Category: Box

#1340 theoldmortuary ponders

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Timing is everything in blogging and life generally.

Who.knows how this blog would have gone had I written it six hours ago.

Trick question. I know exactly how it would have gone. Ranty, is the one word answer.

Life got in the way and the intended blog did not get written. Lucky for you the bobbers also got in the way.

They got my raw and furious rant caused by my second visit to the Beryl Cook Exhibition.

I apologised that they got my arty rant unexpurgated. Anne Bobber commented that they had just got an early version of the blog with more expletives.

My second visit to the exhibition was to see the supporting exhibition. Videos, books, newspaper cuttings and private family memorabilia. I was committed to watching all the videos and arrived at opening time because to do that it would be sensible to grab a seat on the solitary sofa.

My ranty pants were enraged by the misogynist questions and attitudes expressed by male television journalists, to a successful woman artist in the 70’s 80’s and early 90’s.  Had I been in the comfort of my own house I would have shouted at the T.V. As it happened In a public space I saved all my grumpiness for when I met the Bobbers and later my Tennis Club friends. On a non ranty note I marvelled at the developments of T.V and broadcast engineering in the last 30 years. Subtitling specifically.

One glorious subtitle blooper that I missed but am almost tempted to sit through the whole hour long broadcast for ran like this.

Beryl and a gay biker friend are off on an adventure on/in a motorbike and sidecar to buy some seafood snacks on the Barbican.  The stall has sold out of Winkles.

The subtitle straddles two sentences and should read

‘ No winkles. Really? Are you kiddingYou wouldn’t ever get that on Old Compton Street’

I realise the wit is lost because I cannot provide an image with the subtitle properly positioned as it would be in 2026.

Old Compton Street used to be the most gay street in London. A heady fug of aftershave and rampant testosterone filled the street with a spirit like no other. Everyone was welcome.

I realise now that it is the lesser known paintings that hold my interest. I am booked to go again next week. This may not be the last you have heard of Beryl.

 

#1328 theoldmortuary ponders.

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Ivor Dickie(Ladies Night) 1981. Beryl Cook

What is going on here? Despite the talking point of the painting that is not where this question is aimed.

Look at the shadow. An animated and fascinating conversation was going on. At an unnamed ballet school ballet students are taught how to make a safe and secure G- String/ Thong for themselves.

Mind boggling. Where are the measurements taken, what are the tolerances required of the fabric?

Our animated shadow guide then told us that the same ballerina had taught her to pole dance on a convenient scaffold pole in a stable yard.

If only Beryl Cook had witnessed that delicious moment and painted it. Maybe the art establishment would have been less sniffy about her art. Ballerinas and Stables are middle-class subjects and thus acceptable to pompous male opinions. Link below for pomposity.

‘She loved painting people living life out loud’: Why critics scorned Beryl Cook’s ‘saucy’ paintings – BBC Culture

https://share.google/nB0ggI7WAmOd1bk3p

With wide ranging conversations like this is it any great surprise that in a two and a half hour visit we only managed one gallery of the exhibition.

Beryl did get her revenge on one of her male critics.

The chap in the red undies is based on one of her critics’.

#1327 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Box, Serendipity1 Comment
Elvira’s Cafe. Beryl Cook 1997

It is not often that an Exhibition of a famous artist’s work chimes so closely with my own life. I will write a more arty blog after another visit but today 3 paintings give me an easy feed into anecdotes. Elvira’s Cafe is very close to home. Before we moved here and were fully aware of the clientele of this cafe I ordered ‘ The Marine ‘ breakfast. Big mistake, I thought, stupidly, that the Marine word meant close to the sea. Oh no, the cafe is very close to the barracks of the Royal Marines. The breakfast was designed for military men with big appetites. I gave it my best but not very successfully. The meat sweats some hours later was a learning experience.

Another small picture caught my eye.

Walkies Beryl Cook 1988

Two women standing in front of The Belvedere on Plymouth Hoe.

My son and I both graduated from Plymouth University one year apart.

The Belvedere is the white structure. During graduation ceremonies a huge set of marquees are erected behind the Belvedere. The Belvedere has panoramic views of Plymouth Sound and benches to sit on. Two forceful women in our families settled the family group comfortably on the benches and set off on a hunt for canapes and prosecco. The first year they were very successful, the second year extraordinarily successful. Waiters came to top us up, I cannot imagine how they arranged that.

They looked nothing like these two women but they did have very similar conspiratorial looks on their faces, having pulled off a catering and viewpoint coup.

One of them has been dead for ten years, the other for a couple of weeks. I loved seeing this picture which reminded me of a moment.

Picnic at Mount Edgecumbe. Beryl Cook. 1990

Picnics at Mount Edgecumbe, walks at Mount Edgecumbe, cafe visits at Mount Edgecumbe. I’ve done it all with friends, family, children and now my grandchildren.

A place that creates joy on every visit

For a proper experience of this exhibition follow the link below.

Beryl Cook: Pride and Joy | The Box Plymouth | Bloomberg Connects

#1425 theoldmortuary ponders

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After all my moaning in yesterday’s blog, the sun came out today.

#1424 theoldmortuary ponders

We walked the streets, giddy with the freedom of wearing no weather protective garments and giddier still no coats at all.

We did still have to keep our eyes slightly downwards looking to avoid puddles.

But the puddles have become blinding beacons of illumination in the sunshine. Lola was very keen on a coffee shop stop but we kept making excuses, reluctant to be indoors when there was Vitamin D to be harvested.

This harbourside walk is a regular one but we have not been for three months. In that time a new and benign sailor has been installed, sitting by a favourite Sailors drinking spot.

We queued to take a photograph of him. The only people in the queue who did not want to cuddle up or pose provocatively against his high-gloss resinous surface.

He is there to publicise an exhibition at the local Museum and Art Gallery featuring the work of Beryl Cook.

Beryl Cook: Pride and Joy | The Box Plymouth https://share.google/s0UM3sl5BNjtD0H7x

Future blogs will feature trips to the exhibition. There may even be moments at a comedy club and a silent disco when I crack out my extensive collection of Animal Print Garments and a bright red lipstick.

But rub myself over a Sailor on a bench in the sunshine. That has never happened.

© Products – ourberylcook https://share.google/UU9WT4REzgkRcpM6a

Although Plymouth’s gene pool and that of many other ports have been immeasurably enhanced because others have not been quite so fastidious.

Products – ourberylcook https://share.google/UU9WT4REzgkRcpM6a

A sailor of my acquaintance tells me that such welcomes in port are not an urban myth. His particular U.S.P, or strategy was to sit at an outside cafe reading a nerdy book.

I can see how that would be tempting.

#512 theoldmortuary ponders

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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/

#500 theoldmortuary ponders

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500 blogs in this series. I should perhaps roll out a great big old ponder for such an auspicious number but instead I am rolling out a softer more ponderous ponder. This small sketch caught my eye. A man, or woman in a hoodie is such an iconic image of our times. The subject of this sketch specifically tells a thousand stories. My first though was that he was like any number of men I have met. Aged prematurely by the life they have led. Sinewy necks created by manual work and a mouth sunken by tooth loss. Specifically to Plymouth he looks like a crewman heading into a local pub after a few days and a few decades at sea. Straight off the boat he has not yet scrubbed up for socialising. His first pint and his crew mates don’t care what he looks like.

Crew could well be printed on the back of this man’s Hoodie. A roadie from countless world tours with rock bands. The younger roadies leap and swing from rigs and stages but this guy knows where everything goes. He knows where to get the drugs in every world city, legal and illegal, and has seen two or three generations of groupies anxious to make out with the band and him if it gets them closer.

Every city has men like this, lost against the brickwork of our streets. Lives lived but in this moment anonymous and passed by.

But who is this man in a Hoodie?

He is a 15th Century Monk and the sketch is attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci. 1452-1519 A simple sketch, so many stories to be imagined. A man we see nearly every day. Somewhere. And for the 500, this man is a little over 500 years old.

©The Box

#483 theoldmortuary ponders

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It is not everyday that I turn up to work looking a little like a queen. One of the 3 Armada portraits of Elizabeth I has arrived at the Museum and Gallery where I work. A painting that has stared out of a million history books. The iconic image of a Tudor Queen that is both familiar and yet never actually seen before. Sartorial comparisons may take a stretch of the imagination but to aid the process I took up a queenly pose while working.

While the Queen holds a globe to show how well Colonising was going, I am close a Barbara Hepworth sculpture because it was the only round thing available. In the Armada Portrait we do not see Elizabeth’s shoes but in a painting from a similar time I found her feet.

Tiny Elizabeth feet in flat shoes.
Bigger feet in flat shoes of a simple design not too dissimilar from Tudor shoes.

Elizabeth and I were both wearing predominantly black garments but with peach ribbons and statement necklaces.

Hers were statements of wealth, mine are the opposite. The Lanyard is a modern emblem of employment. My necklace is home made from recycled beads. The thing they have in common is that both my lanyard and plastic beads and Elizabeth’s pearls and silk ribbons are made from traded goods, mine possibly more ethically traded than hers. Which brings us to the backgrounds of both our pictures. In Elizabeth’s picture there are painted scenes of Francis Drakes victory over the Spanish. In my picture the background is filled with objects from the permanent collection of The Box, Plymouth. Without the British victory the world and this wall of acquisitions would look very different today. Below is a link to an explanation of the Armada events

https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/spanish-armada-history-causes-timeline

Strange how far Pondering over peach ribbons and beads can take me. Coincidences can be a wonderful thing.

#469 theoldmortuary ponders

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Britain is in the grip of industrial action. Yesterday it was the turn of teaching staff to protest about their pay and conditions. This meant that many schools in Plymouth were closed and families had to find care for their children in school hours. This hugely changed the weekday demographic of the visitors to the museum where I work. The galleries were buzzing with children and their grandparents filling their impromptu day of care. One grandad in his mid- sixties also had his elderly mum with him. As the grandchildren skipped about from gallery to gallery. The man and his mum held hands as they slowly made their way around the older areas of the building. Clearly reminiscing about visits they had made 60 years ago, when the act of holding hands between a mum and her child happened more often and for different reasons.

#312 theoldmortuary ponders

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So long George Shaw. I have loved every minute of my time in the two galleries holding the works of George Shaw at The Box in Plymouth.

The exhibition leaves the Box at the beginning of September, but I took my leave of the exhibition yesterday.  It is with a heavy heart that I will never again have that first thing in the morning experience of smelling George’s Humbrol Enamel Paints, as the galleries are opened up. No more sessions of choosing one picture and really concentrating on it to enjoy every detail. All this wallowing in frequent visits to the same exhibitions is a new luxury for me. 50 or so years of visiting exhibitions once or twice, occasionally, more frequently was my previous experience. But now I work in a gallery/exhibition I spend many sessions submerged in exhibitions or galleries full of the work of artists or makers. This could be my shangri-la but I don’t get to choose. Sometimes I spend many hours in galleries that contain art or artifacts that I can find very little connection with. I suspect the sessions with work or a subject that I don’t much like are character building and often, over time, I find something to like or even love. But I will miss your work George Shaw. Thanks for sharing so much that was so deeply personal.

https://www.theboxplymouth.com/events/exhibitions/george-shaw-the-local

#261 theoldmortuary ponders

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©Jenny Tsang

Spring tides and slightly warmer waters have brought a little zing to coastal sea swimming.

Kim and I had a Sunday night swim and she returned to the beach with the sensation of a stinging nettle encounter on one arm, neither of us had seen any jellyfish but that seemed the most likely cause of her discomfort.

Yesterday I was working in The Box and was having a natter with a colleague. We were talking about our weekends and were surprised to realise that while I was in the water on Sunday she was basking, like a reptile in the sun, on a boat moored not far from where Kim and I were swimming.

We were not even in the Natural History department when she flashed me the picture of the Compass Jelly Fish she had seen on her return to land. The Sunday mystery sensation explained…

©Jenny Tsang