I am reading a book by Julia Blackburn, who spends her time between Suffolk and Italy. Her book pursues the life and art of one John Craske, local man to Norfolk: fish- and sea-connected born 1881 and who after the 1914-18 war at the age of 36, fell into some kind of mental stupor, from which he hardly recovered.
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c. John Craske Postcard Painting
- The Duigan Collection
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The book, suitably enough, is called “Threads” and is a meditation on loss and memory, with scenes local to North Norfolk, and reports of conversations in her pursuit of this man’s story.
John Craske spent most of his “saner” time from 1923 painting images of the sea, and later, when too ill even to stand, he took to his bed and embroidered instead of using paints for these images. They are extraordinary in detail. He is more or less forgotten, and Julia Blackburn has written in an affectionate and often moving way about her attempt to find traces of him in the memory of local people, and in museums / homes where his work remains scattered, abused and forgotten.
More about John Craske is
here.
In homage to John Craske, I made the picture below. It takes the shape of one of his boats, on a sea of my own making. The top bit was chiselled by God over time – it is the grain and the colour of the wood I am using.
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| Brown / White Study |
