“To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.”
Albert Camus

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”

Albert Camus

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”  

Albert Camus

Castle towers 

watercolour on paper

John Clare "I am"

I am—yet what I am none cares or knows;            

My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes—
They rise and vanish in oblivion’s host,
Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes
And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems;
Even the dearest that I loved the best
Are strange—nay, rather, stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man hath never trod
A place where woman never smiled or wept
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie
The grass below—above the vaulted sky.

John Clare

Postcard of The Market Cross, Ross-on-Wye

A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships , islands, fishes, rooms, instrument, stars, horses and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face.

Jorge Luis Borges

Dubrovnik

Its the monotony of work, the monotony of everyday life that pushes him to leave

Franciscan monastry

Rectors Palace

He ventured on

Dubrovnik, Croatia travelling through finding found photographs

Fort Pitt, Chatham

photograph, 1904

Calshot Castle  

This is a drawing of a circular keep with curtain wall, embrasures for cannons as well as traditional arrow slits. It may be a ‘platt’ of a proposed tower at Calshot which was considered by the Earl of Southampton and Lord St John from boats on 18 March 1539. Calshot castle was located at the entrance to Southampton Water from the Solent and was built during the 1539-40 a time of large scale coastal survey and fortification. This was due to Henry VIII’s fear of an invasion from the combined forces of France and Spain. In 1538 Francis I of France, and Charles V Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain signed a peace treaty. This union gave rise to the possibility that France and Spain may combine forces to invade England. France was England’s historical enemy and Henry VIII’s divorce of Catherine of Aragon, Charles V’s aunt, had offended the militantly catholic King of Spain. The close proximity of Calshot to the important naval base of Portsmouth meant that this area figured prominently in the defensive strategy. In order to deny enemy access to Southampton Water it was proposed that a stone tower be built at the eastern end of a long shingle spit that extends across the mouth of the Water from its western shore.

drawing and extract taken from the British Museum online archive

drawing: ink and tempera on parchment

date: 1539 

I wander the paths of exile, but still I am king"

The Disk Jorges Luis Borges

"What I must stand for is my own free will and what it can do for me when I am in the right mood to use it"

taken from a novel by Fyodor Dostoevsky

The Prince who feared Nothing

Once upon a time there was a Prince who was tired of living at home in his Fathers house, and since he feared nothing, he thought, I'll go out into the wide world, where I won't be bored. There are plenty of marvelous things to see there. So he took leave of his parents and set out on his journey. He was on the move from morning till evening, and he followed the road no matter where it led him. 

"To everyman his little cross till he dies and is forgotten"

from Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett

Wandering away in a childish dream

New self published book edition of 1 signed

Portrait of a boy

watercolour on paper

I am a woodcutter. My name doesn't matter. The hut I was born in , and where i'm soon to die, sits at the edge of the woods. They say these woods go on and on, right to the edge of the ocean that surrounds the entire world... 

The Disk, Jorges Luis Borges

But you are born
For a limpid day
Hoderlin