Pompei and unseasonal gardenis March26 2020, watercolour on Arches paper, 15 x 21 cm

On a day of increasing panic, as all public spaces are diminished by closures of coffee bars, restaurants, pubs galleries, libraries and museums, a gardenia flowered unexpectedly. The figurine bought in Pompei remembers the casts of figures made from those who died in the volcanic ash. The cockatoo poses for me while I draw.

Vessels and Cockatoos March 25 2020

Kookaburras call before light and the cockatoos arrive with the dawn. As long as you don't listen to the news there is the same changing light and patterns of sound. Today the sound of wind and rain, and the voices of people talking from nearby gardens, as everyone is staying at home.

Diana Wood Conroy 'Vessels and Cockatoos', watercolour on Arches paper. 15 x 21 cm, 25 March 2020

Tuesday March 24, 2020

Every day brings unimaginable news. One way to have some sense of order is to have a pattern of action in the day. And to remember the long cycles of past civilisations full of the intricacy of making. Since 2005 I have painted a daily watercolour, mostly sitting up in bed as the sun rises above the Pacific, and seeing the glass table before the window crowded with facsimiles of pots and figurines from Cyprus, Greece and India, often with a bunch of flowers from the garden, or a gift from a friend.