Category: art

#833 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Art for sale3 Comments
Gelli print, direct print and watercolour.

Do you believe in fate/destiny?

March is here. My fate or destiny for the day is set. The first sea swim of the new month awaits. I have spent the week mistressing* a new printing technique. Gelli printing. My shoulders are tight from concentration and need the morning swim. I wouldn’t be in this tight time constraint with tight shoulders if I had used the last 18 months wisely. I hadn’t printed since Art School when I planned and curated a print exhibition in a local gallery.  In the summer of 2022. The printers I worked with were inspirational and I vowed to take up printing, to be well prepared when the next exhibition happened. I am rubbish at long deadlines. A sensible woman would have done printing courses. Not me! I did a watercolour course and fell back in love with the serendipity and subtlety of pigment in water. I do have a print course booked in two weeks, exactly one week before the exhibition. Meanwhile I am trying to invent a method that involves printing and watercolour. Madness.

This morning a swimming friend sent me the video at the end of the blog. Oh dear!!! My tight shoulders got an early work out as I chuckled and was appalled. I have used those smug phrases.

” I swim all year actually “

Even worse for me, in a distant life I moved from London to Brighton

” Well, Hove, actually” **

In other printing news, next year’s Christmas cards are with the printers. Last use of the C word until the other side of Autumn.

Happy St Davids Day, enjoy the vid.

* I like to rehabilitate the word ‘Mistress’ from its philandering connotations. I don’t need to master anything I am a woman trying to create a mistresspiece.

** ‘Hove actually’ is another, possibly smug, statement known to all who live or have lived on the South Coast.

#831 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, SerendipityLeave a comment

This morning I had to hunt for an old sketch to send to a friend. The easy solution was to look in my Paintings/Art file of digital images.

This file is 10 years old in 2024, I am hopeless at keeping this archive up to date. This morning I put the two most recent paintings into the file. I also had a little scroll through an imperfect record of my creative output of the last ten years.

Once again I have mentally promised myself to be more diligent with my archiving over the next 10 years.And for now I must be more diligent in actually producing some actual art. Less pondering, more art .

#829 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Architecture, art, Serendipity2 Comments

9 years ago I was exhibiting at a private art gallery space. Brixton East, in Brixton. I was part of the hanging team and was lucky enough to be in the building before the artists delivered their work. The gallery was in a sympathetically restored furniture factory. For a blissful half hour it was just me and a young Hugo enjoying the texture of the old building.

All my favourite urban textures and contrasts were there, but also quirky placements of contemporary things.

And gentle reminders of the former use of the space. A poker-work chair seat pattern.

Borrowed light into a dark space.

Soon enough the space was full of the chatter of artists and later the art lovers poured in.

My painting in the gold spotlight. Momentarily I can say a proud moment. A fab moment in one of my favourite buildings.

But only a couple of years later I exhibited in the same space. I was not in the hanging team.  A classic contemporary artist joke occurred. My abstract art was hung upside down, the curator could not be persuaded to rehang it. Ordinarily I would not be too precious. Art being in the eye of the beholder and all that. But on this occasion, my art was painted on a door, the exhibition was about homelessness. The door handle would have been at knee level. A whole new level of artyfarty bollocks would have needed to be written to make that right. The art gods were not with me this second time in the building. One of my unframed pieces was stolen by a gallery/shoplifter. Everything is forgivable in a building that I love.

I am not normally someone that has frequent lottery winning fantasies but when the owner put this gorgeous space up for sale I would have done anything to be able to buy it. A lottery win would have been my only chance. But something lovely has happened. The building has been renamed and is now a beautiful wedding venue.

https://www.100barringtonroad.com/weddings24

Without pondering today I would never have researched and discovered that one of my favourite buildings has had a happy ending of its own. Without me winning the lottery. Something new to follow on Instagram. In a perfect @theoldmortuary world 100 Barrington would serve coffee and cake when not doing weddings, and in that imaginary world, a somewhat older Hugo would slouch under a chair and watch the world go by.

#807 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, blogging, Daft Questions, Serendipity1 Comment

Describe your most ideal day from beginning to end.

An ideal day cannot be predictably planned and is perhaps only recognisable as ideal once it has come to an end. Because I was involved in doing Bloganuary many of my ideal days went unmarked because they did not fit with the Bloganuary prompts. There were many days that would be considered to be ideal in January especially as the sun came out a lot more than usual.

Sometimes the tide was just perfect too. Or the light was in just the right place to catch a wave.

On one occasion some Pilchard Street Art popped up.

In very similar colours to some doughnuts I had just seen.

By superimposing those two images I created the header image of this blog.

An ideal day is harder to categorise than I could possibly describe.

#804 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Food ( but this is not a food blog), pondering, Serendipity1 Comment

What’s your favorite thing to cook?

I love cooking anything with British summer fruits. Not a thing I do much of in the depth of winter. But where cooking fails, art steps up. I had ordered some romantically named water colours in the depth of winter, they arrived on the cusp of February and the little test piece I painted when they arrived, had all the piquancy of my favourite summer puddings.

The names themselves are delicious.

School Disco

Byzantium

Caravan Green

Gooseberry

Rowan berry

I doodled away giving everything except Byzantium a run out on paper. To be honest I was being sidetracked.

I was actually supposed to be creating a pillowcase from an old pyjama jacket.

But the temptation to try the new paints suddenly became urgent. Probably because sewing the slippery fabric was as difficult as it had been to sleep in the pyjamas.

I didn’t give Byzantium a moment on the brush. I’m not sure why. But it gives me a fine excuse to have another doodle this weekend.These paints are all hand made by Tansy Horgan.

https://tansyhargan.bigcartel.com/

I have a project in mind that will need Byzantium. I am slightly concerned that Byzantium may be a bit of a bully. Caravan Green turned out to be exactly that. Hugely versatile on his own, but a little bit of a bully when mixing with others. Gooseberry was a dream,fading out to something imperceptibly beautiful the more dilute I made it.

School Disco was a dream. As pink and pushy as Barbie. I was always a rather conflicted Disco goer, particularly the termly torture of a School Disco. I loved to dance, but in that dreadful hierarchy of teenage years my acne and bookishness cast me as a wallflower. Not that I needed to be picked to be danced with. I have always had enough chutzpah to dance as if no-one is watching, but the judgement of the school ‘beautiful people’ is a harsh spotlight to step into.

And lastly Rowanberry.

Does anybody apart from birds eat a Rowanberry? The paint was fab. A super bright red/orange with a bitter edge. I can’t wait to pair it with Byzantium on a doodle.

Apparently it is a foraging classic.

Easy Homemade Rowan Berry Jelly

©LarderLove

Goodness it is good to get back to classic @theoldmortuary pondering. February really does feel like the start of something.

#804 theoldmortuary ponders

#781 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art2 Comments

Describe an item you were incredibly attached to as a youth. What became of it?

My mum was given an old copper preserving pan by my grandparents when I was very young. They had replaced it with a much lighter aluminium version. The copper pan is very heavy duty and almost impossible to lift when full of jam or marmalade. The pan got more use in my parents house for making mulled wine at Christmas. 

It has been mine for the thirty years since my parents deaths and had a different life as a plant holder or for a while as an artist’s muse. I am not the artist of this fabulous still-life but my pan, kitchen table and a rug  are.

Artist- Stephen Fuller

Yesterday, not realising that I would be writing about it today I moved the pan into the sitting room to hold some of the fragrant candles* that we were gifted over Christmas. What I didn’t do was to give it a good clean. There will be a later image today once I have done that rather grim task.

* On the subject of fragrant candles. Am I alone in enjoying them? I read a list of most unwanted gifts recently and they were listed along with socks and toiletries.   How ungrateful.

Two copper preserving pans and a posing dog.

#754 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Photographs, Serendipity1 Comment

I love a mirror selfie. The one above was entirely accidental. I was photographing a card design on my workbench and accidentally flipped to the actual selfie mode and photographed myself in the mirror ball that hangs in the window of my studio. I am the pixelated orange blob in the centre of the mirrorball.

In Venice recently, my feet put in an appearance on an Arnaldo Pomodoro , Sphere Within a Sphere, sculpture. The rest of me is lost in a dark crevice.

And in Dublin I embellished the same sculptors work a year ago

Back in Venice I doubled myself onto an unnamed sculpture by Anish Kapoor.

Yesterday I had to remove myself from my own painting to include it in the blog. Here is the original, a highly glossy resin piece.

I dressed the part to visit a Yayoi Kusama installation in Hong Kong

But most times the reflection is unavoidable. Here I am hanging with Mick, as you do.

Helmut Newton

The serendipity of this blog is that it is two years since the last blog course I attended. The final piece of advice given by my chosen mentor was to put more of myself in the blogs. He absolutely did not mean visually. He wanted to hear my voice in my writing. Any sort of self exposure feels a bit awkward, written or visual but I have tried to take his advice and after two years I am finding the whole thing a bit easier. She says, pulling a quizzical face.

#743 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Serendipity4 Comments

Oxfords Word of the year 2023 crept up on me with such stealth that I had never heard of it and certainly not used it. Rizz!

https://corp.oup.com/news/eight-words-go-head-to-head-for-oxford-word-of-the-year-2023/

Word of the Year 2023
After more than 32,000 votes, and a team of language experts, Oxford’s Word of the Year 2023 is…
rizz.


What does it take to command attention without even trying. A whole lot of charisma, or the shortened form, ‘rizz’.



Pertaining to someone’s ability to attract another person through style, charm, or attractiveness, this term is from the middle part of the word ‘charisma’, which is an unusual word formation pattern. Other examples include ‘fridge’ (refrigerator) and ‘flu’ (influenza).

In our bobbing world of wacky conversations we certainly discuss the theory of rizz we just didn’t know there was a twinkly new word for it. The word ‘allure’ was used.

15 of us have been cold water swimming, ‘bobbing’ for nearly 3 years. In that time we have gathered irregular non-bobbers who come to watch from the sidelines. There are benches where family and friends can sit and take in the sea air.

Allure or rizz as it can be called is an entirely unintentional characteristic. I’ve had it all my life, this is not a boast just a statement. From conversations after swimming you either have it or you don’t. As you can see from the top photo. I am an entirely normal human being , not glam in any way. You would pass me in the street both now and thirty years ago, as in the portrait. What neither the portrait or photo show is the message writ large on my forehead that says ” Talk to me”

Rizz, is both a blessing and a curse. Strangers can be fascinating but sometimes there just isn’t the time or space in my schedule for a deep and meaningful with someone I don’t know.

One bobbers mum came to watch us one day last summer. She has rizz and she knows how to use it. ( I don’t use it because I am at heart an introvert, it uses me.) When we got out of the water she was deep in conversation with a man . By a gorgeous blogging piece of serendipity they were both from Oxford. He was originally from Plymouth but after a long career in glamour photography had settled in Oxford. How on earth did he alight next to a woman, also from Oxford to enjoy a 30 minute conversation in the sun. Marie has Rizz, it exudes out of her like honey from a hive.

Rizz is genetic. Marie’s daughter, a bobber has it. A few weeks ago I was talking to a stranger. ( Of course I was!) We alighted on a person we both knew in common. ” Magnetic smile” were the exact words used. Marie’s daughter emitting her rizz!

So there we are, a whole blog about a word I hadn’t heard of until two days ago.

Now about the portrait, and there are two more by other artists, also done because of rizz. When I was a mature Fine Art student I was approached to have my portrait painted as part of someone else’s course work because I had an interesting face. For interesting I think we can swap the word rizz. Curiously not one of the three portraits have the words ‘ talk to me’ across my forehead. I absolutely know those words are there because why else would an introvert get so involved in extrovert things.

©Peter Orrock

https://www.peterorrock.com/about

I have lost touch with Peter but he has 30 paintings for sale on Artfinder.

#737 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, SerendipityLeave a comment

Pondering December 1st.

Admirals Hard

On the threshold of the festive season and where to take pondering for a whole month.

The picture above was serendipitous about a month ago. The incoming tide created a meandering tide mark that leads the eye to one of my favourite local doors.

Celebrating Serendipity and where it leads me is going to be the theme of the 31 blogs that will ease us into 2024.

The first few days will still draw heavily on my recent Italian trip but who knows where serendipity will take us. This morning at 0 degrees I already know that life and not serendipity is going to dip me in the sea.

But back to last weeks serendipity. An Andy Warhol painting  that caught my eye. Not to be too self absorbed, but Illeana Sonnabend, an American-Romanian Art Dealer, born in 1914 was a doppelganger for me in the 1980’s.

As luck would have it there are no retrievable photographs of me in that era but if me and Illeana were in the same room and at the same age you might easily mistake us for twins. Serendipity at its very best.

#736 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Serendipity, Words2 Comments

One of life’s pleasures, of my sort of aimless wandering in a foreign city, is indulging in capturing the textures, colours and experience of inconsequential but interesting things.

I loved the texture created by the loss of mortar between the bricks of this wall in Venice. Texture and ginger colours was a bit of a thing for me on this particular day. I was able to see the original painting of a mythical bird woman by Max Ernst.

The imperious bird-woman commands our attention with her direct owl’s gaze, and seems alarmingly about to step out of the painting. The robe depicted here may refer to the mystic initiation of Christian Rosenkreuz, founder of Rosicrucianism. It seems also to have autobiographical allusions, with the artist present in the green swan or heron. Much of the highly textured surface has been created by decalcomania, a technique of dabbing at wet paint with rags or paper to create a puckered surface. The comprehensive meaning of this painting eludes us, as is characteristic.

Max Ernst’s paintings often baffle me, but even when reproduced the textures he creates are thrilling. To see one up close and actually see the picture in person was a fabulous treat. But as a word collector I was almost as thrilled with the word ‘decalcomania’

So much to take in, in one walk. Time for refreshment. Which turned out to be just one more moment of inconsequential discovery. My poor old post-covid taste buds long for anything that stimulates them into action, however brief. Ginger is a regular drink of choice and the fierier the better. There was an Italian soft drink that promised great things with its name.

Gingerino offered not a glimmer of ginger but it was one of the bitterest and delicious things I have tasted in a long while. Despite its nuclear colour I was hooked and rather giddily had another. Sadly it seems my discovery was just a very brief holiday romance. Gingerino and I will never be reconnected in the U.K.

A day of remarkable ginger texture is definitely a day well spent.