Do You Know Your Floors?

One of the lesser known foibles of D. H. Lawrence is that he loved to scrub floors. I have been reading his collected letters, five thick volumes, and it seems that any time he moved into a new house (and he moved with astonishing frequency), he would get down on his hands and knees with a scrubbing brush. ‘I tied my braces round my waist and went for it,’ he wrote to the writer and socialite Lady Cynthia Asquith in 1913. ‘Lord, to see the dark floor flushing crimson, the dawn of deep red bricks arise from out this night of filth, was enough to make one burst forth into hymns and psalms.’

 

Throughout Lawrence’s life, he tried to convert people to cleaning, as therapy, art and spiritual practice rolled into one. The richer they were, it seems, the better. His ultra-wealthy American patron Mabel Dodge Luhan was a favourite candidate. ‘You don’t know your floor,’ he said to her, ‘until you have scrubbed it on your hands and knees.' 

 

Slightly unwisely given the heatwave, I got to know my floors this month. I decided to take up the sad mottled carpet in my son’s bedroom, sand the rough floorboards, paint the walls, and add an elaborate mural around his bed. Perspiration and dust aside, I found the whole process a joy. ‘Knowing’ the floorboards of course, but also consulting with my five-year-old as to the world he’d like to drift off in (Each Peach Pear Plum, The Dawn Treader, the spot where we camp in Devon and the cottage where we stay in Cumbria all came into it). And then there was the magical experience of painting a scene on a grand, three-wall scale, a painting that can be lived in rather than looked at. 

If you are interested in a mural, please let me know – I’ve just made a little gallery of the ones I’ve done and I'm hungry for more walls! (Not so hungry for more floors - you may have to get to know those yourself.)

P. S. My shop is open with prints, cards and original paintings for the next fortnight, then closed as I’m going off with my children to Devon – my first summer holiday with a school-aged child, which feels very exciting (although I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to squeeze in painting and writing – tips most welcome).