I began painting Vida in the summer but the light in my studio wasn’t so great due to the rain which seemed endless. Hence there was a lot of stopping and starting with this piece.

Like most of my painting I had no clear idea of what direction this painting was taking, I didn’t even have a working title.

I let thoughts dictate, but nothing good was coming my way so I decided to take the canvas down and try to start on another piece. A couple of days later two things happened. Firstly, I spied a Kingfisher in my garden. It was all but brief but it made me smile on what was fast becoming the worse summer on records. The second was a correspondence from a little girl who had just bought the very last print of “Alvi” and her excitement was so evident in her little note of thanks she sent to me.

Firstly, the Kingfisher reminded me of a story my Mum once told my sisters and I. Unbeknown to me it was the same story told in Greek mythology about Alcyone, wife of Ceyx, who is punished by an angry Zeus for calling each other Zeus and Hera in jest. Ceyx is hit by a thunderbolt whilst sailing on his ship. He is drowned and cast upon the shore where Alcyone finds him. Grief striken, she throws herself into the swirling sea. Out of pity and compassion the Gods turn them into Kingfishers so they are together once more. They also cease the winter winds from blowing for seven days before an dafter the shortest day so that during brooding her eggs aren’t carried out to sea (I think my Mum missed out the bit about drowning and suicide!). this is why the term “Halcyon Days” is known as a time of peace or of a bright interval set in the midst of adversity.

… And so my painting took it’s own course, but by then I knew she was to be called Vida, befitting as she was the little girl who sent me the note of thanks!