postcards from our past for the present
It took us about six years to fall in love with our Spanish home and to begin to appreciate its full value to us as both somewhere to escape, and to recharge our intellectual and emotional batteries…
Arriving at this point we had survived the physical and mental exhaustion of the eight-month build itself…
Followed by the despair of being virtually penniless and then learning we had no professional future in Spain…
Then the seedy drudgery of our sojourn in Boulogne-sur-Mer…
Followed by the reestablishing our lives in London (via-Tunbridge Wells) and getting ourselves back on our feet financially…
Until eventually, the resentment we had felt toward our distant Spanish home, for being the ruination of our lives, very gradually transformed into yearning, as we came to understand the sanctuary it offered us from our daily grind…
And so, in 1999, I felt the need to celebrate with this set of colourful, impasto gouache sketches, done as postcards; intended to express our sense of freedom and joy at the regaining of our lost paradise. But never in our wildest dreams could we have imagined, even in that seminal year of 1999, just quite how fortunate we really were…
Not until experiencing the madness of three months of semi-house arrest in a small Oxford apartment (I refuse to dignify the “L” word by using it), followed by the oddly, even more disturbing new “normality”, did we truly grasp how blessed we are to have our little, private, mask-less, socially intimate, sanctuary of peace and sanity.
(I should add, that I still have the entire original set of 10 postcards, signed, titled and dated, and in near-mint condition, and far brighter and more charming in real life. I had originally intended to send them to select friends and family, but for some reason never got around to it. So now, I would be happy to sell them as a set for £200 – or other currency equivalent – plus postage. If anyone is interested please contact me through the “Purchasing artwork” link at the top of this page.)
ARKS, ADAM AND AXARQUIA 
We also had periods of feast and famine during our now 51 plus years together. Oddly, the last most prolonged famine was succeeded by a period of feast beyond our dreams. The person who first said money isn’t everything, although technically correct, hadn’t ever been really poor.
Your refuge is something many of us dream about but never realize. We have to create our own refuge wherever we are.
Unfortunately, we are now going through a phase where we are giving away things rather than collecting them including art we have purchased over the years as well as my own work. Otherwise, “a check would be in the mail.”
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Thanks Ray, and don’t worry, as I think I have certain purchaser lined up. I do so hope you can visit us here, once / if ever this situation ends…
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