To celebrate this elegant upgrade, I have decided to post an image of a sunrise that will be a part of an exhibition in the Meshu Gallery on the 28th of May.
Having finally built an oven here on the mountainside, I am pleased to see a beautiful loaf of olive bread come out! I need to prepare for a more corpulant version of myself. No more scraggly, bony old man on the mountain!
A candle in an unfolding adobe oven. Soon to be replaced with fire and wood. Also with bread and pizza. And warmth. Especially warmth in these strange times...
At the end of May, I will be having, holding (?) an exhibition of paintings at the Meshu Gallery in Maseru. It has been some time, years if not decades ago since I last showed in Maseru. As always there is a sense of anxiety that goes with every exhibition but I am enjoying the process..
SPECIAL ART WEEKEND IN MORIJA 1-3 MAY 2026
Patrick Rorke invites you to the Maloaleng Artist's Residency to do a Raku firing and to take part in art activities such as painting, drawing and clay modelling, all on offer over the weekend. Children will enjoy these creative activities and will love getting their hands dirty. As will the adults!
You will stay at the Morija Guest Houses (MGH) which has had a long and friendly relationship with Patrick’s art work and art activities for many years.
For 2 nights accomodation ( 1st and 2nd May) 2 dinners and 2 breakfasts at MGH plus picnic lunches at Maloaleng, the cost will be R1900 per adult and R950 per child. (5-15yrs)-free for under 5s.
Art Activities will be free but donations to Patrick’s Artists Residency will be most welcome.
Please email Brigitte on [email protected] for bookings.
For some time now I have been working with acrylic. Today I took out my box of oils, charged up a container with genuine turpentine and as the sun began sinking, painted with oil. Though I have never played a cello, I imagine painting in oil is the same as playing that sonorous instrument.
A chair near the front door.. Waiting for tomorrow's full moon. Still beautiful tonight as the colours deepen into the blue evening light. I have been an erratic builder, building a house while also attending to my life and work as an artist. I fully understand the deep frustration of those around me who watch me fiddling with shape and colour when, really, I should only be building. Still, everything seems to be reaching a completion of sorts. Or will I be building until I die? I really do not know any more.
Lesotho sometimes seems to take on a lunar feeling. Stumbling around the rocks, I could well be somewhere far away. For a lanscape painter like myself, it is a rich and varied place to be. All I need is time and the patience to really look. And I need to avoid tripping over rocks and stones.
Lunar views.
A work in progress.
Night at Maloaleng is a time of reflection. The moon shines on the table which will, I believe, soon carry subtle and sumptuous meals. I am amazed that what has seemed for so long to be a somewhat chaotic building site, slowly becoming something more..
As a youngster in Morija I remember the odd missionary striding purposefully by. These were not, in my view, particularly gentle people. Rather they were quite eccentric, bony characters, who seemed absorbed by some far off vision and who had the air of extreme impatience. Or so it seemed to my six or seven year old perception. I moved smartly out of the way if I saw one coming. I have remained cautious of them and their religious ways ever since.
Missionary striding.
Pen on paper
A5
From an old sketchbook.
I was in Barcelona and across the street I saw a beautiful doorway and balcony. On the rails of the balcony was a protest poster of some sort. My trip to the City had to do with the launch of Los Ojos de la Piedra, a book that I had some watercolours in. I was concerned that the protests would keep people away. In the end the worst thing that happened on the evening of the launch was that I insulted a local artist by not even asking who she was. How foolish one is!
Ending and beginning again. Is it possible after all this to begin again? I look through old sketch books and I hardly recognise the hand that drew in them, but, in the end, it was and is mine.
Young girl with big hair.
Pen on paper
A5
