EQUINOX!

I suppose it shouldn't surprise me that the weather should turn equinoctial, given that the autumn equinox takes place tomorrow. It has been blowing a gale during the latter half of this week, and I have been watching fishing boats, many of them Norwegian, scurrying for the shelter which Lerwick harbour affords. As the meteorological conditions become unsettled, I have been feeling strangely ill at ease this week, and I am at a loss as to adequately explain why.

I have had yet another effusive email of thanks from a grateful customer (to add to the many), and progress has been maintained on the other works, apart from the big picture, which I feel has been doomed from its delayed start due to damaged canvases being delivered to me. I now feel thoroughly discouraged with the project, and dread entering the side-studio where it sits broodingly on its easel. I feel like taking a four-inch brush, loading it with the most fluorescently inappropriate hue I can find among my paint-tubes, and vigorously obliterating the image before me on the canvas. What cathartic fun that would be! Never mind that I've spent four months creating that image and, a month ago, I was very happy with it. My client is dissatisfied, and I am not far away from returning his deposit to him, along with a letter telling him where he can put his patronage. As things stand, I am dabbing away at the painting, making little alterations here and there, for no good reason, and I know not, and care less, where the project is going.

I have started another two "stock" works (subject-matter yet to be decided) and continued work on my commissioned Cornish river-mouth scene. I have got all my greeting cards bagged up into "assorted" fours, single-themed fives, and a few singles. I have discovered that my new display units fit neatly into my two large holdalls, which is good news for when I'm carting all the stuff from and to the stall at the Toll Clock Centre (these will be starting again in November).

It has been a week for strange email messages about Taits (most of them polite!) from around the globe. One was from a woman of Tait ancestry who runs a beautiful guesthouse in the countryside of the Burgundy region in France. She complimented me on my work, and expressed her desire to trace her Shetland roots. She got in touch with me, as I am a Shetland Tait with a website and seemed a good contact to start with. Her grandmother, Grace Tait, was from Brae, so I forwarded the message to Dr Ian Tait, of Shetland Museum and Archives, who is also from that part of the islands. I also replied to her in helpful and appreciative terms.

Apparently there is, or was, a prolific landscape/seascape artist knocking about America somewhere, who signed his paintings "TAIT". This week I received an email from a lady in Austin, Texas, who is the second American to contact me with regard to this artist. I have had to tell her that I haven't the foggiest who this dauber is. "It wisna me", has been the main thrust of my replies to such enquiries, along with apologies for my inability to help. Anyone out there in the blogosphere know anything about him/her?

September is a big month for birthdays among the members of my family, with that of my brother, two of my sisters and my late father's all falling within that month. My sister Mary (not one of the September lot!) invited me to go with her, after she had finished work, down to Sandwick churchyard to lay a bunch of flowers on our father's grave, on what would have been his 99th birthday, on Friday. The wind was practically blowing us off balance as we performed this little task, after which I took some photographs of the scene. I emailed these to Mary afterwards, so that she could print them off to show mother next time she visited her. She (mother) goes in to the respite care centre for a much-needed holiday on Monday. She gives us a few anxious moments, but looked positively robust when I visited her earlier on Friday. She never ceases to amaze and perplex us!

And now the wind has dropped, the sun is shining, and it's a beautiful, if rather chilly, afternoon here in Lerwick. I've promised myself to do a bit of cleaning after I've posted this, but don't hold your breath! Have a nice week.