I've admired Catherine Hyde's artwork for years, but without realising it via the cards that come from lovely friends on birthdays, high days and holidays with the beautiful pictures. I do usually look for the artist's name but it takes a while for their style to become familiar enough to be recognised.
And I have my favourites...
Anyone who drives into Cornwall will know the Nearly Home Trees...
Cookworthy Knapp on the A30 near Lifton. A small copse of beech trees and a proper landmark that we all know and love.
But this could just as easily be us with the woods behind..
I had enough of a back-catalogue of memory for Catherine Hyde to recognise her work when I saw this book on a visit to the Elementum Gallery in Sherborne last autumn.
The Hare and the Moon, and as I saw it on the table my first thought was hares, because of that Paul Durcan poem about his father's spirit returning unexpectedly as a hare...
'I saw that his soul was a hare which was poised
In the long grass of his body, ears pricked.
It sprang toward me and halted and I wondered if it
Could hear me breathing...I stood up to walk around his bed
Only to catch sight again of the hare of his soul
Springing out of the wood into the beach cove of sunlight
And I thought : Yes, that's how it is going to be from now on.
The hare of his soul always there, when I least expect it;
Popping up out of nowhere, sitting still.
The poem is included in the Candlestick Press pamphlet In Memoriam . They sent a copy to me after my dad died and I now try and send a copy to anyone I know who has been bereaved.
So with my resolve already weakening at the sight of a hare, as I opened The Hare and the Moon my next thought was ' If I see a barn owl I'm buying this'.
Well of course I saw a barn owl, they are one of Catherine Hyde's specialities...
But then I have the book and will it just sit on the coffee table for the occasional glance or does it have a greater purpose. The clue is in the title because this is a calendar, so I sat it on a bookstand on January 1st and decided to open the pages through the month, and each successive month through the year, because the book works like an almanac.
The names of the moons, a flower, tree and bird for every month, and a hare leaping across the page throughout the year...
"Waking from the winter solstice a hare begins her journey. Through the landscape and its changing seasons, moving in harmony with the moon. Atmospheric and gorgeous paintings show the hare running in January, watching in February, leaping in March until it comes full circle, sleeping in December. Twelve textless double-page paintings of the hare’s journey are accompanied by three full pages of art showing a tree, a flower and a bird for each month. This rich celebration of flora and fauna includes hawthorn and cowslips, swallows, blackbirds, buzzards and owls, harebells, holly, olive, Rowan, poppies and much more. Titbits of text – folklore, fairytale, myth and legend complimenting the art."
Who could know that 2020 would be the year it has...
When we saw in the new decade last New year's Eve did any of us imagine this...
We still step back occasionally and look at 2020 and ourselves with some incredulity...
At how we've adapted and accepted, and what a turning point this is, a first in our lifetime.
And then we all just get on with it...masks, being careful, following the rules, not putting anyone at risk, lending a helping hand where needed, being there for each other, and looking with such pleasure on The Hare and the Moon every time I walk in the room, and thinking could there have been a better year for such a book. Few words, but meaningful; enough to give me a thought for the day and ground me in the immutable, the things that won't change.
For October, The Hunters Moon, The Wild Moon, The Frosty Moon, The Thunder Moon, the Magpie, the Pomegranate and the myth of Demeter and Persephone. We’ve travelled through snowdrops and primroses, swallows and barn owls, a touchstone for all the things of permanence and year-on-year constancy. I’m looking forward to starting all over again in January.
I'm thinking there must be more books that would work in this way so all suggestions very welcome, but meanwhile this would be a fine addition to any wish-list for a forthcoming season of gifts (which I couldn't possibly name). But you know what we always say... give them a long enough lead-in time or you only have yourself to blame if you end up with the celebratory biography of the year.
Recent Comments