Flora, florizal
Florets, flowers
Petals pampered
Scent and perfume.
Distilled and wrapped
Into dense, sense, intense
Entangling
Surges
Of flowery glory.
Flora
Author: artbychristinemallabandbrown
I'm an artist based at the Spode factory site in Stoke on Trent. I paint, draw and create digital art. Contact me at mallabandbrown@aol.com
Flower head
A planter I made about thirty years ago, I really wish I’d planted it up with lobelia like this but it got a bit late. It’s had snapdragons in it this year but they have got a bit straggly. I hope when I get a bit better I will be able to get out and rearrange things a bit. Summer is passing by and I’m stuck. Sorry to be grumpy.
Sleep where art thou?
My head nods forwards or sideways and suddenly I wake with a jump. I’m sitting in an armchair propped up with cushions. I’m a one level person at the moment, living room, kitchen, bathroom. No escape from a forty foot long pathway to nowhere. I can’t climb upstairs yet and the step out the back door or out the front are non negotiable even with crutches.
Hobbled is a thing that people do to stop horses wandering off, I think they tie a couple of their legs together to stop them running away.
I feel hobbled as I shuffle through the house. Jacob Marley with all his tangled chains couldn’t go much slower than I am at the moment. Then a cat will create an amusing barrier, wanting it’s tummy tickled or just to let me know it’s there. The nightly perambulation of a cat is interesting but inexplicable. In, out, in with a little purr… Crunch biscuits or eat wet cat food, out again. I’m up and down to the bathroom frequently. I have to guess when I will need to use it as it takes about five minutes to walk there.
Dawn is coming up in about two hours. If I put the radio on low I might drift off. Otherwise I’ll watch a bright dawn come up on one side of the house and the sun set behind the big hill about 9pm on the other.
Sleepy but not sleeping, sleep walking? Waiting for loud cars to start roaring past at around 6am. I want my bed!
It depends
What is the most important thing to carry with you all the time?
Yet again I have to be equivocal about this question. I mean I’m not deliberately being ambiguous, but there could be many answers depending on the person, their age, sex, health and the place they are at.
1. Fresh water /food
If you are alone and outside away from people, for instance on a walk it’s a good idea to take supplies. I imagine I won’t be far from transport, but what happens if you get lost?
2. Spare clothes/groundsheet
If you are out and about and lost you might not be able to find shelter if the weather deteriorates or it gets dark. You might have to stay put, so having extra clothes and something to make into a shelter could save you from exposure. We went camping one Easter and I had to wear two pairs of trousers and three jumpers because of the cold!
3. A map
Learn to read maps, if your phone goes flat and you can’t charge it how do you find your location?
4. Medication?
Even if you don’t expect to be out all day and night it’s better to be prepared. The older you are the more likely you are to need medicine. Don’t ignore it, and if necessary take out travel insurance.
5. Car keys?
Yes if I take the car with me, and house keys.
6. Medical alert.
If you take some medications then you need to take warning notifications with you. Similarly if you are allergic to food colourings, bee and wasp stings, or antibiotics it’s worth letting people know!
7. A sketchpad and something to draw with.
I’m an artist, what did you expect me to say?
I don’t stop
I can’t stop playing with images. I have to keep taking things a bit further and then tweaking things, changing colours, adding pattern. Digital can look analogue. I might not have the right tools, or a real brush, but that doesn’t mean I will stop experimenting. The pattern and colours were meant to transform into a mythological creature, a green man.
Him
He is old
He is tired
His hair is wild.
A green man in the making?
Change hair for leaves
Or roots?
Wisdom spread outwards
Like fungi twisting
Tangling
Nature
Myth
Blue profile
Finger painting using tools in the Artrage app on my phone. When I published it on Instagram I chose the ‘Clarendon’ filter which gave it a stronger blue hue. Originally drawn with the glitter tool then built up with spray pens and using varieties of metallic and non metallic pens to add to the textured feel.
Umbrellas
Facebook Memory from 2017.
‘Just back from the Leopard Hotel in Burslem. Met Sharon Crisp the landlady and her lovely staff…it’s 10 year since I painted the murals in the back room there, she is very kindly taking some photos of them for me! This is the Clarice Cliffe Umbrellas mural that I painted way back then …2007?’
Even now I miss my murals, the Leopard Hotel in Burslem was left empty and people got in and vandalised it, started growing cannabis. The building caught fire and only a shell of it remains
I honestly don’t know
What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?
The world’s a mixed up place. There’s too much fake information out there. How can my small blog cut through it all?
I had a silly idea that I could write and prevent the War in Ukraine escalating. I even wrote to the Russian embassy in London to think about what Putin was doing and going to do.
I have written about global warming and famines. But I’m one person. Clearly if everyone agreed, then we as humanity could change things. But who’s going to listen? I don’t have a large reach here or anywhere else. I’m no influencer.
It’s nice to feel I might make a difference. But it’s like winning the lottery, a 14 million to 1 chance that someone might care. That’s all I can say.
How would you like your blog to influence people? When will individuals work together, team up, care enough to change things?
Obviously there are people out there in groups and teams who try. I hope you give them half a chance. The world needs changing but it might be too late!
Almost Friday
Time floats round
One minute it’s March
Then it’s Friday….
I mean it all merges
When you’re not having fun.
Day starts
Day ends
Night starts
Dawn arrives
My brain does not compute
Time is running,
But is it running out?
How rude
Just go back
Further and further
To when days meant something?
Please.
Mallaband-Brown 