The Crimson Lady invites you to
THE PLEASURE GARDENS 1ST ANNIVERSARY
« The delight of all persons of reputation and taste! »
Come and experience live music, performance, artistry, literature, high tea and fluffy cakes, cocktails and petits fours, dressing up and dressing gowns!
THE PLEASURE GARDENS 1ST ANNIVERSARY
« The delight of all persons of reputation and taste! »
Come and experience live music, performance, artistry, literature, high tea and fluffy cakes, cocktails and petits fours, dressing up and dressing gowns!
This is the final cover sent from the printer, with a proper barcode inserted! As the central character is a painter, the cover artwork has been done with real paint... I love the imperfection of it all! Cover design by Matt ArtPix.
I Am a Muse
"I Am a Muse" is my first novel. PUBLICATION DATE: April 15th 2013
All texts are copyright © Carya Gish.
READ A FREE EXTRACT OF I AM A MUSE BELOW
(Please note that this PDF file does not show the typeset version of the book and has been generated from a Word file. The book itself looks even better!)
All texts are copyright © Carya Gish.
READ A FREE EXTRACT OF I AM A MUSE BELOW
(Please note that this PDF file does not show the typeset version of the book and has been generated from a Word file. The book itself looks even better!)
SYNOPSIS
For the past five years, Alda Thunberg has been a recluse in her Cornish house, Willow Hill. Within the walls of her refuge, Alda listens to the echoes of her past life, the one she used to share with her husband of 40 years, the painter and sculptor Alastair Maynard. She is haunted by the man who had made her his all-powerful muse.
Several hundred miles away, Constance Blackwell – aka The Crimson Lady – is feeling the pressure of her busy London life. She meets a spoilt surf boy and, on a whim, agrees to spend the summer with him.
Constance finds herself in the small Cornish town of Pollbath surrounded by surfers, fields and silence. She feels out of place and is starved of the heady chaos of the city. Soon, she befriends her host, writer Dan Brigstoke, and becomes involved with his latest project: a biography of the painter Alastair Maynard.
Things will never be the same again at Willow Hill: the more Alda delves into her memories and spends time with Constance, the more she questions her own sanity as her obsessive behaviour becomes more erratic and the shadows start moving and whispering to her.
SOME MUSIC WITH YOUR READING?
Listen to UNDER THE WILLOW TREE by The Mediaeval Baebes taken from their latest album, The Huntress. The perfect soundtrack to I Am a Muse.
Daphne by Sabine T
Extract:
I had managed to look past the withering of old age. Now my eyes have grown hungry for more and more signs of the decay of the mind and the body. I cannot leave the mirror alone. I observe, I search, I stare, I try to understand what is happening to me. I see the skeleton beyond the skin. I see it more and more as I look at myself in the mirror.
The paintings in the studio tell me a different story, show me a different me, the one Alastair used to paint. I was a natural, he told me. I was shape shifting constantly under his brushes. He would mould me according to his visions while always still retaining my very essence. I would become the heroine of his stories. I would fit in with his moods and fantasies.
Look at me now. Bent and twisted by life itself. Life is cruel and plays dirty tricks on us. I feel cheated. [...] I saw my poor body, with the skin resembling more and more the dried out, blotched bark of a sick tree. A tree, that’s what I am turning into… A human tree! I am returning to Nature!
I had managed to look past the withering of old age. Now my eyes have grown hungry for more and more signs of the decay of the mind and the body. I cannot leave the mirror alone. I observe, I search, I stare, I try to understand what is happening to me. I see the skeleton beyond the skin. I see it more and more as I look at myself in the mirror.
The paintings in the studio tell me a different story, show me a different me, the one Alastair used to paint. I was a natural, he told me. I was shape shifting constantly under his brushes. He would mould me according to his visions while always still retaining my very essence. I would become the heroine of his stories. I would fit in with his moods and fantasies.
Look at me now. Bent and twisted by life itself. Life is cruel and plays dirty tricks on us. I feel cheated. [...] I saw my poor body, with the skin resembling more and more the dried out, blotched bark of a sick tree. A tree, that’s what I am turning into… A human tree! I am returning to Nature!
Gallery
Extract: The artist's studio
The first thing that hit them was the smell: musky, musty, dusty, the odour of abandonment, tiredness, stillness. It was the perfume of the past. They could also distinguish something altogether more pleasant, a mixture of wood and sharpness, but it was ever so faint that none of them thought it was actually there and they might have imagined it.
Over the past five years, the room had been aired a grand total of about three times, whenever Mrs Ancell had managed to break Alda’s unwillingness to even unlock the double door leading to the studio. She had never allowed the cleaner to move or remove anything.
As Dan and Constance advanced a little further into the room, some more distinctly chemical smells reached them: dried up paint, white spirit, old paper, oil, turpentine.
Alda walked up to the bay windows and opened them wide. The sea air rushed in, lifting the heavy curtains and disturbing the dust and some scattered loose sheets of paper. The painter's muse turned towards her visitors.
“I apologise for the smell… I have taken care of opening the windows for several hours over the past few days, but I’m afraid it is probably going to take several months to get rid of it.”
She was standing in front of the windows, looking a little shaken. It was the first time in more than ten years that she had taken any visitors to the studio. This was a space that had been so familiar to her, and now it felt so alien. She opened her arms, palms upturned, as if she were about to embrace the whole space.
“As you can see, this place is incredibly full. Full of Alastair’s work, materials, tools…”
She looked around her with a strange little smile, recognition lighting up in her brain, making her heart beat a tiny bit faster. She was trying to breathe deeply, to stay calm.
In the centre of the room was a large, circular patterned carpet on which stood a single, spidery easel. It was empty, still waiting for the next canvas, the one that never came. Close to the easel was a low, narrow, longish table burdened with an assemblage of various pots and jars and cups, brushes and stained cloths, all dried up now and a bit crusty. Alda looked at the easel and beyond it, where she had posed for hours.
Dan and Constance were still standing on the threshold. Apart from the space in the centre around the easel, the studio offered barely any space to walk in. Indeed, this was the only clutter-free space in the room. Alastair’s studio resembled Aladdin’s cave. Rows after rows of canvases were propped up against the walls and pieces of furniture. Some were hanged on the walls while some others were neatly stacked up on large shelves or on top of the cupboards.
One wall was totally given up to Alastair’s materials, with shelves heavy with paint tubes and jars and pots, pencils, fountain pens, charcoals and felt tips, watercolour, acrylic, oil paints coming in any form, shape and colour you could think of. If they had opened the drawers, they would have found a large variety of papers and cards.
There were piles of books everywhere, as well as mountains of feathers, lace, ribbons and various types of cloth and material. There were copious amounts of dried flowers covered in cobwebs, yet some more piles of notebooks, scrapbooks, sketchbooks. There was an old kettle and an old tea set with delicate, flowery cups and saucers. Every bit of shelf, cupboard or table that was not covered with painting or drawing paraphernalia was occupied by an antique statue, a box or a strange contraption.
On the left hand side of the studio, a large, heavy terracotta-coloured curtain was used as a makeshift wall, hanging from the ceiling to separate a small chunk of the room from the rest. Behind it was Alastair’s ‘sculpture area’. This was more of a brutally masculine space, with rows of tools, lumps of stone and boxes full of the entanglements of scraps of metal. There was a thick, strong table and a small cracked sink with an ancient tap. A few bags of plaster and dried up crumbs of clay had been dropped on the floor underneath the working table.
The juxtaposition of objects was overwhelming, the amount of canvases terrifying. Dan and Constance looked at each other, then at Alda.
“Well… Where do we start?” asked Dan finally.
© Carya Gish 2013
Over the past five years, the room had been aired a grand total of about three times, whenever Mrs Ancell had managed to break Alda’s unwillingness to even unlock the double door leading to the studio. She had never allowed the cleaner to move or remove anything.
As Dan and Constance advanced a little further into the room, some more distinctly chemical smells reached them: dried up paint, white spirit, old paper, oil, turpentine.
Alda walked up to the bay windows and opened them wide. The sea air rushed in, lifting the heavy curtains and disturbing the dust and some scattered loose sheets of paper. The painter's muse turned towards her visitors.
“I apologise for the smell… I have taken care of opening the windows for several hours over the past few days, but I’m afraid it is probably going to take several months to get rid of it.”
She was standing in front of the windows, looking a little shaken. It was the first time in more than ten years that she had taken any visitors to the studio. This was a space that had been so familiar to her, and now it felt so alien. She opened her arms, palms upturned, as if she were about to embrace the whole space.
“As you can see, this place is incredibly full. Full of Alastair’s work, materials, tools…”
She looked around her with a strange little smile, recognition lighting up in her brain, making her heart beat a tiny bit faster. She was trying to breathe deeply, to stay calm.
In the centre of the room was a large, circular patterned carpet on which stood a single, spidery easel. It was empty, still waiting for the next canvas, the one that never came. Close to the easel was a low, narrow, longish table burdened with an assemblage of various pots and jars and cups, brushes and stained cloths, all dried up now and a bit crusty. Alda looked at the easel and beyond it, where she had posed for hours.
Dan and Constance were still standing on the threshold. Apart from the space in the centre around the easel, the studio offered barely any space to walk in. Indeed, this was the only clutter-free space in the room. Alastair’s studio resembled Aladdin’s cave. Rows after rows of canvases were propped up against the walls and pieces of furniture. Some were hanged on the walls while some others were neatly stacked up on large shelves or on top of the cupboards.
One wall was totally given up to Alastair’s materials, with shelves heavy with paint tubes and jars and pots, pencils, fountain pens, charcoals and felt tips, watercolour, acrylic, oil paints coming in any form, shape and colour you could think of. If they had opened the drawers, they would have found a large variety of papers and cards.
There were piles of books everywhere, as well as mountains of feathers, lace, ribbons and various types of cloth and material. There were copious amounts of dried flowers covered in cobwebs, yet some more piles of notebooks, scrapbooks, sketchbooks. There was an old kettle and an old tea set with delicate, flowery cups and saucers. Every bit of shelf, cupboard or table that was not covered with painting or drawing paraphernalia was occupied by an antique statue, a box or a strange contraption.
On the left hand side of the studio, a large, heavy terracotta-coloured curtain was used as a makeshift wall, hanging from the ceiling to separate a small chunk of the room from the rest. Behind it was Alastair’s ‘sculpture area’. This was more of a brutally masculine space, with rows of tools, lumps of stone and boxes full of the entanglements of scraps of metal. There was a thick, strong table and a small cracked sink with an ancient tap. A few bags of plaster and dried up crumbs of clay had been dropped on the floor underneath the working table.
The juxtaposition of objects was overwhelming, the amount of canvases terrifying. Dan and Constance looked at each other, then at Alda.
“Well… Where do we start?” asked Dan finally.
© Carya Gish 2013