New paintings and regular art updates.
Old paintings I gave a friends daughter when she went to university. I have no idea where they are now. Small square canvases about 6 x 6 inches. Acrylic on canvas, Depicting the Sun and Moon. I may do some similar ones and add a star one. They were fun to do
I was rehearsing for our Christmas concert (we are doing it to fund another pantomime in 2025). I saw these tiles up by the altar. I think they are Minton tiles. I also think the church was designed by Pugin?
The acoustics are very good in there and we had great fun trying to get the right harmonies for silent night. The concert is due to happen on the evening of December 15th this year. As well as traditional carols there will be rock and roll songs and some solos and duets. There may also be recitals of poetry.
There are other tiles in the church, so it might be an idea to listen to the concert and have a good look round.
I found a photo of a ceramic head I made several years ago at my friend Claire pottery class. It must have hung on the same nail in the back yard for at least 20 years!
The weight of the face squished the space inside it in a bit, but it still is a good planting pocket. It has a crack in the back from the firing, so when I plant it up I use plastic to line it but make sure there are holes for drainage. I put different plants in each year, this time I have some sad snapdragons still clinging to life. Maybe next year I will try Sempervirans? (house leeks).
Tell us about a time when you felt out of place.
I was a child and because my eyes were bad I couldn’t see where my parents were on a big beach. So I got lost, but luckily someone found me and I got back to my family. Then they found out I was short sighted, so I ended up with glasses.
Later I got lost trying to map read while my mom drove. I wasn’t very good at it, so we took the right road, but headed south not north. Eventually I realised I had gone wrong and we found our way home. After that I studied maps (on paper), so I knew where I was.
But feeling out of place can also be emotional. I used to do an important job and did it well, but I didn’t fit in with other staff members because they thought I was too soft with our customers. I started to feel very out of place. I think I suffered from imposter syndrome. I second guessed myself all the time, thinking I would get caught out for doing things wrong.
I’m glad I’m out of it. I want to feel I have a real place to be,
What skill would you like to learn?
I started learning pre covid, but I couldn’t afford frequent lessons. Then the pandemic happened and I stopped learning. I thought I would pick it up again, but I’d got out of touch with people.
I don’t know whether I will try again, I need to make a decision because if I don’t I will never know if I could have done it.
So I’m going to have to get my trumpet out when I’m well and see if I can make the right noises. It’s not just my mouth, but my arms need to be in better condition to be able to hold the trumpet and manipulate the valves. If I can’t I won’t be able to play it.
If like other skills it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something, it means it’s highly unlikely that I will ever be much good. But I can try.
Digital art memory from 2 October 2016. I have no memory of how I did this. I think I used a free app called Artrage oils. And I must have used the old layout app, but I don’t know how I achieved the different colours. Anyway it’s definitely a piece of my digital art. 7 years ago.
Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was street. I painted a street scene when I came to Stoke 40 years ago. I did a copy of it recently and I have a photo of the work in progress on my phone. As this is a digital sketch it’s not accurate and rather messy, but I thought I’d give it a go. Artrage app drawn with a stylus.
In what ways does hard work make you feel fulfilled?
Gardening makes me feel fulfilled, it’s not always easy for me to do work on the garden at the moment. But when I’m a little better I shall try and get out and do some pruning. The buddlea need cutting back once the flowers have finished. The other shrubs that are shutting out all the light need to be trimmed. If necessary to cut some of the lower branches of trees so that we can let lots more light in.
It’s heavy work, especially the lopping of branches, they are tangled and twisted in and out of the garden, overgrowing the fences. Our neighbours are a bit annoyed with us, but we can’t afford a full renovation and anyway the garden is natural, with frogs and squirrels and possibly hedgehogs.
I’m pleased we have such growth, it’s fun to think we have grown such a lot over the years.
Two years ago we were having regular hedgehog visitors to our garden, but this year we haven’t seen any. We live next to a busy road and I worry about them. There was also an area of wasteland next to our garden that had brambles growing on it. That was cleared by a builder who removed all the vegetation from it, our garden is quite wild but there was old bits of wood to hide under. I think we will start leaving food out for them to forage again.
What aspects of your cultural heritage are you most proud of or interested in?
I’ve said before I’m not religious, I don’t go to Church or Chapel anymore, but when I was younger I did. The methodist way of prayer and praise was simple. Not much adornments, no artistic decoration, just plain white walls and brown wooden pews and pulpit.
That heritage is in abundance where I live now. Just not of here is a village called Mow Cop where primitive Methodists used to preach outside to their flocks of parishoners. I believe that John Wesley preached there.
Wikipedia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesleyan_Methodist_Church_(Great_Britain)
Gives more information than I am aware of.
Bethesda Methodist Chapel, in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, is gradually being restored to it’s previous magnificent state, after being left to rack and ruin over several decades. I have had the pleasure of performing there with a choir on a couple of occasions and have seen the improvement over the years. It is rather large for a Methodist Chapel and could almost be classified as a cathedral.
Other cultural heritage I am aware of is the formation of the first co-operative movement in the world. It was started in Toad Lane in Rochdale, England. Wikipedia probably has information about that too.
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