Caring for people

What motivates you?

I think I’ve always cared about people. My mom used to say I had a soft heart. I like films that you would class as weepies, ones that bought a tear to your eyes. I’d sit on the sofa with my mom and have a good cry.

So I’m motivated to try and support people. I wonder if that is just a perpetuation of a female role model ? It certainly was pushed when we had our careers guidance. It was suggested I went into nursing, I which didn’t set well. Why not a doctor? Anyway by then my motivation had changed. I wanted to be an artist, and for forty years I’ve pursued that role. Not to be famous. Not to make money, but to create art (and care about people).

Autumn Spring

Although I was not able to attend the Open day at a spode this weekend, I arranged to have one of my paintings Autumn Spring exhibited alongside other people’s artwork. I think it looks quite good. I was experimenting with an abstract idea in 2019 just before Covid arrived. The idea is a mixture of oblong and squares on the Autumn side, all jumbled and crammed together and is opposed to Spring which is more lyrical and fluid. Representing overwhelming waste and damage, and what we are doing to the Earth, and the renewal and regrowth that the Spring could bring.

Cat mug

Cat in a hat mug. My design that I draw to make children laugh if they are grumpy. I’ve been drawing it for years and so I decided to paint it onto a mug a few years ago when we went to a pottery to do some decorating. I don’t even remember where I did it, but the mug says 20, so it must have been three years ago. I have black and white cats but I always imagine this as a ginger tabby cat. X

Ten Favorite movies.

What are your top ten favorite movies?

I’m going to choose ten starring James Stewart rather than lots of random films…

Mr Smith goes to Washington (an honest politician).

Harvey (costarring an invisible rabbit)

It’s a wonderful life, with Clarence (an Angel)

Destry Rides again (cowboy)

The Philadelphia story,

Winchester ’73 (cowboy)

No Highway in the sky (about metal fatigue in a plane)

The Glenn Miller story

Vertigo (Hitchcock film)

Rear Window (Hitchcock film)

There are many more but these are ones I remember. There is a filmography on Wikipedia with more details of his films. He was an amazing actor and I loved his films from an early age.

Angled

Just some paving, but take the photo at an angle and it becomes more interesting… I don’t know why, maybe because of perspective? Perhaps it’s composition. Perhaps it’s to do with the fibonacci spiral? or The Golden section which is pretty much the same thing in spiralling oblongscinsteadvof the actual spiral.

Think of the Great Wave off Kanagawa as the crashing wave spirals around the side of the print with Mount Fuji in the distance.

I think it’s the feeling of movement you can create by changing the position of the image. More interesting than a static set of horizontal and vertical lines…

How do I know?

Something has come up. Google domains has been sold to squarespace. People can transfer them free of charge to WordPress?

But how do I know if I have a Google domain? I tried looking it up but didn’t go far, I need to write down the sequence of what to do or I might get lost? Plus how come Google is allowed to sell something you have already paid for? Is it like buying a car and then being told the maker has gone bankrupt so your car now belongs to someone else? I never understand this guff….