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Above the desk in my study is a black aquatint of a heron (Hambling, 1993). The bird's neck is not visible except as a white space collapsed into its body and disappearing somewhere into its oily feathers. Above the feathers a sharp head with a long beak and a luminous eye scans the surroundings. Any moment the neck may rise up when the bird pinpoints its fishy prey. My heron looks at me sideways with a sharpness and intensity which I find exhilarating but also slightly nerve-racking-will it stand, elongate its long neck and stab at me when I'm not looking? Or will it simply stretch itself to its great height, give a slight push and float off the paper up to another realm?
Maggi Hambling, the British artist who made my aquatint, has always been haunted by herons. She was “electrified” in her childhood by her first view of a heron. “I can see it now: at the far side of a field. Slowly stepping along was this enormous exotic creature from another world. I couldn't believe it was real, let alone English” (Lambirth, 2006, p. 11). It took her years as an established artist to be able to paint her soul bird. “More than once I've dreamt I'm making love with a heron. I've tried to draw it, tried to paint it, but so far I've had to destroy the lot … we'll see” (Lambirth, 2006, p. 101). Finally in 1993 she made the aquatint, a copy of which now scans my study. Because it is drawn in ink, which cannot be erased, there is a freshness and urgency to the image, but also a solidity of form. This bird is very much alive.
Herons are the strangest of birds and they haunt the stretch of the Thames near where I live, like grey shredded ghosts. They stand for hours on the edge of the mud or on the decks of houseboats, staring grimly at the water like dishevelled party-goers waiting for a silver flash of light to alert them. Then they are off and within an instant they are sailing upwards with a small carp or perch in their beaks, their long reed-like legs trailing behind them. They belong