One of the many unforeseen consequences of this project was that I ventured onto the motorway much more than usual. It can be a hellish place. Driving to Southend to draw Susie Hodge, I found myself compressed between heavy goods vehicles on the M25, their big wheels so close I thought I could touch them if I opened the window. Meanwhile, in the lanes opposite, protestors had reduced the traffic to a grinding crawl.
The approach to Susie’s house was much more pleasant: the ambience of a relaxed seaside town. Walking up the garden path, I became aware that a meticulously organised person lives here, the lawn on either side being pristine. I liked the stylish Modernist silhouette of Susie’s house on an otherwise conventional street.
When Susie opened the door, I was immediately struck by the combination of her slight build and her prodigious energy. Susie has a truly awesome work ethic: she has published more than a hundred books on art, ranging from the ancient Egyptians to the most recent conceptual daubs. The results of this hyper-productivity could be seen in her study, where a wall of her books stretched from floor to ceiling.
The secret to getting so much done, she claimed, is just being a hard worker. Susie found herself a mother and sole breadwinner at a young age, and has always felt a strong responsibility to take care of her children. That she loves art and her vocation as a writer does not hurt of course.
Susie has three enormous cats, which she clearly adores, providing them with elaborate scratching posts and a water fountain in the living room. Her house is almost void of colour, permeated by a quiet beige that creates a peaceful atmosphere. She mentioned that writing about Wassily Kandinsky, the Russian abstract painter, made her realise she has synesthetic perceptions; she associates colours with certain words. Kandinsky argued that different colours stimulate particular kinds of emotion. I have always been more attuned to the symbolic dimension of colour – the meanings attached to colours through history – and I often consider it in my paintings.
We went to the living room for the sitting, Susie wearing black skinny jeans and pumps with a red jumper. I did two drawings, with the hands and feet a little different in each. Conscious of Susie’s busy schedule, I found myself rushing somewhat, though she remained comfortable and relaxed under my gaze. I tried to capture her character as it struck me: competent, disciplined, neat, modest and confident.
Susie had prepared lunch in advance, with chocolate strawberries and carrot cake for dessert. We talked about her books (needless to say, several more are in progress), becoming a grandmother, and how Covid affected her ability to travel as a speaker. Being an insatiable bibliophile, I very much appreciated her sending me away with an armful of her books.
I started with Susie’s portrait soon after our first meeting. I loved the simplicity of her pose, and the little detail of her foot pressed against the leg of the chair. The furniture in the background I excluded, since I felt it would make the composition too busy. Instead I painted a mint green section behind her head, to repeat the colour of the chair and to clear up the messy lines of my initial drawing on the canvas.
Susie came for the second sitting in January. After this session I felt the portrait had lost something; the freshness of my first impressions had slipped away, and Susie’s aura with it. The semblance of a person can be incredibly fragile: just a flick of the brush can change the shape of the nose, mouth or eyes, altering the entire expression. So I removed the fresh paint to reveal more of the image as it was before the sitting. At this stage the photo references were extremely useful, helping me coordinate between the ghost image on the canvas and the memory of Susie fresh in my mind. After a while I felt convinced her spirit had returned to the painting.
I returned to the studio early the next morning. A heavy frost had ravaged the garden, making me glad I had wrapped the tree fern in a layered burlap coat. I too was warmly wrapped in several layers, waiting for the heaters to kick in. I pulled up a chair to look at Susie on my easel for a while.
This was when I decided to leave the background unpainted. I liked the crispness of her figure against the naked canvas: it has the energetic quality of a drawing, with the subject poised on the surface and not buried inside the painting. Somehow this sharp distinction between figure and background seemed appropriate for Susie, with her neat, sprightly character.
