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Shading after some drawings of Lorraine Simms i - Still Life The light shed on the glass table top disposes the most engaging shadows, the dust on it producing a speckled sphere that encloses an outline of an overweight cat, the combination cast by my black hat and an electric fan while the shape of an owl has been made by a jug, its lip and handle the orbits of deep set eyes in a white mask. What could cat and owl be saying? No need to ask.  Pheasant 2, by Lorraine Simms (Canada) contemporary ii - Pheasant A shadow emanates from the undergrowth, a cautious jerky head, call spoofing a klaxon then sprinting out in front of us shaking wattles of fire-alarm red on to a field of flints and stubble though oddly robotic with its manic straight line, crying “The sky is falling, the sky is falling,” before hurtling into the air in a low trajectory round a corner of the wood’s blurred penumbra. iii - Pipistrelle The one I found in my cabin I first thought was a little patch of damp on the window frame or some kind of darkness, an umbra, as the shutters idled open, swung to with their shadows never still from moment to moment. But it was a pipistrelle, snub-nosed, head full of echoes, those shadows of sound. I touched it with the tip of my little finger and it took off straight to the chink it had found to enter through the kitchen window without terror.  Fruit Bat, by Lorraine Simms (Canada) contemporary iv – Fruit Bat The dead bat reclines, wings spread, a round belly as if she has just fed on mango or banana although the running cross-stitch from sternum to pelvis hints at a Caesarean delivery of her pups. Floppy-eared, hooks at her elbow joints, her thick necked shadow has thrown a cloak about her body against foul weather or the honking of her mate. She had no device to transmit ethereal halloos. She just had to make do with acute vision and smell.  Lion Skull, by Lorraine Simms (Canada) contemporary v - Lion Bones The lion skull contemplates roaring to disturb our sense of touch not hearing, despite the pencil’s whisper meditating sheer silkiness on sheer silk. The lioness bone’s dark, wasp-waisted being casts shadows the way voices echo voices, echo inhuman cries, echo a beast, a bestiary world calling, language echoing desire.  Panthera Tigis Scapulae, by Lorraine Simms (Canada) contemporary vi – Tiger Shoulder Blade Tiger scapula: delicacy not the ponderous movement of shoulders out of thick undergrowth at daybreak then along the bank of a river wheeling leftwards to the rising sun, flesh and blood as woven stuff, wing-like, wavering yet with a purpose coming at me or away from me, wheeling leftwards certainly from where I sit.  Panthera Tigris Tiger Skull, by Lorraine Simms (Canada) contemporary vii – Tigress Skull The pitted bone, a friable hollowed rock (Don’t touch! Don’t touch!) but at the centre a debutante at her coming-out ball holding the hem of her gown as a plump fool lifts her in the waltz on the lawn before the twin turrets in the background, the pencil mimicking the memory of being, not the consequences of action. I am. I was. I won’t be.  Bison Skull, by by Lorraine Simms (Canada) contemporary viii – Bison Skull Clouds moving very fast above the prairie, shadows of rain fallen or rain to come, clouds moving very fast above a hurtling darkness which is not cloud shadow, but thousands of beasts drumming on the earth as they gallop away from fire or homo sapiens sapiens with rifles, a finished drawing of horns doubled by shadow, shading thickened to opacity around the muzzle of something flayed then left for insects to strip to the bone.
ix – Polar Bear Skull and Paw Skull a tobacco-coloured warrior helmet, incisors with an overbite not to be gainsaid, his shadow a centred darkness, shading on shading, appetite on appetite; paw bones, radius and ulna, powerful yet refined like the hand of a pianist, Rachmaninov’s stretch of a thirteenth interval to be splayed over the white keys of ice and snow shuffling, then padding, then dancing to its prey.
x - Leviathan Right Whale vertebra, an image from Jan Miró, a spiritus oceani, billow of a water spout above waves, then a whale soul with paddles, protoplasm laid on protoplasm, embryo gazing with old eyes, scalar presence twisting into forms, the evolution from inertia moving with tides in and out of storms. xi – Pencil Sharpener I’m copying this hearing the rhythm of my pen in my notebook for penultimate drafts and, on the floor on flimsy print-out paper, the scratching of coloured pencils made precise by the Dino Family battery sharpener with soft rubbery spines and a motor, a blue eyeless monster with a round maw into which my granddaughter has pressed blunt tips and retrieved, much to her delight, fine points.  Panthera Tigris Leg Bones, by Lorraine Simms (Canada) contemporary xii - Draw Draw me the shadow of a tiger. Draw me the shadow of a bear. Draw me the shadow of a dinosaur. Draw me the shadow of the sea and Leviathan that swims therein. Draw me the shadow of our planet on the moon. Draw me the dark matter between stars. Draw me the shadow of the Big Bang. Draw me the shadow. James Sutherland-Smith James Sutherland-Smith was born in Scotland in 1948, but has lived in Slovakia since 1989. He has published eight collections, the latest being Small Scale Observations from Shearsman. He has translated a number of Slovak and Serbian poets, a selection from Eva Luka’s poetry being due from Seagull Books in 2025. Lorraine Simms explores our relationship to the natural world through paintings, sculptures, and installations. Her work has been exhibited across Canada and in the United States in private and public galleries including the Canadian Museum of Nature, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, and the Tom Thomson Gallery. Simms’ work has been reviewed in Canadian Art, Border Crossings, and Parachute. Simms has participated in many residencies, including two at the American Museum of Natural History in New York in 2018 and 2019. She lives and works in Montreal where she is represented by McBride Contemporary.
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