Haunted London
"Haunted London"
Mixed Media
1971 (London Period)
The view out the window at night in 1971 North London. Though I never found out for sure, I think maybe the space between my window and the house I was drawing might have been a neighborhood section bombed during World War Two and never rebuilt.
So one night I was looking out the window and saw a window lit up in the old brick house across the open expanse of debris. The gloom of night had transformed the entire scene into a dark grayish purple except for the window with a solitary figure seated nearby it.
I was sort of limited as to the materials I had to work with. I had a stack of paper that looked a bit like card stock, a sort of light brownish-purple. My Bic Crystal pen, which I usually carried in my front left pocket, a small brush and some light yellow guache, a kind of opaque water color often thought of as poster paint. But it was just right for this effect.
I quickly did the sketch and then painted in the area showing the window of the room lit by the electric light. But then I sensed something more about the night in the empty expanse of debris between the student hostel where I was staying and the old four-story brick structures that were barely discernable in the obscurity. There was a mild feeling of foreboding as if the presences of multitudes of shades through London's ages were becoming prevalent: Those left behind while the rest went on, indestructible energy, forever enregistered with the personality of individuals ages since departed, coming to the realization over the vast expanse of time that every human being is wrong, angered at arrogance and content only with those living that show sincere contrition.
The oblivious nature of the figure busily proceeding with his or her nocturnal routine made me wonder if that or any other person would come to realize the possibility of some form of jeopardy in all of this. It is due to overmuch distraction that after all brings greater danger, not from such disembodied disciplinarians, but instead from the oblivion of the inevitable error inherent in each and every one of us. Was I sensing something like that or was it all simply perhaps some sort of now-caused-to-be overly active imagination, in view of all the uncertainty I was encountering? Not imagination, as future episodes would surely confirm in other distant lands.
At any rate, I included two of the entities, here shown diving headlong through the buildings, impervious to any impact. Later while listening to an interview on BBC Radio, Radio three, which plays lots of classical music and that sort of thing (though I did hear an interesting British jazz number once that year called "Curry in a Hurry"), and the interviewee had described London as a lovely but eerie and haunted place. I didn't want to agree, but did find myself having to concur at last, having my own recollections of slightly uncomfortable indescribable sensations I used to feel in that town during times without distraction. Especially in Covent Gardens and along the Seven Sisters Road.
Put up bird feeders around your dwelling and affix streamers of silver holographic material to catch sunlight. Also wind chimes with metallic tones. Phrases of classical music will teach wild finches to sing. These might help remove an air of depression that may have seemed to beset the environs. At night, try small light-emitting diodes painted with colors of the rainbow divided by twelve.
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... the interviewee had described London as a lovely but eerie and haunted place.
Copyright © 2003 by Paul A. L. Hall. All rights reserved.
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