Park Notes

by Sarah Pickstone

Featuring contributions from Olivia Laing, Iain Sinclair, Marina Warner, Craig Taylor, and many more

'I stepped out of the city and into the park. It was as simple as that.' –Ali Smith

From the rugged beauty of Hampstead Heath to the manicured lawns of Hyde Park, generations of Londoners have sought respite within the city's renowned parks. Naturally writers too indulged in the tranquillity of these spaces, which often informed and stimulated their work. Regent's Park, in particular, has appeared in several books - from Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway to Angela Carter's Wise Children.

Award-winning painter Sarah Pickstone was intrigued by the writers associated with Regent's Park - those who wrote in it, about it, or were simply inspired by it, and her work explores these serendipitous connections between people, places, and ideas.

Capturing that same spirit, Park Notes (curated by the artist herself) combines Pickstone's radiant paintings alongside the work of fellow contemporary artists, evocative extracts from writers of the past, and essays and stories from today's most engaging authors. The result is a captivating and distinctive collection, celebrating the creative process and the glorious natural spaces in the heart of London.

Genres: Nonfiction, London, Poetry, Essays

128 pages, Hardcover

First published July 3, 2014

Reviews

[Hanna Gabler · Rating 3 out of 5]

It started off great with poems and vividly described scenes of Regent’s Park. But the other half of the book only consisted of authors giving commentary to other authors texts. I wish there were more original texts from the classical writers like George Eliot or Mary Shelley.

[Belinda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wanted to write a review but I wanted to write a poem more.
So I did.



Park Notes

I have published this poem in an ezine so can't have it here anymore.
http://www.sweetmammalian.com/#!belin...

But I did love the book

[Rogue Male · Rating 3 out of 5]

6/10

[Cathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of writing and art loosely themed around London's Regents Park, compiled by artist Sarah Pickstone and including many of her beautiful, luminous paintings. There are extracts of work from famous writers who have lived near, or written about, or been inspired by Regents Park, as well as by contemporary writers. Pickstone, in her introduction, says 'my interest in drawing this park lay in a combination of nature and human narrative and that the park was in some way an exquisite example of this'. Her paintings too are exquisite, often featuring delicate, ghostly images of female writers associated with the park alongside images of nature: trees, flowers, water.

There are extracts from work by Elizabeth Bowen, Katherine Mansfield, Virginia Woolf, Mary Shelley, Fanny Burney, George Eliot and Angela Carter; poems by Stevie Smith, Sylvia Plath and Elizabeth Browning. A Finale by Marina Warner discusses ideas of art and gender; of sacred space and time, and how painting can transport us into other worlds; and of how we need artists to help us see the everyday things of life more clearly, such as the dying moth which is the subject of Virginia Woolf's essay included in the book. Warner concludes with a passage from Woolf's novel To The Lighthouse, in which the artist Lily Briscoe examines the picture she is painting, makes the final mark which finishes it, and realises she has had a moment of sudden clarity and vision. This, Warner suggests, is Woolf's 'lasting manifesto for why artists make their art' - and of course, too, why writers write.

However, the book is not all high art and vision. There are a number of short stories and essays by contemporary writers. Iain Sinclair describes going on an expedition with a photographer friend to take pictures of the feral pigeons which roost under bridges, in a world which seems far from the politeness of Regents Park. Amanda Coe writes about walking a new puppy in the park, and the messy business of toilet training; she speculates that perhaps it was having to deal with the bodily functions of her spaniel, Flush, which gave Elizabeth Barrett the courage to leave her couch-ridden, Victorian spinster's existence and elope to Italy with Robert Browning (and the pampered Flush, of course). Photographs of book covers and manuscripts accompany the text; the opening page of Angela Carter's Wise Children, handwritten on lined A4 paper, is remarkably neat. No cut-and-paste or delete key here.

This is a book to dip into, full of thoughts about writing, about art, and about nature - albeit the somewhat tamed version of nature that is Regents Park. A book to treasure and revisit time and again, like the park itself.