Sarah

It was the picture of her graduating that started the whole thing. My want to design her life. Fill in the gaps. Triangles in square holes. And then later the photograph of her friends celebrating. The class of 93, black, button up vests and applique quilt patches, chokers tight around their necks, those two strands of hair pulled and twisted forward, framing their faces. Didn't everyone have those two strands of hair then? A membership card for something or other.
Her name was Sarah, so I learned later on, and she had an older sister whose hair was much darker. Their mouths were the same, that's how I knew they were sisters. Because of the way their mouths looked. Crooked a little. I wondered if hers had ever said my name.
And then of the shape of her mouth right before she said it and then right after. Two red pillows like heartbeats on her face. 
I didn't wonder how her voice sounded. I already knew how it felt.
I spent the two days after writing everything about her that I was sure to be certain,
breathing in that photo, a road map.
She wanted to help people, that much was clear. She liked peanut butter. And the smell of the air right before Summer turned into Fall. There was a scar on her left elbow, a souvenir from a summer spent camping the year she turned thirteen. She collected pennies, spoke broken Spanish when ordering food in restaurants, wore socks over her tights. White socks. Red Socks. Green.
Once, when Joey Forrester asked her to the Winter Dance she said no because he wanted her too much and she didn't feel enough.
"You deserve to go with someone who wants to be there with you as much as you want to be there with them," she had said, "it feels so much better when you're not trying to feel." She promised.

Fantastic Day

Hey, I'm in a show at the Stables Theatre in Hastings on June 21st and 22nd. I tap dance and speak and dress up and I might even wear a hat. I also happened to design and paint the show poster, this one with the clock.
Perhaps you should come along.
Tickets can be bought here or you can call the theatre directly on 01424 423221. I reckon it might be worth your while.

Movie Icons, Painting Series

I've painted a new series of paintings; iconic movie characters from iconic movies. They're being shown at the Electric Palace Cinema and can be bought there or from my shop. Hey, why don't you have a look.

Company

I am in a white tee shirt and a lady in an old cardigan calls me and she has something behind her eyes that I cannot read, that I waste too much time trying to memorise, and she says that she needs me and it's all that I hear at first, and then the sound of her pencil scratching something shorthand onto the paper she has fastened to a clip board in her palm. As we walk down the aisle, her hand now on my elbow, the line of people on the stage seems to part like biblical sea, making space for me to stand, to join, a wave against the shore.
Lapping again. Lapping again. 
And she is busy making introductions as we walk up the stairs to where the people are and they salute and wave half hearted waves and some say their names and others say "Nice to meet you" and "I'm glad you're here" and it seems sort of sincere and one girl with a blonde ponytail and a pink sweater looks at me into my face and she smiles with her mouth closed and I'm transported somewhere and its just the two of us and we've shared something that binds us, ties us in knots, two sides of the same coin; and then I am back and her smile is still there and I am in the middle of the line, in its belly, and the introductions have all been eaten. Leftover morsels floating up and up and up. The lady in the old cardigan is some way through a list of instructions that I haven't heard and she is waiting for a response so I nod and she carries on.
I am in over my head.
It is the beginning and it is the end.
Somebody elses life that I have climbed inside, their skin a coat over my skin.
I step forward, unsteady on my feet as if it all, every bit of this, is new.
I take another step, the emergency exit light above the emergency exit now a glowing green beacon.
"Go" it says, "Pick up and go."

A crying girl and an old, beaten leather bag

I was outside the train station when she cried. This girl, twenty maybe, carrying an old, beaten leather bag over her shoulder, so big it made her seem so small; you know how sometimes a girl can look like a bird? All legs and eyes and features. She was crying down her phone like nobody had any fucking idea about any of it and she marched and paced and the tears seemed to fall in direct correlation to how fast her feet moved, slowing as she turned to walk the other way, stopping completely when she stood still, her hand on her hip as if to say "this whole thing is fucking useless."
And then she balanced the phone between her cheek and her shoulder and she dropped the old, beaten leather bag onto the ground and undid the zip and took out a pair of red shoes and placed them side by side next to the old, beaten leather bag and took off the shoes she had on and put them into the old, beaten leather bag and did the zip back up and then took the red shoes, one by one, and put them onto her now bare feet and then stood up and wiped her face with the back of her right hand and ran her wet fingers through her hair and tucked it behind her right ear and then fussed with her dress and tugged at the sides until the hem puckered and rippled, the whole time shouting and hollering and sniffing.
Now I had a book in my hand as I stood waiting outside the train station, an old book folded at the spine, opened to the same page I had been on when I first was waiting outside the train station for the bus to take me home, and every now and then I would look up from the book at the girl, each time her face marked more with the path of her tears and I really did think that I should perhaps go over to her to try and see if there was anything I could do, but all of a sudden and in spite of myself I felt very British, reserved I suppose, and it seemed improper and gauche and so I watched out of the tops of my eyes, the same paragraph dancing over and over on the page in the old book I had in my hand, folded at the spine.
The girl was off the phone then. The phone in her pocket. That conversation hanging around her like city smog. Both of her hands at her sides. Stood straight up and down. The old, beaten leather bag by her feet. Her feet inside the red shoes. The both of us outside the train station. Together but not together.
I looked up from my book one last time, to try and catch her eye I guess, and saw the red shoes again, two rubies amidst the early evening commuters.
Maybe if she tapped her heels together three times she'd get to go home, I thought and then immediately hated myself for thinking it.

First, illustrated