New paintings and regular art updates.
I was painting a backdrop for the final penkhull mystery play before the pandemic. It’s unlikely the plays will be continued, people get older or move on. The children who used to be involved are growing up. I don’t feel able to do anything like this any more. I can do some things but I shake too much to get delicate work like this done. At least I have memories. Willow pattern design I made up.
I just got an email to tell me I didn’t get this in the Three counties open exhibition…. Perhaps I should have gone with a traditional portrait. Oh well, I’m old enough not to be too disappointed. I guess I will try again next year. My work will be on display and up for sale on Acava Spode Open day in a few weeks. I need to check the date. I need to go and sort out my studio and create an exhibition there instead. I’m enjoying painting in a slightly abstracted way, I think it fits in with my style?
Seven years ago I had a small exhibition at Etruria Industrial museum. This blurry photo just came up on my Facebook memories.
The blurry image of my painting was taken from a photo of my friend with a white elephant she had made of paper and willow withies. She was sewing a rich red and yellow fringe around it as way of hiding the legs of the person who was to carry it. The back had a hollow ‘houda’ I think its called? Like a basket to sit in. This was so a person could carry the elephant but look like they were riding it. I loved this representation of the elephant and decided to paint this image. My friend had the painting. The elephant? I think it was destroyed in a fire in the shed where it was stored…
The props for the penkhull mystery plays were made using willow withies tied and glued and then covered in paper and glue and painted white, then volunteers decorated them. I had fun giving a couple of horses a Picasso feel. I don’t remember if it was me or another volunteer that painted this one. There were four horses for an apocalyptic scene! I think we made a monster too but these are the photos from 9 years ago off Facebook memories.
One of the Art groups I’m in wanted us to post a picture based on the prompt #movement. This was from my imagination after swimming with a wild dolphin called Georges. It had swum into a bay where we were caravanning and stayed around after the rest of his pod had gone. There was a notice the next day saying you shouldn’t swim with him because he was over friendly and dolphins can pass on pneumonia from the droplets from their blowhole. Anyway. I loved painting this and have great memories of swimming with a dolphin!
A friend just sent me this photo. It’s one of my little paintings in someone’s kitchen. Just a simple design. I was rather pleased to get this. Knowing my art is appreciated cheers me up!
Is a chair!
I have a real studio
Down at spode
Was going today
But I hurt my foot!
Going to paint
Going to draw,
But I turned my foot
On the floor.
To get to Spode
Means climbing stairs…
A really short walk
Not too far,
But my foot is sore..
So I’ll stare at my chair…
Feet up..
Before it burnt down, the Leopard Hotel was a great place to visit, the owners asked me to paint a series of murals in the Arnold Bennett suite at the back of the hotel.
Here is one of a few photos a visitor to it took of my paintings. It doesn’t show them clearly, but it does give an idea of the sizes and the distances between them.
I’ve painted murals at other places but the buildings they were in have mostly been demolished! I’m not complaining but I think its sad that all the effort that was put in to paint them has been lost. Some of them were joint projects with artists from Stoke-on-Trent city council. I was just helping on those and wasn’t the main artist so I don’t feel as attached to them as I did with the Leopard. Such a sad loss to the town of Burslem. It was a historic building that had a lot of influence on the lives of its residents.
Another old painting from 2015, I’m not quite sure what I was thinking and it’s probably best forgotten!
Things I would change? The colours possibly. I would try and work from a horse photo because this isn’t very anatomically correct, I know it doesn’t actually have wings either! I guess I’ve made it delicate to be light enough to be held up by wings… Strange what you create as an artist.
My friend Apple has a restaurant and also a coffee shop. The shop has been closed for a while because of the pandemic, but now things are calming down she’s trying to reopen it. After three years she’s putting a lot of work into creating a social and friendly space for people to meet up. She’s given herself a month to get things sorted out. I was talking to her and found this photo of an old painting I did based on the painting Proserpine by one of the Pre-Raphaelite artists. I can’t remember the actual artist.
What I did was to try and copy the painting and add an apple instead of a pomegranate to relate to my friends name. You can’t see but I also painted Apples coffee house at the top right on a sign. Sorry the photos a bit blurry!
Mallaband-Brown