Light and Fire - Ali Sainsbury’s art experiments

 January is the calendar's asshole; short half-light days and a damp that seeps into your soul. Of course, this is a very British way of seeing things. This is the time of year I'm most drawn to charcoal as a medium, it finds the resonant frequency of my mood. Maybe it's the darkness of it, or that it's made from destroyed wood. This is Manor farm country park, the sun breaking through the early mist.

 January 2025 and I feel small and mute against a backdrop of Trump's aggressively backward policies and what voice do I really have when social media is controlled by fascist white boys who are proudly flaunting their agendas. I am raging - Ever shouted inside so hard that everything inside and outside starts to crack? A silent scream, because what is the point of screaming out loud? No-one wants to hear me scream and it won't help. What will help? Anything within my power? So I pick up the charcoal and hide somewhere between black dust and white paper - a running zebra, slightly out of focus, a prey animal, one of millions crossing the savanna. I can't draw it, I can only feel it - a big sky hidden above the dust. Driven by hunger and fear, the illusion of freedom and I can see something there, a reluctance to be herded, an upward glace and a barely noticeable hesitation. Then I'm back - have a cup of tea, load the dishwasher, get ready for work because a human doing ...

 I have this reputation of being an unemotional person, I don't think it is true, I just don't wear my feelings as an outer garment. The tigers got me though - that moment I first saw a tiger in the wild; A massive cool cat strolling out of the jungle, ignoring the insignificant humans. My eyes watered so much I struggled to see.  There was very little light which made getting sharp non-noisy pictures a real challenge but here it is, casual endangered apex predator. My next challenge has been to capture that look. It shouldn't take 6 months to finish a charcoal drawing but this one did, not because I spent crazy amounts of time on it. I just got stuck, couldn't get the look, so I went off in dozens of different directions before returning to it this week. I realise now that it's OK to do that, to have 100 tabs open at once, but it's definitely satisfying to decide that's enough. This one is done. The question is, can you name the song from the photo?