Last week I found a naturally occuring heart at Seaton Beach.
I found this heart and beach detritus at the high tide mark. Today I found another heart, perhaps naturally occuring hearts can be a little sub theme within Ponderings.
Todays was created by the sandbag that was holding down the temporary traffic lights @theoldmortuary . The obvious positive is that both the traffic light and the sandbag have been moved.
Hunting naturally occuring hearts, a little project during Lockdown2.
There is always an urge to buy more art materials when you’ve made a sale or two at an exhibition. I’ve been on a purchasing embargo for over a year so I was excited to buy some Hydrus water colour inks and some Yupo paper. A month long Lockdown should give me plenty of time to experiment.
Yesterday’s painting was not at all creative. I needed to create a colour chart for the new paints on both the Yupo paper and my usual brand. Typo is not even really paper, It is made from plastic. Choosing a different paper is a lot like getting a new skateboard or snowboard. Watercolour relies on mastering skills and tricks in just the same way that boarding does. Unlike other paints it is not so forgiving and can end up like a mud puddle fairly quickly.
The most creative thing about my colour chart painting was the kitchen roll brush cleaner.
After that I allowed myself to try a couple of cling film experiments on the Yupo.
Yupo hugely increases the time that watercolour takes to dry. Intricate layers of texture will take days to create rather than a few hours. My only sketch of yesterday is drying ready for me to work on today.
All of which was a fine way to keep my mind off the election process in the U.S.
In other news, which luckily colour matched with the sketch above, the Cock of Outer Trematonia from Pandemic Pondering #276 lives on.
He was seen in Outer Trematonia with a slightly less bouffant style but still with a swagger. Not unlike the actions of a man across the Atlantic. None of us understand cockwaffle so who knows if he is cock-a-doodling the truth.
Lockdown Eve dawned bright and sunny @theoldmortuary. .
The Window Fish were swimming on the rug and we were in for good day.
Anxiety about the US Election was controlled by some cupboard tidying.
For the same reason I helped a friend hang new curtains, overlooking happy red cows ruminating in the sunshine.
Hugo and Lola sniffed the tracks of squirrels that had earlier snacked on pumpkin seeds.
Which was when we discovered an Autumn tragedy. During the summer a Cock had escaped from the mythical land of Trematonia . ( Trematon Castle reimagined as a style of Interior Design.)
http://www.houseofhackney.com/
He has spent the summer strutting in Outer Trematonia, lots of Cock a Doodling, no canoodling and generally living a charmed life in convivial surroundings.
The evidence suggests that he will not have to endure another Lockdown. Perhaps he will appear tomorrow , partially plucked but with the swagger of someone who has survived a mauling. At the moment though, it looks most likely that he was beaten. Thankfully something similar happened in the U.S.
It’s Complicated
Living @theoldmortuary currently is a little like living in a wisdom tooth while the tooth next door is being filled. Unanounced a week ago a team from a gas company dug up the road next to the house. The front of the house is both an informal depot and the location of temporary traffic lights.
The configuration of barriers, mounds of tarmac and holes in the ground changes daily. This morning the set up feels like a metaphor for the soon to be imposed Lockdown and just like the Lockdown we have no idea how long these road works will go on or how disruptive they will be.
Today was another day of domestic admin and rain avoidance. Looking into the roadworks during a spell of dry weather didn’t make things any clearer.
Time to accept that the road ahead is full of pitfalls and barriers,while we wait to find a way through.
This is the face of a dog who believes her humans are not performing due diligence to her needs.
In truth her humans were tied up with life admin and paperwork. It’s amazing that really well filed information only three years old is more difficult to find than 100 year old documents @theoldmortuary . 100 year old documents are enormous time wasters, as are old family photographs and any number of the things we found today. The job expanded to fill the time available.
In other news we are preparing for lockdown and rather than panic buying we are panic socialising . Touching base with a few people before we are banned.
Either activity is not as popular as a good long walk with either dog.
It’s a red dot kind of day. By tradition when an artwork is sold at a gallery or exhibition it is marked with a red dot.
This painting has set off on a journey to Brighton with a new owner.
The picture started life in Marylebone, London. Strange things happen around the Mews Lanes behind Harley Street in the middle of the night. Famous people arrive under the cover of darkness and florists clear out the previous days blooms, near perfect they are dumped in the back of trailers to be replaced by freshly bought blooms from New Covent Garden.The Mews were my regular night time walk, bleep in hand, to clear my head towards the end of 24 hour on-call shifts. I took to photographing the discarded blooms. There have been several paintings inspired by these nocturnal wanderings.
I’m not sure where this one is off to. It is an early sketch from a new project. I’m exploring androgynous figures being both overwhelmed and enhanced by abstract fields of colour.
I suspect this is the last ‘red dot day’ of 2020. After yesterday’s announcement of a second national lockdown by the British Government there may well not be any more chances to exhibit until 2021.
Huge thanks to everyone who attended the exhibition in Tavistock, especially to those who bought original artworks. You have made many Artists very happy.
Beach day after Storm Aidan. Last night was very stormy @theoldmortuary. It was a blustery walk at Seaton Beach this lunchtime.
As it happens it was good that we got out for a blow through on the beach, soon after we got home there was the promise of an evening briefing from the Prime Minister. This really can mean only one thing. A further Lockdown in Britain.
There was a little stone heart caught up in a pile of tidal detritus as we got onto the beach. Maybe a metaphor for the next few weeks. Some days beach days are also about the people who are not there with us.
This weekend was also the second birthday of our darling VV. This was her first birthday in Crystal Palace Park
This year she is living in more exotic places with different sartorial needs. Beach walks are not the same without her. These little feet are in Hong Kong now.
Meanwhile after the walk it is Saturday evening and time for Strictly Come Dancing. Even the Guinea Pig, Ginny and Hugo are ready.
Here we go headlong into another Lockdown, thank goodness this weekend was about a bit of mingling.
Yesterday was wet and grey. A day for sorting paperwork and avoiding storms. The trouble with sorting paperwork is that it is rarely exciting, on the other hand, magazines that have inadvertantly got caught up in the paperwork become fascinating. This is how I discovered our cheese plant is an interior design cliché.
Even when writing little blogs I like to share some evidence that I’m not talking utter nonsense, but such was the success of the paperwork sorting I can no longer find the magazine that made such a sweeping statement. Googling has not helped one bit. Cheese plant cliché shaming is overwhelming on the Internet. To make matters worse our cheese plant has a name ‘Freddy’.
I am aware this small blog is fairly dull. It could have been way racier. Among the paperwork store was my mother’s collection of ‘Adult’ text books. A fine collection of 1960’s and 70’s sexual health and information books previously on- loan in the Family Planning clinics that she ran in Essex. Weaving a blog around those may take a little time. So today you just get Freddy. Twice.
I apologise for this week’s blogging being a little ‘Art’ heavy.
Today is another day at The Box. An organisational conundrum gave me the theme for today’s blog. Volunteers have to check into the Breakout Room to collect their passes and sign in for their session. The conundrum is that to gain access to the Breakout room you need a pass. Inevitably this leads to a bit of hanging around until someone with a pass appears or someone inside realises you are waiting to be granted access. Today I had a bit of a wait but while waiting I noticed this mural in the education room opposite.
The mural was painted in 1950 by Wyn George in, what was, the Children’s Department of the Central Library. At the time he was an Art teacher at Devonport High School for Boys. He was also President of Plymouth Society of Artists, a position he held for 20 years 1951-71. The mural was discovered behind boarding during the building of the box. The original sketches and plans were held in the archives, using them, the mural was able to be brought back to its current vibrant appearance.
Wyn George was born in Wales in 1910, but loved the landscape of Cornwall. He exhibited with Newlyn and St Ives Societies of Artists. He trained to be a teacher at Central School of Art London following earlier studies at Cardiff School of Art. During the war he was a Navigational Officer in the Royal Navy. He lived and had a studio in Ivybridge when he was teaching in Plymouth He died in 1985
This mural was one of two that he was commissioned to do in Plymouth. The other is at The Guildhall. Something to investigate for a future blog.
Munificence is one of those words that has fallen out of favour. It is most likely seen on memorial plaques or old graves. On- line dictionaries are divided on its exact meaning, some opting for the more simple, but in my opinion, wrong definition, generous with money. It is more than that. People who have little money can be munificent. Any idiot can be generous with money, it takes a good human to be munificent.
I think it’s a word that could do with being rehabilitated. Munificence is generosity, leniency, magnanimity, largesse and liberality. Surely all wonderfully positive human traits that could ease our way out of the desolate places that Covid-19 has driven us to.
Munificence was the powerful feeling that I felt at the Drawn To The Valley Exhibition yesterday. So much munificence from so many people created an Exhibition against the odds. Because the Vernissage, soft opening day, was calmer, gentler even, than a normal Private View it was much easier to take in not only the body of work but also the effort that it had taken to bring the whole thing to fruition.
Despite me saying that the word munificence needs to be rehabilitated. I’m fairly certain it won’t be any time soon. Is it a little too dated? Has Boris Johnson ruined good words for us all? I hunted around in Google Translate and a Thesaurus for something that might have the same quality of meaning and also suited our contemporary way of speaking and thinking. Hindi was the language that gave me what I was looking for.
Udaarata is the word I discovered. Udaarata is what I felt in that hall yesterday. People collaborating, being generous of their time and skills to bring together something that was enriching to a community of artists and also the wider community that supports and inspires those artists.
Udaarata is the best of humanity.
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