New paintings and regular art updates.
I’m wrapped up in thought
Tied in knots
Fearful and hopeful
Maybe happy?
Trails of thoughts
Run along tracks
I need to slip off
Onto free land
Find my way out
Beyond the gravity
Of memory
Break those bonds
Clear my mind
Float into space….
Have you ever clocked on? I did for a few weeks one summer when I got a holiday job. The clock machine we had to use was a big grey box with cards in slots next to it.
I also clocked on for an art project. Each time I went into my studio I clocked on, and off. The cards were collected and turned into an artwork later on.
So seeing this at the museum rang a bell… Some forty year old thought woke up and reminded me of a dirty grey factory floor, oil splashed on the machines, knurling air filters for cars (joining the concertinerd paper together) with two clogged wheels that pressed the ends together to hold them in place before they had cages and the rubberised circles fixed to the top and bottoms, then clock off and go home at the end of a long, boring day. So clocking on? I’ve done that.
Oh dear me
Put this in the wash
Water too hot?
Or the plate knocked
Against a pan.
Must have been
Cracked…
Sad to lose
A favourite
Plate.
Can you mourn
it?
Gone…
I’ve previously exhibited these at Arts and Minds in Harper Street, Middleport and I’m having a swap round. So I’ve taken these to Etruria Industrial museum today. (I have more work up at Harper Street.) The lower two photos are my painting of the governor on the Princess beam engine at Etruria. The poppies and wildflowers represent the summer and poppies are hopefully going to grow there as the museum has initiated a wild flower garden to support bees and other pollenating insects. The idea is to stop mowing the grass lawns around the site and reintroduce more of a natural habitat.
One thing that upset me was seeing litter and rubbish in the grounds and in the canal which the museum volunteers deal with by litter picking. They have a long pole with a net and one of the volunteers fished a plastic cup and other litter out of the canal while we watched.
The museum is part of Stoke on Trents heritage and I’m pleased to have my art displayed there. X
Etruria Inustrial museum today, the museum is open on Fridays now and their first big event is in June. We visited today to drop off some paintings at the cafe there and to have a look round the Princess beam engine that was designed by James Watt I think. It’s a combination of steam and vacuum that was used to power a belt that is attached to flint grinding pans. This was where flint and bone was ground to a wet slurry that was dried to powder to be added to clay to make fine bone China. The mill is next to a canal to draw water in for the steam engine, which was also discharged back into the canal and to transport it’s ground flint and bone along to potteries in Stoke on Trent and beyond.
The original mill was called Jessie Shirley’s bone and flint mill and the painted name of it still partly remains on the building.
Photos are of the engine and boiler house including the governor on the beam engine which is used to regulate the amount of steam produced and the speed the Princess engine rotates.
Describe a random encounter with a stranger that stuck out positively to you.
I was visiting friends at their new house about 40 miles away and I got lost. My hubby doesn’t like asking for directions so we struggled. I could not find where the place was and I’d forgotten to bring the A to Z map, (before satnav which I still don’t have). After a couple of miles of confusion I pulled over to ask a random stranger. I had moved up from that county years ago and I remembered how helpful they are.
Oh yes dear, said the old man, I know where it is. You go down the road past the speedway track (that’s where I met my wife you know), turn left onto the main road past the church (oh we got married there). Right at the roundabout (where I took my driving test), left at the football ground (my team, I’ve supported them for years). Then it’s second on the left (you can’t miss it, the trees are in blossom down there), and you’re at the street…..
After that long conversation we found my friends house easily. I was happy we had stopped. It reminded me of the type of people in that area, always friendly and talkative, engaging and funny. It was a positive encounter.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt green. I did two versions of this, one a drawing, the other filtered through photodirector. I was going to draw vegetation but then I saw a bright green patch of verdigris on a two pence piece. The colour was amazing compared with the old dull coppers.
I had just done a post about coppering up. Finding loose change to spend, which is why I happened to look in the tub of coins so I used them as my inspiration.
Describe a decision you made in the past that helped you learn or grow.
Things happen and suddenly you have to decide what to do. Your life can carry on the same old way or you can adjust it. Mostly though that happens when you get a little older. That’s what happened to me.
I knew I would be OK as I was taking a calculated step, but what I didn’t bank on was Brexit (why?), then the pandemic and now the cost of living crisis, and health issues.
So would I do it again? Yes of course. I know I’m not probably as well off and secure as I would have been, but I know I’m happier. I won’t describe why I left, but I wasn’t happy. Things changed and I could explain, but it’s in the past now. All I know is that I feel more confident, it has definitely helped me grow as a person.
What’s next? I’ll keep trying to make things work. I have to. I wish anyone else who has made a similar decision all the best and good luck.
Has anyone else got a box of old coins that they have collected over the years? Sometimes it’s because prices are £9.99 so you get a penny change…
Then other bits and pieces of detritus arrive in the box. This is hubbys main doing. Elastic bands, bits of wire, his allergy tablets.
When we are short of cash we copper up. Digging out any silver coins or pound coins. So in a way it should be silver up? Making discoveries of literally lots of five pence coins! Today we uncoppered about ten pounds in change. Hard to take shopping, but there is a coin exchange machine in the supermarket which gives shopping vouchers to the value of your change.
The best thing about this photo? the verdigris on one of the coins.
Tuesdays #bandofsketchers prompt was shoes, I drew some of our shoes and sandals, you can see which are my hubbys as I only have small feet. I added the patterned carpet background to jazz it up a bit. Felt pen and fine black ink pen.
Mallaband-Brown