It has been an arty kind of week getting ready to deliver art to Cotehele for the Turner Exhibition.
I hit the opposite of a ‘Sweet Spot’ on Wednesday.
I suppose the opposite of a sweet spot is a sour spot but that feels rather negative. But the spot, whatever it is called, where things need to be done but it is not possible, quite then, to do them.
I was at a point on Tuesday when everything was done for the Friday hand in, but my Giclee prints and cards were not due back from the printer until Wednesday at close of business. They would need packing, framing and mounting.
So rather than faff about I took myself off to a different art exhibition to meet some friends. Both friends in the real world, huggy kind of way, and friends meaning viewing other friends work that has been accepted for the exhibition at Delamore.
I am still processing all I saw and all that four of us talked about but it really was the most delicious combination of 2D and 3D art in a gorgeous setting.
I suppose visiting a completely different sort of exhibition rinsed my mind of the mundane tasks ahead that would need to be completed on Thursday.
Lola finding mundane tasks a bit of a bore.
They were achieved.
Not exactly without a hiccough though.
Two paintings were not as finished as I thought they were and a late substitution was considered ‘ unprofessional’ * and rejected.
So this little chap sailed home with me again. So maybe I did find a ‘Sour spot’ after all.
The painting is not unprofessional but me making a late substitution was apparently so despite emailing ahead of time. But you know you are on a loser when the same person barks “You’re late “
I handed my work in and made a tactical withdrawal to the gardens. Life is too short for such things.
Friends are like flowers in a late Spring flowerbed. They are all unique and are perfect in their own ways and in their own time. Some are fleeting and others are perennial. I would find it hard to pick out a single quality that they have in common, but as an ensemble they are a fabulous bunch. Friendships, like these flowers all change over time but as long as we can all still get along does that even matter?
The return of rust. About 7 years ago I had a trauma with an iPhone. It had been a little cranky for a few weeks, but turning it off and on always chased the gremlins out. Then one day, in a Marks and Spencer Food Hall, it died a sudden death. There was no resuscitating it.
I replaced it with a Huawei because of the excellent camera. When it was time for a next planned upgrade I moved away from Huawei because of the Google ban and am currently using a Google phone.
Somehow in the iPhone to Huawai to Google swap I lost access to my Pinterest and Flickr accounts. I still used those apps but only as a guest and never bothered to log in again. My use of them both lessened, and I didn’t particularly miss them.
Yesterday an email from Pinterest prompted me to re- activate my account. It was like stumbling across a lost handbag before the digital age when handbags* were much more of a thing. I could not believe the stuff/images I found there.
Collected images and ideas for the rebuild and refurbishment of the actual Old Mortuary. All sorts of interests from my personal pre-Covid era. How did I even survive the Covid era without dipping into Pinterest?
Things have changed whilst I was away. My interests have changed. I deleted most of the boards and most of the images I had saved. It would be exactly the same if I found an actual old handbag. But my inspiration board was worthy of keeping, and my collection of rust images.
Reconnecting with Pinterest is like having an old friend move back into my life. It probably won’t occupy exactly the same space in my creative processes but the app will be a very welcome source of alternative ideas. Although I am never likely to return to the days of an over-spilling handbag…
Rusty pipe. Delamore
Yesterday I found this cranky old pipe which had previously served a Victorian greenhouse. The pipe was a gorgeous combination of metal and insulation materials. These images will be added to my Pinterest, Rust and Verdigris Board sometime soon, as will this blog which can be linked to my Pinterest account. Ooooh the changes over 7 years.
* Handbags. In my previous medical imaging life, a well filled handbag could be a useful test tool if the machines were not quite working properly. Handbags are a great example of soft tissue and metallic objects. Nearly always easier to find than the ‘phantom’ human that cost thousands of pounds and was always stored, or not, in a cupboard very far away.
X-raying or CT scanning a handbag was also a really useful skillset when precious things were accidentally thrown away in the surgical or infected waste bins or bags.
When I worked in an extremely posh part of London, a doctor’s expensive vintage Rolex was missing at the end of a case. He believed he had left it in the scrub room before the emergency case. Opportunistic theft was the only obvious scenario. Which made the whole team feel very uncomfortable. The item was of such value the police would have to have been called. Picking through a night’s worth of surgical or infected waste would not have been a great experience for anyone but x-raying every bag or box would reduce the number of bags needed to be searched. The watch, ironically true to its Submariner name had been taken off very early in the proceedings and put safely in a small plastic pot below the trolley. In the aftermath clear up of a very difficult and bloody case the small pot had become covered by other things. Just like a submarine it had taken a dive to the bottom of a yellow waste bag destined for an incinerator. No member of the team was a thief, no police needed. Just the random skill of knowing how best to x-ray a handbag. Why did I not photograph that x-ray, that moment of victory…
Yesterday I was back to winter habits, dog walking in the rain and trying to guess the moments when I would get less wet. I am a very poor predictor of rainfall and was drenched on three occasions. The most memorable when we were in the Memorial Garden of a local park.
Colour drenched
I wish Memorial Gardens would attach QR codes to the memorial plaques. The chosen biography of unknown people would be so much more enjoyable than just their name and dates of birth, and death. Why were these people loved so greatly and missed by so many?
People are so much more than the ash that feeds these blooms.
But the raindrop tears on droopong petals were beautiful yesterday.
In the pink, the view from the studio. We are exactly a year on from having trellis added to our garden wall to extend the height of our North and East facing yard walls. After that all our walls needed painting so we lost almost all of last year’s peak growing season for our new project of growing climbing plants. So this Spring has been a revelation. The climbers are climbing and mingling exactly as we hoped they would. Not completely hiding the neighborhood cats that promenade on the tops of our walls but almost, which leads to a quieter life dog-wise.
After a weekend of potting and preening all anyone needs to do now is bloom and grow. Lets see how that goes.
What does “having it all” mean to you? Is it attainable?
I was a working mother in the 80′,90’s and the noughties. I was also doing on-call, studying and caring at a distance for ailing parents. If the traditional media of the time was to be believed I was actually, ” having it all”.
Obviously it was attainable but only with the support of a husband, two wonderful child-minders. Brenda and Bev, and the most fabulous children.
A Glass ceiling.
” Having it all” was exhausting and, at the time, essential. It is what women had/have to do just to get to the glass ceiling, never mind crack the effing thing.
A cracked glass ceiling.
Life was all about spinning plates, lists and always having a plan B.
” Having it all” was actually just a phase and an informal training scheme for extreme multitasking. A hugely valuable skill that I treasure, but do I ever need to ” Have it all” again.
No Thank You
Not, ” having it all” is far better than ” having it all” but I would not have missed ” having it all” however hard it was at the time.
It would be great to have a natter with my Dad. But as he has been in another realm for 30 years, I would have to say that if I can postpone that natter for as long as possible, I would be very grateful . Especially as we would then be in a position of having an eternity of nattering, perhaps.
I have been having a bit of survivor guilt recently,having outlived both my parents by 4 years. I am probably unrecognisable from the 36 year old they left behind so that would be quite the big subject. I feel guilty because they were never able to be the grandparents they could have been due to ill health and caring responsibilities.. I am lucky enough to be a Nana to 3 delightful granddaughters.It is such a life enhancing role. I am sad that both my parents and children missed out on knowing each other well. My own grandparents born in 1888 and 1898, part of the ‘lost’ generation who had survived two world wars, were never as thrilled to be with me as I am with my small people. As long as I was quiet and with my head in a book they were content to let me be. My other female grandparent was born in the First World War and was a busy businesswoman by the time she was my grandparent. She dropped into my life as an infrequent but glamorous visitor exuding American-style glamour and smelling of perfume, cigarettes and gin and tonic evenings. A heady mix in rural Essex. Also hardly the sort of grandparent required in the 2020’s.. I don’t think bonding and building a relationship with me was a priority for them.
But their children, my parents, would have been fabulous grandparents if they had had the chance.
So like much of my adult life I have to make ‘grandparenting’ up as I go along. I must say I find it all rather lovely, hence the survivors guilt and the desire for that conversation, but not any time soon.
As I was about to write this blog I had a call from friends in Australia. So much fun and laughter in a phone call. They were driving home from an author talk at The Hellenic Cultural Museum.
We had been out last night listening to an author talk too.
What is the glue of a friendship that has at its roots two awkward 11 year olds meeting under an Oak tree in an Essex village 55 years ago. And which is currently 4 people who love to holiday together despite living half a world apart and on opposite time zones. Coffee, silliness, that can be tracked to those awkward 11 year olds. A love of Greece and life in general. The seas around us in those 55 years have been rough at times, but calmer waters and laughter is the balm of an old/refurbished, friendship.
Maybe Fishing in Tranquility Bay is the glue. Just happy to share whatever loveliness we pull out of the great sea of life. That we can share and laugh about over a real world cup of coffee or a group call at opposite ends of our day.
I always thought this failed attempt at a colour wheel looked a little like a Phoenix from the side .
Combining her with a pigment tray from the near the Vatican and some printing experiments has been interesting.
I think I like her best as a dark disco creature.
The reason for all this artistic time wasting, is that for once I am as prepped as I can be for the next art exhibition. The original works are ready and framed. I have done my experimental print run, and am now just waiting for the real print run to be done. The mounts and envelopes are in the studio. Everything is poised for the next flurry of activity, but creatively I am at an impasse. So footling about with some odds and ends was quite cathartic. I might even have rinsed JMW Turner out of my head.
This morning I scrolled past the question above. Posed by my blog hosts. I am not by nature a collector of anything, but maybe my stock of watercolours could possibly be considered a collection.
About 50% of my watercolours.
One of the reasons I believe these paints might be considered a collection are the lengths I go to to acquire new colours.
In Athens last September we took a long walk to an untouristy suburb to find an art shop that hand made oil pastels. Now I don’t use oil pastels but being able to visit someone who creates art materials in a centuries-old traditional and artisinal way was too enticing to be missed. He also sold very lovely Greek manufactured water-colours. I bought an Olive Green which is memorably authentically Greek every time I use it.
The picture above is a pigment shop close to the Vatican in Rome. It remained resolutely closed for the whole of our visit. But this picture is almost enough for me. Almost.
I think if I seek out colours deliberately, in foreign cities, that possibly I might be considered a collector.
I also always make colour charts of my new purchases. Obsessive, hmmm. The jury is out. Am I just an artist or am I a collector?
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