Dance of the Mayfly

‘A Mural for Myah’ at Warmington School

11/12/13 April 23

My Mayfly Day
   In all the expanse of time
   From the first glimmer
   To the wink of the last sun
   I find I am here
   Here in this fraction of a moment
   That includes me

   And for this, my personal Mayfly day
   I am more amazed than I can ever say          Shaun William Hayes

A return to Warmington, a school I haven’t visited for a while. At the beginning of 2015 and the tail end of 2014 I led some drawing workshops at WS, as well as a ‘Monet Mural’ project which had Remembrance as its theme. It was good to see the painting again after such a long gap, I could see it with fresh eyes and it was like meeting up with an old friend. It has been very well looked after. Despite its location being in quite a narrow space and now almost 9 years old, it still looks as though it was only completed yesterday!

Toward the end of November last year I received a message from Head of School Mikayla Aldous asking if I’d be able to fulfil a very special project. She also sent a photograph of an outside wall and on learning the details had no hesitation about replying with a positive response. We arranged to meet and I visited the school to speak with her on 6th December.

Sadly last November, Myah, a child in Year 2, had died. It goes without saying that her loss, which came so swiftly and unexpectedly, was a huge shock to everyone who knew her.

Myah was a very popular pupil. The staff and her many friends felt a deep affection for her. She loved music, dancing and had a kind heart.

Of the many murals I’ve designed and painted, this one was different. Although I’ve painted murals on a remembrance theme before, this would be a memorial for someone who so many in the school had known. The subject this time had a feeling of intimacy. It was personal.

In terms of creating a design being a challenge, it ranked very high. All life is precious and the loss of anyone close is distressing, but when the life of a child whose potential is yet to be fulfilled is taken, we feel that loss even more. A portrait would have been inappropriate in these circumstances and I didn’t want design features to be overly sentimental. I felt it needed to be simple, straightforward, contemplative; a Zen-like ‘less is more’ composition.

My aim was to produce something secular and timeless which might communicate a message and act in some small way as a kind of explanation to her friends, still too young to fully comprehend the meaning and complexities of life, as to why their sister/classmate/companion was no longer with them.

The starting point of the design came from Myah’s own handwritten name, which began as mud but later was preserved using paint. This element, a personal first hand connection, was to become the focus for my design and I built my composition around it.

Being a landscape painter I decided to employ elements of the natural world which have beauty and give us pleasure, yet are all short lived. The first which came to mind and which is perhaps the most beautiful natural phenomena we all encounter is a rainbow, and its natural arc provided the backbone of the composition. My intention was that it would also gain intensity, height and width as it travelled from right to left along the full length of the wall.

Beside Myah’s name I placed the head of a Taraxacum, better known simply as a dandelion. The yellow blossom head is one of the first flowers to emerge each spring and I may be criticised for including what everyone recognises as an infuriating weed and gardeners curse, but there is good reason. To begin with, close examination of the seed head alone, composed of numerous florets, reveals a magnificent piece of natural world engineering, an incredibly delicate structure about which Leonardo himself would marvel. However, many generations of children have also enjoyed blowing away these seeds as a clock, and therefore perfect as both a connecting device and visual metaphor. Due to its design dandelion seeds can travel huge distances, the effective fine haired pappus attached to each seed allowing it to float on the lightest air, parachute to the ground and take root, which I felt could be an imitation of how memories of a person can travel far and wide. Seeds of memory can remain, grow and live with us forever.

As the seeds travel across the wall they metamorphose into other forms; into hearts, musical notes, butterflies and silhouetted doves. The heart symbol is universally recognised as being identified with love and sincere feeling. Musical notes represent Myah’s love of music and dancing. Delicate, colourful butterflies emerge from egg/caterpillar/chrysalis stages to live short fluttering lives transferring pollen, and upon whom a plant’s fertilisation depends. The dove, widely regarded as a symbol for Peace, in this instance is employed as a metaphor for being ‘at rest’ and in a state free from anxiety or distress ie. Rest In Peace.

Interspersed among and between all of these elements, gradually reducing in scale, float the letters which comprise Myah’s name. They imitate her writing style, repeating like an echo. They drift gradually upwards to the highest point of the painting, the apex of the rainbow, where they merge with a collection of stars, luminous celestial bodies twinkling in our night sky. To me, staring into a star filled night sky is akin to being hypnotised by the flames of an open fire or the continual breaking of waves on a shoreline. It instills a feeling of pure meditation, an opportunity to reflect, muse and contemplate things that might be beyond our own universe and our understanding.

Thanks to Henri, who helped me realise this painting, it was completed in less than 3 days. British Springtime being as it is we encountered almost the full range of weather conditions during that time, gusty winds and sharp showers keeping us on our toes, especially while balancing on a step ladder. Being on the shadow side of the building it wasn’t very warm either! Most importantly, it was completed ahead of Myah’s birthday, which was the promise I’d made to Mikayla at our first meeting and I was pleased to have been able to be good to my word.

This year, on May 1st, Myah would have been celebrating her 7th birthday and it was the combination of this date and what I have learned about her character and short life that inspired the name I decided upon for this painting. Despite being small and having a fragile nature its brief existence nevertheless is vital and very important to our ecosystem. Without it our world would not be the same. And it dances…….

Mayfly.