Compassion

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What’s the trait you value most about yourself?

I think its important to care about people. It means a lot to me. Empathy is important too. Trying to understand where people come from. Sometimes people are hard to get, they don’t make sense. But I still think you have to care.

Compassion is key to that, seeing the problems people are suffering and trying to get to the bottom of why it’s happening. Not blaming them for how their lives are turning out.

I know I cannot aways help people. It’s so hard to explain what I mean. But if you put yourself in their shoes at least there is a chance you can understand their motivations.

I hate rhetoric that describes people in a bad way and that creates a feeling of us and them. It is just a way to divide and conquer. In the modern world there seems to be such a blame culture, where compassionate thoughts could make things better for everyone?

I know I’m an idealist and most readers will find my thoughts wishy washy and weak. But it’s ingrained into me. I make no apologies for it.

Midnight snack?

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I can’t sleep, my bad leg is achy and itchy, I’m hungry because we had tea hours ago. I want comfort food. Sweet but not full of sugar. I found a croissant in the fridge and cut it in half lengthways. I’ve peeled a banana and I’m having a banana croissant. For a warm drink I’ve got a mug of milky decaffeinated tea. Not sure if any of this will make me feel better. I’m also surrounded by three cats intermittently mooching round me, coming up for attention, purring and poddling. 2.38am, aching, possible indigestion and cats. What a combination!

Artist, illustrator, singer

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List three jobs you’d consider pursuing if money didn’t matter.

Basically I would work for free if money wasn’t an object. I’m not bothered about sales, it’s the joy of getting my hands on paint, paper, canvas or pen and ink.

If I wasn’t creating art I would join a choir that travelled round and just did spontaneous performances of cool songs. Simply to make people feel better. I would do it without pay, just for the pleasure of entertaining people.

All I would need is enough money for food and shelter. Certainly I would try and share with other artists if money were no object. I would set up a small gallery near the coast and talk to people who visited it, but not as a salesperson, but to discuss art and creativity. I don’t enjoy selling, I’m an artist, not a seller. X

Hedgehog 2 years ago

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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.

Picassoish pyjamas

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Thursdays #bandofsketchers prompt was pyjamas. I’m watching a programme about Picasso and I drew a digital image channelling one of his female portraits. Then I decided to collage it and see if I could make it look like a print for pyjamas. Artrage, incollage and Sketchbook apps used.

Six years ago

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I was at the potbank cafe, which was part of the potbank hotel in the grounds of Spode factory site, part of the industrial heritage (and revolution) of Stoke on Trent.

The cafe was taken over by a cafe group called “the quarter”, but the hotel is still there and is based within the industrial architecture on the site.

I think I drew the flower in a jam jar while waiting for a friend? I noticed the deration of the flower stem in the water, an example of how the density of matter changes the way light travels through it. When I was young I hated trying to calculate the angle of defraction. Perhaps I should have drawn it and measured my drawing?

Methodism

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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

Wesleyan Methodist Church (Great Britain)

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.