Exercising my colour eye is a pretty good way to spend a day. Currently my studio is in a proper pickle. All my own fault, but there are plans to restore order very soon. Not far from home nature is having its way with vandalism.A quick photo records Sunburst Lichen continuing to flourish on graffiti. While frantically finding work for an exhibition, old exercises have come to the surface.
The one below is a classic mini treated to some mindful colour mixing. I combined a limited colour palate with a stencil. Not remotely exhibition worthy but as an exercise very interesting.
And then another colour exercise. Wisteria at Pentillie Castle. This last one was also an exercise in utilising the unwanted water drops that landed on my paper from the resident labrador who decided to shake himself before admiring my colour sketching.
If you could have something named after you, what would it be?
The simple answer is that I have never given the matter much thought as an individual. Another answer would be that if my surname were to be used there would be no point. There was a minor male saint of the same name who has a church named after him in Cornwall and Greece, and within that Cornish churchyard a rare daffodil has been given the same name.
Then there is an actual ancestor, male, who founded an American University and there are towns of the same name. The female diminutive form of my name, Ju, does not really work and I stopped using that name many years ago when working in a predominantly Jewish area. In the early days of my employment I was asked what I would like to be called, when I offered my abbreviated name I was told.
“If we shout that in a crowded room, everyone will come running”
So I adopted the male diminutive, Jules and we have come full circle. No point naming anything after me. A man got there before me.
I am also rather coy about signing my artwork. Coy is not a word I would use to describe a woman who over shares her mundane life in a daily blog. But I have the core of an introvert who wears the big flamboyant cloak of an extrovert. This week will be all about framing and yes, signing artwork. In teeny tiny writing that can barely be seen. I picked up this seasons basic prints yesterday and got a quote for some Giclee prints.
I made a start on framing and signing too.
There are two more paintings to be finished by the end of the month too.
So in answer to the question above, I need nothing named after me. One day I will slip the extroverts cloak and the introvert core will be no more, the autographs will fade and for a while, I will be a memory until those memories fade too and there will be anonymous space for others to fill in whichever way they choose.
When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?
This prompt from the host of my blog made me laugh this morning so it seemed foolish not to use it as my source material. Jetpack, my host, gives a daily prompt which I ignore for the most part.
At age five I was heartily sick of being asked what I wanted to be when I was a grown up so had formulated an answer that made adults slink away.
“A lady, how about you”
My mum always told me off for being rude but I was truly sick of being asked that question.
A better one was, “What sort of house would you like when you are grown up?”
The answer was always the same and could even be an adult dream fulfilment.
“I would like a house where every room has chocolate digestive biscuits available”
Neither of these were the answer that made me chuckle this morning.
In the 60’s and 70’s my mum ran several Contraception and Sexual Health Clinics. The talk in my house was often of a pragmatic sexual nature. Imagine my parents ran a hardware store and talked about nuts and bolts. That level of conversation.
Not surprisingly my mums colleagues did not have a lot of children so when they held a monthly planning meeting at our house, there was usually only one other girl, Briony, brought over to play while our mothers plotted to limit the worlds population, starting in rural Essex.
One particular summers day myself and Briony were having the best time dressing up as Hippies and planning our careers at age 8. I had at that point moved on from the thoughts of being ‘a lady ‘ .
We both almost certainly knew what might irritate our mothers. Briony’s family were Quakers and if anything the conversations in her home were even more liberal and free thinking than in mine.
Eventually our mothers clip clopped into the garden to see what we were up to. I say, clip clopped, because all of my mothers friends wore Dr Scholl wooden sandals.
Our mothers and their friends were eager to hear what two such vibrant and enegetic little hippies were planning to be.
The answer, when it came, was not what anyone expected.
” We are going to travel the world as sex addicts”
While researching for this blog I went to the website for Scholl. I may well get a pair for old time sake and to commiserate with myself with never reaching my ambitious goal in life.
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.
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.
The new-to-me blogging platform gives daily prompts to inspire. I have used one of them last week but more as a reaction to it than inspired by it. This one similarly made me think that some of the most difficult goodbyes are the ones that were not said. I would be loath to rank my many sad, difficult awkward or even life changing goodbyes. But the ones I didn’t get to have are poignant, raw, saddening at their worst and wistful at best. There are so many things that we do in life for the last time, without knowing. Experiences that we will never have again. A group of people or person we will never see again. A place we will never return to. Thankfully this is often a good thing so I don’t need to over think this, but in response to this prompt, I would say some of the most difficult goodbyes are the ones I didn’t have. Occasionally the non-goodbyes swirl around in my head, they are inconclusive thoughts, little whisps of love, happiness, familiarity or friendship, locations or experience. Insubstantial like clouds or candy floss there is a beginning but no end, just infinite regret, sometimes, and acceptance, eventually.
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