A Metal Bird Dropped Me In A Burning City

I was swallowed by a gigantic metal bird and flown 5,000 miles East to a burning city. When the bird landed, it didn’t know where to spit me out because the heat had broken the guidance traffic lights and the bird had to wait for a man with a flag to wave it into the correct nesting box. The bird was a Boeing 777 and yes, I’m in London. And it is indeed burning.

I could tell it was hot as soon as the big bird ejected me at Heathrow and I spotted the ubiquitous British summer ‘look’: men with their tops off and women who’d taken the kitchen scissors to the sleeves of their t-shirts. After one day in London I was also tearing strips off my clothing: removing the lining from my one and only summer dress and cropping all my tops by a good ten inches. When winter comes I’ll have to wear long thermals under everything to cover my bare flesh.

The British don’t know what to do in this kind of heatwave. This makes me realise I’m not quite 100% British anymore because after fifteen years of long, sticky summers in Seattle, I know I have to get all my exercise and chores done before 9 o’clock and plan for an afternoon siesta. Most Brits haven’t learned this yet; hence I found myself walking through the park at 5am, the only person enjoying the warm glow of the newly risen sun, as if I were the last human on the planet. Or so I thought until I came across two “merry wanderer[s] from the night”1 sitting on a bench, beer glasses still in hands.

Down by the river that neatly dissects the park into two tranches, I was as enchanted as Titania, falling in love with every bird song faster than the Merlin app could offer identification. Chiffchaffs, goldfinches, wrens, magpies, all playing in the tall rushes, seeking respite from the rising heat; me, thankful that parks across the city still offer some shade to wildlife and hopeful that with the Green Party now in control of local government, the river will be granted River Rights and legally recognised as a living ecosystem.

I like the idea of Artist Rights, don’t you?

• The right to be in flow

• The right to practice diverse mediums

• The right to be free of AI pollution

• The right to regenerate our practice over and over

• The right to be (self) represented

Wandering around the park, muttering to myself about the right to be in flow, I fell in love all over again with the drifts of native flowers gently nodding their heads in the breeze. If it weren’t so hot I’d sit here all day with my sketchbook.

Walking and noticing are key underpinnings of my art practice, it’s always been that way. Every time I return to London, I walk to re-orientate myself on this patch of land that is so familiar to me, yet isn’t part of my everyday. It’s weird coming ‘home’. I don’t even fully understand what that word means anymore but I no longer stress about it. I just accept that from time to time the gigantic metal bird drops me here and I enjoy the experience for what it is: time spent with my son back in the country where I was born. Too much analyzing about what or where ‘home’ is sends my brain into a tail spin and wastes precious energy that is better spent on community problems. I’m a park volunteer and I’ve similarly stopped fretting about how I can ‘commit’ when I’m not here every month. I just show up when I can, is the answer. Easy really.

Since arriving, I’ve spent most early mornings whispering sweet nothings to these gorgeous plants, noticing their colour palette and how it’s reflected in the buildings around the park, returning to the flat with the full intention of mixing said colour in paint but often napping instead. I’ve very good at showing up to my napping practice.

I am, for the most part, also very good at showing up to my art practice in some way or other. Although I don’t understand the machinations of the Arts or even want to be part of the industry, there’s obviously something about creating art that still inspires me on a very personal level. What drives me to sit here in this park making marks that somewhat resemble the flowers before me, I’m not sure. Maybe it’s that old chestnut of wanting to say “I was here. This is what I saw.” But I suspect it’s also something about wanting to spend my time in the act of loving and appreciating. For the last couple of weeks I’ve been strolling around like a loved-up teenager, absolutely in awe of the beauty of the Pacific Northwest. It’s the same here in London. How can you not fall head over heels with wild nature? How can you not want to protect it?

My art practice is in part a devotion to nature. I see, I love, I draw. I honour the Earth by my feeble attempts at representing it. I represent it in order to know it better. I know these flowers because I’ve drawn them over and over. I know the river because I’ve sketched on its banks; watched the swans teach their cignets to swim on it; seen it overflow and dry out.

“I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,”2 and it’s just on my doorstep. Above it, metal birds fly over, heading to their nest. What a wondrous world this is.

Much love

J x