driving home (with personal Christmas message from Lockie)

Lockie says:

“My favourite Christmas song is Driving Home For Christmas. I am lucky enough to have recorded it once before, but the version I have re-imagined on my Stargazer EP is the rendition I have always heard in my heart. There’s something about the yearning in the lyrics: he’s not home yet. He’s stuck in traffic. He’s been away a long time. I’ve always hoped he would make it back in time but I’ve never been sure. I’ve always heard a sentimental melancholy to this song and I’m so happy with the stripped-bare rendition on the EP. It seems to suit Christmas 2020 whereby we really don’t know if we will be able to be with loved ones at all. A tricky Christmas for an Aussie in London.

For the single of Driving Home For Christmas I decided to paint the artwork myself and I love it very much. Warm, safe and inviting. And look! He’s almost home, it’s just there! He’s gonna make it! I’ve called it Driving Home.

That car I’ve painted is my family’s 1982 Jeep Cherokee. It was a tank. I was in a car accident when I was 18 months old in which I could have died - so my mum and dad decided to buy the largest, strongest car they could find. Enter the mighty Jeep. It was a cross between bronze and Kermit the Frog green. Dad installed a Chevvy V8 into it. It was an absolute beast. You could hear the Chapman family coming from miles away.

In the distance, that’s an old Aussie home from sometime, someplace. Maybe somewhere like Bulahdelah; I like it there. Verandah all around, Hills Hoist clothes line out the back (ask any Aussie), open door, covered porch, raised off the ground for ventilation and protection from floods. So in a way, that’s a memory from my past driving up an imagined scene to an old home that’s somewhere inside my heart. Maybe it’s a future memory yet to be created.

Anyhow, get your hand back on the wheel, Locks...

For those of you who have been following my paintings in ‘The Five Series’, (of which I’ve released two so far) this may interest you. That headland and that mountain in the distance of ‘Left/Right’ and ‘True North’ find themselves here in Driving Home. They are both separate and real places; an amalgamation - but more on that another time. But for those who have the first two prints, imagine that right-arrow road sign. I only realised after I had finished the painting but it’s almost like this scene is just to the right of Left/Right or True North: a driveway juuuust to the right of the first two paintings and home is literally right there! Ha! If only it were that simple.

And finally that MOON! I asked a friend of mine who is a celebrated astrologer what the moon would look like on Christmas Day 2020. And that’s it. A ‘waxing moon slightly over half’. If the moon looks like that on Christmas Day, I’ll be outside the whole time looking up!

Because the single artwork was painted as a square and the A3 and A4 prints are more rectangular, I have a bit more space at the bottom of the print, so I’ll be writing a handwritten Christmas (or any) greeting for you, your family or for whoever you purchase the print for.”