New paintings and regular art updates.
What are three objects you couldn’t live without?
I tell a lie,
I could live
But would life be worth it?
Colours swirl and fade,
Brushstrokes create
Patterned surfaces
Canvas grabs paint
Textures grow
Light seems to flow.
No, without my creative things
A life of sadness it brings.
Give me my paints,
I will build mountains
Canvas for landscape
Or face?
Who knows.
Brushes manipulate
Joy it creates.
I’m finding old portraits
Portals to a previous time
Not photographic images
But paint on canvas
You made me smile
You made me laugh
And cry too
So I hold onto these
Small tokens of love
With all my strength.
X
Ugh! Red sky this morning, wet and cold warning.
It’s March 1st, St David’s day, symbol the daffodil, saints day of Wales. I have a few uninspiring tete a tete narcissi daffodils at the front of the house but they look a bit sad and forlorn.
Today is the first day of Spring here. I hope it bucks it’s ideas up!
It brightened up in the afternoon, but there may be snow, showers then fog later. What fun.
In other news I’m plotting a joint exhibition with other friends later in the year. I’m hoping I might get some respite from the tablets I’ve started taking. You never know. I just want to feel better.
Do you enjoy your job?
I gave up work to look after my hubby and try and set up as an artist. Sadly circumstances mean that he is no longer here and I don’t have the possibility of keeping my artists studio.
I won’t stop painting though, creativity is my reason for living. Despite health issues I cannot give it up. So I suppose really I do have a job, but it’s very much part time. I will still accept commissions and do my best to produce quality art work. I hope I continue long into the future, drawing on these recent events to produce new art.
Wire woven mobiles in my window. The first thing I look at in the morning. One was to celebrate my hubbys 65th birthday, the other Ygdrasil, the tree at the centre of the world was a gift from my friend. I wonder if there will be any more?
Wire weaving is a brilliant skill, I think my friend was featured as a maker on one of the TV sales shows a few years ago. This sort of work takes agility and dexterity.
Creative people deserve recognition and support. In a world where councils, running short of money, are going to close art galleries and libraries, I wonder what people are meant to do to learn and enjoy the arts? Maybe the richest 20 MEN in the world should share some of their wealth more, even if we go back to Victorian values like philanthropy. Art is in our DNA it needs preserving!
What advice would you give to your teenage self?
When I came to Stoke-on-Trent (the potteries), as a teenager I was leaving home for the first time. I was living in student accommodation for the first year, but then I had to move out into a rented room. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. But I met my boyfriend who later became my husband. I would now tell myself that was the right choice. It didn’t always feel like it at the time, we had some crazy days until things settled down. I could tell my future self some things that I have since forgotten.
I would tell myself that when things were bad they could and did get better. It wasn’t all perfect, how could it be? I never became a famous artist, but enough people would end up liking my paintings for me to feel their recognition.
Life changes over the decades, but a lot of what was important to me as a teenager still is. Moving out also taught me lessons about real life. How I should treat people kindly and to care about them. I can’t say much more because it’s so long ago!
Smallest house in Great Britain, in Wales, is it in Caernarfon? (I’ve just been told its actually in Conway) If I remember it’s one up one down. If you spread your arms out it’s only just a bit wider than them (it’s smaller on the inside). I remember there was a woman called Carole dressed in Welsh traditional costume standing outside. We went in (squeezed in) and were amazed at how small it is.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some flats in big cities are actually smaller than this, although I don’t remember seeing a bathroom in it. It’s on the seafront between the castle and a bigger building than it if I remember correctly. It might be worth Googling it if you are interested. I didn’t realise how long ago it was that we visited it, hence the hazy memories.
I used to do a lot of collages like this. I just looked back and saw this. Blue sky and wispy clouds with an old building suspended in the sky. I think I might try and do a few more if the rain ever stops! Grey skies and lack of sunshine makes me a dull woman. I need to try and do more art and experiment more. I don’t want to come to a stop. I hope when the sunlight comes back I feel more bright myself.
Seeing the floor in the Spode Factory is a memory of what went before. Industry and creativity joined. Scratched and chipped, the surface is damaged. Most of it is hidden by studios on either side of a central corridor. When you go into the studios some have metal, single glazed windows that let in the cold of winter. And once the cold gets in it doesn’t seem to get warm again till March!
The building is solid concrete and brick, with arched, barrel shaped ceilings high above. I think any heat rises up there and is lost to us on the shiny, scratched floor.
But here people worked hard to create beautiful ceramics, magical pottery, a hive of hot activity that didn’t need heating because of the kilns and machinery, now long gone.
A miniature forest? No, moss and peeling paint on a windowledge at Spode Site, Elanora street, Stoke today. I like the look of it, but when I think of the deterioration to the buildings I realise they must be crumbling inside and out.
I took quite a few photos today, some of them seriously boring! I’m not sure how I will use them. There is a boring men Facebook page I think? I don’t know if I could post them there or if I want to. I might just post them to the peeling paint appreciation society and the moss appreciation society pages!
Mallaband-Brown