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

Aurora again! Can’t believe it!

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If the sky looks odd I take a photo now. Just one this time….

Reports say that aurora are due because of big solar flares so I decided to look. The sky looks cloudy, but I’m short sighted and have cataracts so I can’t really tell. Plus it’s too cold to go outside and I don’t want to trip up in the dark so I have a light on in the living room. Parkinsonism makes me shake so as this is a 60 second exposure it’s all very blurry. But camera shake does not change the colour of the sky to green!

Probably everyone is in bed but I give you…. It’s cloudy but the sky’s green again! 3.10 am 5.10.24 in Stoke, England from my kitchen window.

Voting

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What’s a topic or issue about which you’ve changed your mind?

I voted when I was 19 and followed the family, we were tories, I wanted to see a woman prime minister. I had not left home and had no idea what the real life was about. Then I went to college. An eye opener. I had to live in an old house with no fire, just an open coal fire. The toilet was outside, I showered at the college, I realised that this was not unusual, people had to manage.

Most of my friends were caring, thoughtful and Labour voters. One was in CND, this was the era of protests against Cruise missiles. I saw what Thatchers laws were doing to people. You could see the rich getting richer, the poor, poorer. It was the era of the Yuppie. What can I say? I had to change. I’m glad I did.

My conclusion about this.? My family had held me in one way of thinking. Reality changed my mind. Don’t be afraid to think.

Backing myself into a corner?

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Married

We met in the September

Moved in together in October

16 years later?

We married.

In 9 minutes it will be our anniversary.

My first without him.

We never really celebrated

He wasn’t into birthdays

Or Anniversaries

A quiet meal

A glass of wine or beer

We were going to be together forever.

The shock when he went

Backed me into a corner.

Nowhere to go

Nothing to do

Surrounded by stuff

That holds me in

Trapped in a corner of sadness

Missing him

And tomorrow? In 5 minutes?

24 hours lost in greif

At a Youth Hostel

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Tell us about a time when you felt out of place.

My hubby and I were on holiday in the South West but the weather was bad and so we decided to stay our last night at a local youth hostel.

We arrived and booked a double room. But were then asked if we could stay in dormortaries as a group of foreign students had arrived and the teachers wanted to sleep seperatly from their pupils.

We agreed and I politely tried to say I only spoke a little of their language.

Evening meal and then bedtime. The girls I was sharing the dorm with started talking and continued chatting and giggling late into the night. I had absolutely no idea what they were saying and spent two or three hours with the pillow over my head trying to block out the sound.

It was awful, I felt so out of place, I barely slept and had a long cycle ride ahead of me in the morning.

Would I do it again? Yes to be polite, but I might have to think about it first

More auroras due?

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This was from last time.

Two big solar flares have recently flung energetic plasma out into space from the sun over the last couple of days. The radiation released arrived at earth quickly and blacked out some of our short wave radio signals, but matter can take days to arrive. So this weekend there may be another aurora show then. I’m getting my camera ready! I just hope it’s not cloudy..

Brampton Open Exhibition

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Lucky to get my painting “mend him” into the Brampton open exhibition in the Brampton museum and art gallery, in Newcastle under Lyme. Staffordshire. It’s on from 14th October I think. The painting is a portrait of my hubby I started last year and finally finished a couple of months after he passed away. I miss him. This is my in memoriam tribute to him.

I had decided to enter it as “not for sale” but the gallery wanted all images to be up for sale so I put a large (very large) price on it to virtually guarantee it won’t be sold. It’s very personal to me, but I wanted people to see it.

It’s acrylic on canvas and I started it in my Studio in Spode Site, Stoke. I finished painting it there after I decided to leave due to not being able to afford the studio rent any longer. It means this is the last painting I completed there.

Variations

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Playing with illustration ideas. If you mirror image half a picture you can create completely different faces. Asymmetry and Symmetry. Artrage app.

When you look at a real face it can be lopsided. Often one eye will be higher up than the other. The underlying skull can be lopsided too. This can be because one side of a brain may be more dominant than the other. I’m not sure of the actual physiological causes of this. I could find out, but just enjoyed experimenting with the original drawing. X

Flying

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What skill would you like to learn?

For as long as I know I’ve been scared of flying. So why would I like to learn? Because I would be in CONTROL.

Alerons, throttle, yolk, flaps, landing gear. See I know the names of bits of planes, but not how to use them. I take note of TV programmes I watch. Even the ones where planes crash. But seeing mechanical failures really worry me. Like doors falling off without warning.

I think it stems from watching a James Stewart film when I was a child. It was either called “Glide Path”, or “No Highway”. It’s based on a book by Neville Shute. It is about a professor of engineering or mechanics who works out a series of recent crashes are caused by metal fatigue. The trouble is no one believes him. So he sets up a mechanical test to vibrate part of a plane and sets it going over hundreds of hours. But in the meantime he gets sent abroad and has to take drastic action to save himself and the other passengers on his plane.

It’s worth seeing, it’s set in the 50’s, and it put me off flying!