I’ve continued to think today about the work of Sean Jefferson, whose pictures I’ve mentioned in the last two postings. A stimulus to this persisting interest is a vague sense that there is something missing from them. This might well seem a peculiar response to art work which is so obviously and superabundantly full of incident and detail. What could possibly be missing from images in which so much is happening?
It was only this afternoon, as I took a last look before passing the catalogue to a friend of mine who is a writer with interests in the European tradition of fairy stories, that the penny dropped.* Although Jefferson’s pictures are populated by numerous human figures, none of them seem to be responding to each other. Possibly related to this is the additional fact that, despite it being the case that nudes feature frequently in them, there is never any sense at all that these are sexual beings. Yes they are evidently gendered, but that is not the same as saying that they hold any sexual “charge”, either for each other or for the viewer. The juxtaposition of these two things I find very strange. I’m still thinking about it.
Something else is missing from my life today. This morning we discovered that the hedgehog I have been “fostering” for several months had been killed by a cat. I don’t think that my attachment to “Hodge” was sentimental. (Well: not very!) We only met twice, and I was content to put out food for it. My response had a great deal to do with the discovery that hedgehogs are a declining species. It felt good to be offering a space in the garden which helped to preserve wild life. A good part of my reaction is one of anger. I am told that the largest threat to wild life in the world is the domestic cat. Why on earth are the British so sentimental about these parasites?
*Elizabeth Hopkinson, who has published many short stories (including a book-length collection) many of which exhibit her wide reading and interest in the fairy story genre.
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