One Lasting Thing

One Lasting Thing is a writing competition put on by The World of Interiors.
This is my entry.

I remember sitting at the end of her kitchen table. A large window was on my right, with views to the garden, and my grandma on the left. In the centre of the table was a bouquet of flowers. We stared at it, intensely.

Grandma taught me to close one eye, to hold out my paintbrush with a straight arm and measure the still life. She gave me a canvas, a real canvas, to paint on. We worked in oil. She let me use her hog hair brushes, with long stems covered in paint. The scent of turpentine drifted through the air, and we made thick marks on the canvas.

Grandma painted hundreds of paintings throughout her lifetime. She stored them under the sofa, in cupboards, and gave them to friends. She needed to paint, and I needed to paint. We understood this about each other.

I was young, a pre-teen at most, and I knew these painting sessions were important. Memories of them flicker back to me regularly.

When I was 23, I moved from Canada to the UK. I had recently finished art school and decided to study interior design in London. Grandma died in my first year here. I’ll never forget the moment I found out. I was standing in Duke of York Square; rain was pelting down. Time stood still.

I stopped painting for several years. I can’t tell you why, exactly. Part of me desperately wanted to be back in the studio, messy and covered in paint—but I couldn’t bring myself to paint. Was this part of my grieving process? I can’t be sure.

After her death, my parents gave me several of her paintings. There is one that I particularly love.

It’s a small painting of red flowers, clustered together and appearing to sway in the wind. Grandma’s brushstrokes are thick, intentional, almost sculptural—and yet they have a soft sensitivity about them. “Daydreaming transports the dreamer outside the immediate world to a world that bears the marks of infinity,” said Gaston Bachelard. When I look at this piece, we are together.

Several years ago, I started painting again. My whole body felt a sense of relief, as if it could finally exhale. Occasionally, tears of joy bubble to the surface as I mix my paint and apply it to the canvas.

I step into a different realm when I paint, a different plane of consciousness. In this state, I am met with a Truth that wants to be felt and released. I realise now that this is why I must paint—it is how I process the world around me, and it’s where I go to feel true presence, integrity and peace.

Is this what Grandma was teaching me, as a child in her kitchen? To hold out my paintbrush with strength and to bravely depict my reality?

The soft strength of her paintings feel like a reminder to do so, and to keep going.