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.
This is the face of a dog who swam away to sea to become a duckling.
A mother and father duck were swimming in the sea with their ducklings. Lola swam out to quietly just be the fifth duckling. Nobody seemed to mind at all.
This is the kind of giddy adventure that spring sunshine causes.
This is the second Sunday that the sun has come out and our second time, this week, on a beach with a super-low tide. This time a rusty object was revealed.
Google lens has no idea what it is. A mystery in March , in the sunshine, Sundays are quite the exciting place at the moment.
You might not think that a lovely old chair and my favourite type of weather are connected. But they both occupy liminal space in my mind.
Derived from the Latin word “limen” which means “threshold,” liminal space is a concept that may sound unfamiliar, but it’s something you’ve likely experienced in your daily life. Liminal space can best be described as going through a change or going from place to place—from one thing to the next.
I like the weather of May and September. Slightly changeable with the chance of moderate warmth and no need for too many layers of clothing
Perfection would be twenty minutes in a chair like this. With a small mug of black coffee or a cup of tea. Sat at an open french window overlooking the sea or at a garden that is not screaming for attention.
A chair like this in gently warm weather would encourage me to read or listen to the radio or a podcast. Or natter. This is not the time or space for TV or devices.Possibly something gently productive like sketching or crochet. Or maybe I could just be. Twenty minutes of not much in particular.
Too many to mention but sometimes the most influential teacher of the moment is the last person I spoke to. Always so much to learn from others. Particularly this week as I have curated a Print Exhibition in a Gallery Cafe.
Here it is, on the morning after the night before. Spic and span and ready for the coffee and art-loving public to flood in.
Last night was a hubub of bubbles, and artists/printers/art- lovers having ernest, fascinating and sometimes wildly inappropriate conversations.
What did I learn last night?
That if I just shortened my beads they would sit better. They do.
Blog readers. I left you hanging, while I was hanging.
A full day of receiving , unwrapping and hanging prints at Ocean Studios for the Drawn to Print exhibition that runs from this evening until Easter Sunday. Gorgeous nuggets of colour and some striking monotones.
Two racks of print bargains on washing lines.
Mounted but unframed works all arranged by four artists who worked through the day to be ready for the Private View tonight.
As the exhibition runs through the Easter break it would have been foolish not to have one rabbit available. Ours does not know the words fluffy or cute.
My procrastination took an interesting turn today. With a list of art admin to achieve I decided to start a painting entirely unconnected with the upcoming exhibition. Another riff on the theme of the contemporary green man.
This one has sunglasses instead of the traditional socketless eyes. His face is bathed with dappled sunlight as he emerges from his greenery. Which then had a good dose of bracken added.
Which will need to be greened down a bit tomorrow and his teeth painted in. Still avoiding the actual tasks of the day I gave him a digital tweak using a pop filter.
Thank goodness paint does need to dry! In those gaps I managed most of the jobs scheduled for today . For all those men who requested a bald representation of male fertility. Here he is.
Privacy and a woman who ponders daily online might not seem a natural pairing.But only a very small percentage of my ponderables or imponderables are blogged about. People don’t feature much in pictures. Today is an exception This blob on a beach is our middle grandchild enjoying a soft sandy beach close to home. This is a week of very high tides, something that can be a flood worry. The other side of the story is very low, low-tides which is how we found the soft sandy beach, way beyond our usual rocky shore. The sand was so very soft and clean she immediately ducked down to run the damp sand through her fingers and became a living version of drone filming , a technique that has become so popular as infill in film and television story telling. Artists and designers also love a flat-lay image. It is probably not going to catch on as a portraiture fashion but I rather like the image. Low tide near home is not my usual thing, the rocks are slippy and slimy but the area of the beach that only gets seen infrequently seems much cleaner and kinder to my ankles. I may become a low-tide wanderer. A reliable habit, of more value than being a cranio- caudal portraitist.
At long last the sun came out, sunshine replaced grey rainy day, after grey rainy day . On and on the greige days just kept coming until these vivid stools finally got a moment in the sun. Soon enough the stools filled up with happy basking humans. I looked up the phrase ‘ at long last’ . It rather sums up my feelings about this winter.
Sunshine, you have come back at last!
What was the best compliment you’ve received?
Knowing that people take time to read, comment on and enjoy this blog . So many conversations are sparked. Just as if we were sitting on these seats, warming our faces and staring out to sea.
This was a late commission for a retirement party. About 24 hours. I was also invited to the party so there was a personal scrubbing-up deadline to be met. The party was for a work colleague in a workplace that I had left a while ago. It was a fabulous lunchtime gathering of people that I had worked with in fairly intense situations, and it was such a pleasure to see them all again, because they were all people that I trusted when the going got tough. When we worked together, just seeing them pile in as a part of a small on-call team was a real pleasure because there were no egos in the room. Now before you all think. ‘ No workplace is that perfect’ I would agree wholeheartedly. But yesterday the people who make work life difficult were not at the table. And that was the point of the commission. The colleague who retired had a secret code at workplace social gatherings if she was bored or someone was being a twat. She would ask the colleague who commissioned the painting a seemingly random question. A sign that they should try to extricate themselves. Not exactly a ‘safe’ word but a sentence that could make or break an evening out. The sentence is hidden in the painting.
No-one mentioned canoes yesterday so that is a sign of a great gathering.
A ponder came from yesterday.
Wouldn’t work be fab if all the lovely people worked together and the twats just pissed each other off.
Now I am a team of one how do I know I am ‘team lovely` I could be ‘team twat’
P.s I am not used to delivering paintings when the paint is still wet. Normally I get the chance to tweak. I see some tweaks but cant nip into the studio. A very odd feeling.
This is what happened just after I pondered yesterday. A real life ponder, not a blog ponder, although now it is a blog ponder.
After a fairly normal morning routine. Tea, Coffee,blog,Shower, I hit a conundrum, 45 minutes between shower and a morning dip in the sea. What to wear in that 45 minutes?
While I sorted out my after-swim attire Hugo took himself into the folds of the unmade bed. My indecision gave him those moments that he needed to catch up on sleep. Normally we would be out walking but the plan was for his walk to combine with my walk to the beach.
He effortlessly goes from pyjamas to daywear without pondering.
I opted for half putting on my wetsuit, legs and bum only. Letting the arms and body hang down. A dressing gown completed the ensemble. Of course, someone knocked on the door and of course, as I accepted a parcel my two dangling wetsuit arms pushed themselves out from beneath the dressing gown. Nobody deserves that image etched into their morning routines. Which is why I am just sharing pictures of Hugo. The swim was also completely non-photogenic, wild and wet, rough and bouncy. We congratulated ourselves on how brave we are on these wilder days . Not, I might add, dangerously brave, just cautiously brave. Freshwater rain and seasalty fingers do not combine to take good seascapes.
A cheeky dog in the unmade bed is much more appealing.
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