Author: theoldmortuary.design

theoldmortuary has been a blog for about five years. It has evolved into an almost daily event. Pondering on the things that are inspired by my daily life. Often mundane, sometimes repetitive I swerve from hyperlocal activity to big and small thoughts without blinking an eye. I am an artist and writer. My hometown is Plymouth in South West England, part of me will always be connected to London and another part loves to travel.

#515 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Mother's Day, Serendipity3 Comments
©theoldmortuary

Mothers Day in the UK dawns bright and early. My baby octopi and their baby octopi are many miles away. For some years,I have been so very pleased not to be an Octopus Muma. I would not be writing this now if I were. Octopus Muma makes a great big life changing sacrifice when she books into the underwater maternity world. Bigger than giving up sleep, listening to live music and restful days doing nothing. Octopus Muma becomes a snack.

© Jenny Jones

The Netflix Documentary, My Octopus teacher shows the intelligence and wisdom of an Octopus Muma, link below

https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/81045007?preventIntent=true

Beyond the final sacrifice, being an Octopus Muma seems fabulous. Swimming in warm waters with my children. No lego to step on, no last minute costumes for school plays or ingredients for cooking projects. No need to join parents groups or be a taxi. Just all the fun stuff, adventures in kelp forests. Hide and seek in underwater caves. Catching a ride on a thermal current. The fun stops though when Muma becomes supper.

So although it is a little sad to be apart on Mothers Day. I know that I am safe. My beloved children and grandchildren are far enough away and enjoying their lives elsewhere. With no thought of turning me into something to be served from a bowl!

P.S just as I finished writing this I opened my Mothers Day card. It features a bee so cannot be included in this blog but the sentiment is worth sharing.

Motherhood is no joke, but I am proud to have nurtured two lovely human beings into adulthood. At times I have been eaten up with worries, sadness and the pressure of getting ‘Motherhood’ done right. For the most part I know I have ‘winged’ it, usually dropping down on the side of ‘Good Enough’which is fine by me. In an age where everything seems to have external assessors, or users reviews, with the goal being ‘The Best’ it is easy to forget that ‘Better,is often, the enemy of Good’

Three or four stars is just fine .

#514 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

What activities do you lose yourself in?

A lovely coincidence today when my blogging platform made a title suggestion, I could employ easily. I have often lost myself in painting. Any spare moment in March will be spent creating paintings, prints and cards for a Spring exhibition. While procrastinating I found this unfinished painting in a pile that I had discarded. Discarded because I had painted it on a new paper that I have not used before. The underlying pencil sketch could not be rubbed out and I had discarded it, probably with a touch of grumpiness. More than a year later I covered the pencil marks with some coloured Posca Pens.

And then added some indoor palm fronds for the print version. Although there hasn’t been a lot of free time today I have spent odd moments losing myself in the water of Tinside Lido. Not the actual water but a watercolour, a far warmer pursuit.

Painting and cold water swimming both give me the ability to lose myself, painting just does it for a lot longer. On a really productive day I could lose myself in painting for several hours without any detrimental effects. Swimming or Bobbing are shorter periods of loss, more than an hour is about my limit and that is in the summer.

So if I am not ‘lost’ in water or painting, am I fully present? For the most part yes, but probably the biggest lost period of my life has been spent in books or reading. Currently I am in New York with an early twenties Stanley Tucci, the pasta and the company are sublime. I may not return.

Reading, painting, swimming and procrastinating. Sometimes I am more lost than found.

#513 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, SerendipityLeave a comment

I’ve been painting stormy sunrise for a couple of days. It has been a stormy everything for the last few hours. I don’t think the subject matter influenced the weather, but if I have in any way got some supernatural powers today should be a good day as I am painting Tinside Lido in high summer.

Actually not this view, but I might try this one later. It is almost identical to an old poster that lives in our bathroom.

In this poster and the imagined life beyond it there are always handsome servicemen in uniform decoratively placed at every corner. Real life is not like this. In real life the swimming rafts are a good way further out and in real life the water in the lido really is a gorgeous turquoise colour. I am not sure I would feel any sense of achievement if the rafts were this close, neither would I wish to swim in a murky green sea water pool. Since taking up sea swimming, pools are not my thing. I do however allow myself a couple of dips in the Lido, just for the love of the art deco beauty and the unique experience. It can be the most delightful suntrap and conversely it is also well positioned to make the most of cold south westerly winds even at the height of summer. Plymouth was a centre for the most delightful of holidays with my parents. They were not, however, swimmers so the Lido was definitely viewed but not experienced until I was in my 40’s with children who would enjoy it as much as I did. My delightful holidays in Plymouth took in bomb sites and remarkable modern Brutalist rebuilding. Not something that has made it onto promotional holiday posters. My arrival in this city was as marital baggage to my ex- husbands career, a two year project we thought. Many years later here I am doing that classic thing living my dream in a holiday destination, completely unplanned.

Hoping for better weather tomorrow.

#512 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Box2 Comments

Yesterday colour and procrastination collided. The museum and gallery where I work has an exhibition of sketches and drawings, some 500 years old and some very recent. In between the two galleries is a break- out space where members of the public can sketch and draw with pencils and paper provided. The exhibition has been open a month and there were boxes full of blunt pencils. Pencil sharpening is one of my great pleasures and a bit of a favourite procrastination. It is the perfect dopamine hit, a few quick turns in a pencil sharpener and a blunt grubby thing becomes sharp and clean. With the added bonus of a swirl of wood shaving with a bright edge.

Pencil sharpening has become a solitary pleasure since childhood but yesterday I was reminded of the pleasures of social sharpening.

When I was at primary school queuing for the pencil sharpener was a social activity. Friends were often separated during lessons, to cut down on idle chatter, but if mid-lesson we had a conversation that just had to be had in lesson time we could signal to one another and join the queue for the table mounted pencil sharpener. In one class set up it was also a break from my malodorous desk partner, a boy called Nigel, who lacked any social skills, but thought that at age 9 feeling my legs with his plump sweaty hand was an acceptable use of shared leg space. Imbecile! The sharp point of a metal compass became invaluable. Far more useful than reporting such things, which were caused by my overactive imagination, apparently.

Yesterday 3 of us set about sharpening pencils. As we created a glorious collection of shavings we kept an eye on the galleries and the sketchers but also managed wide ranging conversations covering bell ringing, dentistry and the cultural lives of ninety year olds.

Before I left the pencil shavings I took a moment to run my hand through them. They didn’t have the wonderful oily smell of wood that you would get in a carpenters workshop full of bigger shavings, something drier and a bit musty. I realised yesterday that I have no idea how a pencil is made. If you are similarly in the dark I have shared a link. Thank goodness for YouTube and How Pencils are Made.

And then there is Instagram. https://theoldmortuary.design/2023/03/16/512-theoldmortuary-ponders/

#511 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

Rewind to the weekend. We had a bit of a blue Sunday.

A silent disco at The Box in Plymouth under the figureheads. Having circled the globe many times these restored figureheads have witnessed all sorts of shenanigans but rarely, I imagine, cast so gorgeously in blue lights. I won’t shock your eyes with the moves of a small group of bobbers who attended but * did find some blue flowers in my photo archive that might give a flavour of our shapes.

rbsh

You might think that taking off the headphones would give a zen-like silence. Perhaps suggested by the name of the event. Silent Disco

But no, the silence does not exist, the overwhelming sound when the headsets are removed is laughter. We were also treated to an informal gathering of Rock Choir singers who belted out the lyrics of three different tracks with more accuracy than the rest of us. Sartorially the attendees were all fabulously attired , some of the figureheads were overdressed for the occasion.

3 hours slipped by, bones and joints groaned a little but a Blue Sunday was a fun experience.

#510 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Firestone Bay, SerendipityLeave a comment

What a difference a day makes. Below the Mewstone at Wembury from Firestone Bay this morning, and below the Mewstone from Wembury Beach Car Park yesterday.

When I woke up this morning an unexpected shaft of sunlight pricked at my left thigh. A few more moments of sleep was not an option. A quick check on a WeatherApp suggested that this was going to be short lived. Eschewing breakfast me and the box-fresh, recently groomed dogs set off on a quick circumnavigation of the Stonehouse Peninsular. The sun was fabulous but I really appreciated my very warm fishermans sweater. The wind was piercing, icy needles pricked at my naked ankles. The wind was blowing in a north-easterly direction making the second half of the walk much less pleasurable but it also takes me nearer more trees. The shafts of sunlight had also woken up the sleeping birds and they were doing their very best to assemble a Dawn Chorus, not perhaps as fabulous as those heard at the end of Spring, but certainly those birds that were trilling this morning were putting in a good early season shift, a fine reason to get out early.

#509 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing, flowers, SerendipityLeave a comment
View from the office today.

It’s dog grooming day, normally after getting chores done I return here for a coastal walk or a swim without doggy distractions but the view from the car tells you why I would rather catch-up on on ‘stuff’ on my phone.

Before we left I rescued the garden daffodils from the swirling winds and icy rain of the day

And rescued some figs from a fate of becoming over-ripe.

But the most Important task of the morning was to respond to a Government Consultation Document about the quality of sea water that we swim in at Firestone Bay. The bay has been used for swimming for more than a century but post-Covid the popularity of the area has hugely increased. If the area becomes a designated swimming area the water quality will be closely monitored during the official swimming season of mid-May to mid-September.

As regular readers know we swim year-round and none of our regular bobbers have ever become ill in the two years we have been bobbing. But becoming a Designated Swimming Zone will also ensure that our waterside environment remains safe and with adequate life saving equipment available. The link to the document is below if any bobbers are reading this. It only takes a few minutes to fill in.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/designation-of-4-new-bathing-waters-in-england?fbclid=IwAR3Fb-sn1Urz2TSYwH3n9kgYrgtXOXjdPy7wv9QgzQu7n8HGk1VJoSV5a64

Just to finish with a non-rainy picture my early morning dog walk took me past some peeling paint. There is even a ghost sign being revealed.

#508 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, SerendipityLeave a comment
©David Muddyman

Two visits to Ocean Studios this week. The first on Thursday for a Drawn to the Valley artists meet up, and the second to catch up with the watercolours of a recently deceased artist David Muddyman. David was a composer, but returned to visual arts in 2016. This style of colour block water colour is not unique to him but his work is a reflection of the environment in which he lived. Both of my visits this week have been when the gallery was super busy. Saturday the gallery was hosting a children’s art club, so a third visit will be needed to enjoy his calm, meditative work but I was thrilled to find such an easy comparison to show his affinity with local colours. The picture below is a flagstone in one of the toilets. I know that is hardly the most kindly pairing to a piece of art but the flagstone is pretty impressive to someone who loves colour. These are the naturally occurring colours in the stone, not the result of a major toilet crime.

I just stuck the two images together to show how accurate the colour matches are.

When the gallery is less busy I can more accurately find out which area the painting was inspired by, it is very unlikely to actually be a toilet floor.

In another snatched glimpse, over the heads of crayon wielding children, I saw the perfect representation of greige. My least favourite weather manifestation of the Tamar Valley.

A perfect 2D facsimile of many days, including today when everything is a little bit meh!

Homework before I go back for a third time is to explore the music of David Muddyman. There is a link below for that too.

For those not able to visit the gallery at the Royal William Yard I have put a link below to a website where his work can be viewed. The collection is entitled Composed.

https://thebyregallery.co.uk/

A peaceful Sunday to all

#507 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Family, Serendipity7 Comments

What is your middle name? Does it carry any special meaning/significance?

Here is another Jetpack ( My blogging platform) suggestion, that did actually spark a ponder. My middle name is Anne. To the best of my knowledge it has no special significance. However coupled with a first name of Juliet it creates a spelling minefield, perhaps less so in the digital age, but certainly as child and young adult I would say that at least 75% of the time I would have to correct peoples spelling of my names. Constantly removing an additional T and E from my first name and donating the E back to my middle name. Juliette Ann felt as alien as being called Geoffrey or indeed Jeffery.

A proper first world problem that I have only ever discussed with my friend Marianne ( Marion) until this week when I met a fellow artist called Norah (Nora) who expressed the problem in a different way to me. Marianne and I would agree that the wrong spelling feels uncomfortable, itchy even, just not right. Marianne has lived her life with a curious sentence. ” Marianne with any” meaning with N and E.

Norah went further , she said without her H she felt lopsided, and again the word, uncomfortable. Without her H, she said she cannot function effectively.

What’s in a name?

If I were an actor or musician I would likely have to have a stage name and that would be just fine, I could be comfortable with that. A completely different personna who did glamorous things in exotic places. While Juliet Anne returned home to do the prosaic things of Normal Life. I do not have an imagined stage name to hand.

Had I been a boy I was to have been named Noel after a much loved uncle who killed himself during my mothers pregnancy. Thank goodness that didn’t happen. If I had been a boy I would like to have been called Barzilian after my paternal great grandfather, with a middle name of  Zebediah. I would be known as Zeb. Heaping bad name spelling on my male self by the bucket load. The idea of introducing myself as Zeb is actually quite thrilling. Oh to actually be part of the boy gang with all the privilege that brings.

Names are prescient this week. We welcomed our third granddaughter into our tiny family on Wednesday.

Cecily Bea is one of  a trio of small girls who make up our next generation. Surely some spelling confusions there, especially as Bea is pronounced Be-ah.

She already has a small confusion she was born quickly on Tuesday evening, no time for any worries or concerns, but she was actually born in the early morning of Thursday in Hong Kong. The time difference making a date difference. Whenever, wherever and whoever she is most welcome.



			
					

	




			
				


				
		

		

			
#506 theoldmortuary ponders

						

				On  By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Serendipity2 Comments			

					


		

			






Windy days have an energy about them. From the comfort of indoors the gusts and howls down the chimneys are as close as I get to the outdoor action. I was blown about a good bit yesterday. I wanted to paint wind coming up against something immovable. Smeaton’s Tower seemed like a fairly wind resistant structure.










Yesterday, was an artists meet-up. 25 or so of us met up to talk about important stuff like future exhibitions and just to get together to swap news and most importantly to share knowledge. We always take something to work on. I took my windy painting, others took knitting, sewing, jewellery making. Coffee and cake were also involved, of course. Without a single emblem of Spring, the whole event felt like our creative community was fecund and ready to burst out into the world after a winter of doing our thing, largely confined to our own homes and studios.





Talking is the biggest attraction of these monthly events and true to form I did a lot of that. Diligence was required to get this sketch finished before sunset.










I also had a little bit of fun overlaying the photograph with the painting. Possibly increasing the sense of a storm. What do you think?