We think we know the momentous and portentous events of our lives, because we have them mapped out with the big things – proposals, births, funerals – but love and grief have their own rules, and they funnel their potency into the little details, the ordinary objects of life, so that we are caught unawares by our emotion even whilst we are going about our daily business.
There is a beautiful arrogance in the works of great artists, and I am trying to learn from them. The other day, I drew a picture of my boy. It wasn’t very good, and it made him look like decidedly simian. I frowned, then thought of Picasso: I wrote ‘My child as a monkey’, and signed my name beside it. If in doubt, just change the title and call it art.
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Tanya Marlow blogs on the Bible, suffering and the messy edges of life [read more]