28/08/2025
I've purchased a work of art! This huge canvas by local photographer Konrad Cox captivated me when I saw it at the 'Palais des vaches' gallery at Exbury. I looked at it for ages, then came back and stared some more. It isn't often that I am mesmerised by a single image, I confess to getting bored unless there is deep significance or symbolism in the picture for me personally. I've never bought from a gallery before but I simply couldn't leave it there. Now it's happily installed above the mantelpiece in the family room, I am finding it a very therapeutic image to look at, to still my mind, to jump out of the jam-packed daily schedule, to ignore the tyranny of the urgent.
The picture is titled 'Blackwater 53'.
Blackwater in the New Forest is an ancient place of tall trees, a winding river, and shady resting places, but also a seasonal ice cream van, toilets, and the trappings of modern day tourism. You don't have to walk far to get away from that though, even at the height of summer.
And this is what the picture does for me.
It is as if I am invited to step through into a peaceful, unspoiled, timeless landscape where the pressures on me are instantly rendered insignificant. I have spent many hours in the forest, often just settling down by a river or leaning against a beech tree, either vaguely keeping an eye on the children or else taking time out to restore my soul, and in recent years, to grieve.
I can now enter that heart space just by immersing myself in this picture, safe and warm and dry by my woodburner at home. It won't replace my walks, but it will be a beautiful reminder that self-care for me means going out to the forest to soak in the pleasure, the peace and the eternal perspective it gives me.
I see Richard's love of nature in this image, I have no doubt he would have appreciated the skill needed to create it (being a keen photographer himself), this is a tribute not just to Richard, but to who I became along the way being married to him. This is a "Richard and Diana" picture, and I love it.
Thank you
