Rachael Cawley. M.A Paintings and Other Stuff
you can find some of my work here.
http://www.saatchiart.com/account/profile/333314
https://uk.pinterest.com/cawley0370/
https://twitter.com/rachaelthepaint
M.A show 2007
My work is concerned with the layering of translucent colour and form built up over time to create ethereal and symbolic imagery. I use paint, gold leaf, digital media and thread to achieve this.
My original degree was in education but after 25 years of teaching I returned to the University of the West of England to complete a Masters in Multi Disciplinary Printmaking, gaining a Distinction.
My work took a total change in direction, from abstraction to figurative work which embraced the concept of "divine feminine" combining the intricacies of pattern with Gothic aesthetics.
I have recently retired from teaching. Like most women artists I have created a studio at home.
I live by the sea in South West England.
this website is a work in progress. i have a lot of those. i hope to finish it before the rains come, whatever that means.
i have started my 1st ever blog on this site. there are probably spelling mistakes and grammatical errors on it, like a total lack of capital letters. keyboards are not designed for left handers.... just following the 21st century construct of blaming someone else for ones own inadequecies.
The story that started my move into figurative painting...
... after I discovered that in Medieval England there was once a woman groundskeeper who lived alone, was not married, kept cats, her sanity and position in society and was extremely successful in her "career", i.e, all her subjects had clean drinking water and food on their table.
While I was researching everything under the sun in 2006-7 for my final dissertation, I came across a line in a book that stated the following, "Lucia of Mercia paid the King 500 gold marks to rule her own court in her own right and the right to remain single for five years". It got me thinking about the empowerment of Medieval women once they had produced an heir.
I side tracked from my studies for a while and wrote the following short story based mainly on known facts. It took so long to write despite its brevity that by the time I completed it, my work and focus had irrevocably altered.
The image on the left is a Victorian interpretation of Lucia's appearance
I side tracked from my studies for a while and wrote the following short story based mainly on known facts. It took so long to write despite its brevity that by the time I completed it, my work and focus had irrevocably altered.
The image on the left is a Victorian interpretation of Lucia's appearance
Lucy’s Story
Little girls who waste the day dreaming by the riverbank are prone to mischief and that’s a mortal sin.
“Your sins will find you out, Lucia of Mercia.” “You are the Devils child.”
She paid no heed. Each morning she would escape from the ministrations of her nurse and head for a favourite spot on the mossy bank by the rivers edge. Here she would shuffle forwards on her stomach and lean her head into the water. Below the surface, she gained an intimate view of a miraculous private world so much more interesting than her own.
On heavy summer days she trailed her fingers into the little spirals, the water following her every move though it never caught up. Then it would spiral back into the opposite direction as if untying itself. Sometimes the river would be too busy to play games with children and rushed past her bashing into stones that got in its path and spitting globules of water back into the mainstream, long after their original source had gone by.
It was on one of these occasions that her nurse, after calling for her for hours around the castle grounds, had found what she believed was Lucia’s body lying by the water’s edge. Cool flowing liquid had deafened the child’s ears to the high pitched screaming that ensued but the sharp yank at the back of her neck ripped her abruptly from all escapist thoughts. Lucia was far too valuable to be allowed to die, if indeed dying was what she had in mind.
Conceived after the invasion, in a desperate attempt to replace the two sons lost in battle, Lucia’s gender disappointed both parents. Her father, Thorold, the Sheriff of Lincoln was an aged and broken man. With no direct heirs still living and an avaricious and vindictive French King on the English throne, the future was far from secure. A boy child would have strengthened his position; a girl was merely a commodity, and one that would prove more useful to the new King than to him.
…
We often undervalue the benefits of an ignominious life. If no one cares about your education, you will learn what you need to survive or perish. Although Lucia was literally dragged to the important events in her parent’s lives, these things did not concern her. In church, she would investigate the knots in the wood of her pew and wonder why anyone would cut down a tree to make such an uncomfortable seat. At mealtimes, she traced the patterns in the copper and iron plates and fed her scraps to the dogs, whose manners were better than her fathers and their conversation more interesting.
Her maid would pull her hair into braids and cuss her every time there was an important visitor and Lucia would cuss her back and get away with it. Lucy learnt to hate both maids and visitors. Her father ranted about affairs of state but nothing changed. Her mother seemed concerned only with her husband’s social standing and her own appearance. Lucia wondered why she bothered with either. Simple thoughts spilled into adolescence as storm clouds gathered.
If you abandon a domesticated cat, it will return to its feral state. Well, that or it dies of starvation waiting for some no longer present person to proffer nourishment. The same is true of little girls, even ones with flaxen gold hair and soft brown eyes.
After the Sheriffs death, Lucia’s maids busied themselves with duties more productive than chasing a thoughtless child who cared little for her appearance and even less for her manners. The flaxen hair became tangled and the doe eyed look changed to inquisitive impudence. She was left alone for three short years.
…
The servants bustled in and lit the fire in her room. For a while, she enjoyed the silence but it gradually congealed into isolation. Looking up to fill her eyes with the warmth from the fire, she saw movement in the corner of the room. An enormous spider crept along the stone floor towards her. It took Lucia a few seconds to locate the creature in the darkness. It had stopped moving and was considering her in the blood red flickering light. Her body was transfixed, waiting and wanting it to go away. She calmed her mind; they were all Gods’ creatures (although she wasn’t convinced her God was responsible for this monster).
The spider, sensing either her discomfort or simply another presence, reared up to taste the air. Lucy sucked in her breath and stayed rigid but her imagination careered into overdrive. A black house spider no larger than a small goblet became Hell’s messenger and filled the room with its ominous warnings.
“Come to me Lucia of Mercia, for I must feast on your flesh and grind your bones between razor sharp teeth. Lay down little Lucia and I will send armies of crawling beasties to invade every bodily orifice until you choke on your own terrified screams.
Fear, sickness, death and certain damnation would surely follow and the fiery pits awaited her mortal soul.
Adrenalin is a marvellous thing.
However, Hell wasn’t in the room with the spider. He was outside in the hall with her mother. He had just arrived and was brushing a layer of thin grey ash from his gloves. His name was Ives Taillebois.
Rare to find the man out of the saddle. At 5ft 2inches in height, he preferred the view from on top of a horse. Forced, as he was to dismount, Ives had lost what little humility he possessed in the freezing winds now crossing the flat lands outside Lincoln. Only the reward waiting for him at the castle kept his temper in check. Lucia was unaware of her fate, as she had never listened when anyone had talked to her of marriage or in fact of any subject at all.
Ives Taillebois was 59 years old. He was, or rather had been, the best solider in the Norman force. Fiercely loyal, independent of thought and ruthlessly savage, nothing and no one had survived a confrontation with Ives. It was he who was ultimately responsible for the death count in Yorkshire. The King’s patience with the guerrilla tactics employed by the desperate and starving militants north of Leicester, had come to a brutal end. Ives had been sent in to finish the job. He and his army had taken a personal interest in the countless murders, the rapes, and the burnings of land, crops, buildings, and people. A job well done had to be rewarded and King William had offered the physically exhausted Ives the lands bordering the county he had devastated. A Dukedom and a young wife.
He did not come empty handed. He brought faithful retainers who needed housing and feeding, horses that required the same, and a daughter who bore no resemblance to him at all. Fifteen year old Beatriz Taillebois was the issue of his first wife who had seen fit to convince Ives that she was his and he believed her, unaware that syphilis had rendered him sterile. He planned to send her to a convent just as soon as he had lavished his new wife’s inheritance on having one built in his honour. After years employed in the business of death, Ives intended to atone for his earlier sins and buy a small slice of Heaven ready for his day of judgement.
After the marriage formalities were over, he wasted no time consulting with Priests and employing the services of Norman master masons. The castle filled to bursting point with parasites attuned to the sound of gold parting from palm. During the day, Lucia was required to sit by her husband’s side and witness the leeching of her lands and treasury. At night, Ives demanded that she perform the same sexual rituals taught him by the whores of a French brothel. His jaded palette demanded a little violence with his sex. To whom, or how much, he did not care.
Her childhood died in his hands.
…
She became confused as to what was real and what was not. It was always dark and crowded in the castle. Everyone seemed to be watching her all the time. The lack of light made shadows lurch across rooms like spectres. Lucia teetered on the brink of desolation. During one of the “Days of Patronage”, as Ives called them, a petitioner brought Lucia a garland of flowers as a present from his wife. She pressed her face into the soft blooms to hide her tears at the sight of their beauty. The perfume threatened to overwhelm her. Leaning in to inhale more deeply, she felt the room spin. The roof in the great hall evaporated and brilliant sunlight streamed in. She could no longer hear the clamour of supplicant clerics. She felt the earth shift beneath her seat, heard the high keen of a buzzard above her, and pulling back from the flowers in terror, caught the diamond sparkle of moisture on the velvet petals. Putting out a hand to steady herself, she regained her position in Purgatory where she, like all tormented creatures, must wait.
Dependent on your viewpoint, seven years can seem like a heartbeat or drag in an interminable living hell, but that’s how long it took for the syphilitic infection to finally turn Ives brain into purêe. The doors of Purgatory were opening.
Lucia and the newly reprieved Beatriz had the dying summer months to grieve (or in their case, rejoice), at the loss of their Lord and Master. In the autumn, the King sent another husband for Lucia. There is no peace for a woman with land. This time she would be married to the highest bidder, and the man with the golden purse was Roger de Romano, an old comrade of Ives, which thankfully was their only common ground.
Roger was in his latter middle years. A fact that didn’t stop him behaving with adolescent licentiousness and stupidity. He was an easy mark for the vultures still littering the court at Lincoln, both male and female. Lucia and two of her maids were pregnant within the year. Beatriz barricaded her door. The castle groaned with well wishers and hangers on. Roger entertained them all, at Lucia’s expense.
Tradition allowed women of noble birth to absent themselves from household duties during their confinement. It was during this time that Lucia developed a close bond with the lonely daughter Ives had left behind. Beatriz had spent her years of isolation well. She both spoke and wrote fluently in Latin, French, and Italian. She had even acquired a little Celtic English. She could converse with learned scholars on the subjects of art, science, and theology. Happy to dedicate hours to her embroidery, she was considered a perfect example of pious femininity. Only lack of personal wealth kept her from the King’s attentions.
Beatriz confessed that she had never considered an alternative future to the one offered by her father and felt that at twenty two she would never realise her dream of bearing her own children.
Lucia’s dreams were full of memories of her riverbank, (when they weren’t interrupted by the nightmares inflicted on her by Ives). She longed to escape the crowded chambers filled with plaintiffs and petitioners. To walk alone in the sunlight breathing air fresh with natures perfume unadulterated by incense, rotting meat and unwashed soldiers. It seemed that neither woman would achieve contentment, that is, until the birth of Roger’s son, William de Romano brought a change in both their fortunes.
With the succession to the Dukedom secure, Roger’s behaviour changed from genial host to incompetent schemer. Plot, counter-plot and intrigue, stopping short of open rebellion, occupied all of Roger de Romano’s attentions. He over played his hand against far sharper minds than his and clever men betrayed his actions to the King. He was lucky to escape with his life, but his title and lands were forfeit to the crown. Lucia, now Countess of Chester, was a woman without a home and a disenfranchised husband somewhere on the run in France. She was grateful for small mercies.
…
Margaret D’Avranches was an imposing woman of the French nobility. She had recently buried both her husband and her eldest son. She was in no mood to be trifled with on the day she took audience with the newly crowned William II. Her considerable fortune and holdings in northern France, gained her unopposed access despite her gender. She wanted to rule her own court without occasion to marry again and she was determined to gain the newly vacated position of Earl of Chester for her only surviving son. She would pay for all this by putting her immense armies at the command of the new King of England, William Rufus II.
Fortuitous timing placed her at court just days after the banishment of Roger de Romano. Gossip in the halls had reached her ears. A clever and ambitious woman could see at a glance that combining the lands of Chester with those of Lincoln would form a barrier across Northern England, which would separate the truculent Scottish Barons from the power base established in Wessex and London. This would provide two armies, (one in Northern France, and one in England), at no expense, both loyal to the King. Only a fool would reject an offer of such magnitude, and William was no fool. Although his brother Henry may have disagreed with that assumption as history will prove.
Margaret never saw Lucia prior to the wedding; in fact, she cared little for her appearance. She knew her age and that she had produced a male child. It was enough. She trusted her son to do his duty even if Lucia resembled a horse. Once an heir was born, there would be plenty of women to keep him amused.
A resentful Ranulph de Meschines set out for England in the late summer of 1098. His mother had told him little of his newly betrothed other than the extent of her holdings. Had his elder brother survived the riding accident, he could have spent his days enjoying the fruits of Avranche, both financial and female. He felt manipulated. He was.
He had convinced himself that he would be marrying a spent hag, one of those dumpy English women he had seen at court. Only good manners stopped him visiting his new lands in Chester before seeking out his bride. He thought it expedient to give the impression he was keen to meet his intended rather than gloat over his title and inheritance.
The cynical and jaded Lucia had assumed he would be months in Chester and was caught completely unprepared when his arrival was announced. Beatriz would greet him and inform Lucia in private as to her fate.
Ranulph pulled at his riding gloves and looking up caught sight of an extraordinary looking woman. She was tall with unbraided black hair, which tumbled around her heart shaped face. She had very pale skin and cornflower blue eyes. She welcomed him to Lincoln in formal French and Latin. Ranulph stared at her, rethinking his position quickly. No one had told him his assumptions were wrong and he had been a fool to make them. He stuttered out words of greeting so badly he seemed ill mannered and foolish. Beatriz had time to fully take in the appearance of this recalcitrant suitor. To her he seemed very young, only in his twenties. Tall, reasonably handsome, but obviously lacking in formal etiquette from what she had witnessed. Totally unsuitable as the new Duke, but a suitor nonetheless.
In the seconds that followed, Ranulph made a decision. He did not intend to lose any of his recently gained lands let alone the respect of this stunning woman. He dropped to his knees, bent his head, and made a sincere apology for his lack of grace. He hoped for the love of his future bride and mother of his children. He would share ownership of all his lands with her and seek her council in all his administrations. He looked up and launched his most dazzling smile. He meant what he said, if only for the instant the words parted from his lips.
If Lucia had stepped out of the shadows where she was hiding, she could have stopped the confusion of mistaken identitiy . But she couldn’t move. Bone and sinew were locked. Her eyes riveted to Beatriz’s face as she bent her gaze upon the kneeling man.
Time slows a little when decisions are necessary. It elongates and wavers. In the stretched, membrane thin seconds that pass, oxygen levels plummet so we often gasp for air as the moment transpires.
A curious sensation started at the back of Lucia’s neck, like spiders crawling over her skull. It went down her back and picked up speed as it ran across her stomach and buttocks. It was so uncomfortable that she moved, causing the couple in the Great Hall to look in her direction. The feeling continued down her legs and arms simultaneously. She walked towards them both but keeping her eyes firmly on those of her friend. Before she took her final step towards Ranulph, she made a small, unseen movement with her fingers and the last of her shedding skin dropped silently to the floor.
She introduced herself as Beatriz de Taillebois, daughter of Ives.
…
“Lucia”, Countess of Chester, bore her third husband three children. When he died in 1128, she paid King Henry I, (brother of William II), 500 marks to remain single and to rule her own court in her own right. She would be known throughout history as the mysterious thrice married countess Lucy. A tower was added to Lincoln castle and named after her. She was also the only noblewoman of the court of Henry I to employ a woman grounds man who took care of the lands surrounding the castle and the river that supplied fresh drinking water to all its inhabitants.
The grounds woman was never named, as she was of no importance. Beatriz de Taillebois disappeared from the documentation of noblewomen in 1099, presumed dead without issue.
R.A Cawley 2007
