Already missing Autumn
Colour fades in Winter
Llke a Bruegel painting
Colour slipping off the branches
Like skin falling
Leaving black bones.
The hounds swallow vermillion
Grind umber
Sup on the remains.
Bring Spring soon.
Bring back Autumn
Tag: Artist
Arthur Berry
Who is the most famous or infamous person you have ever met?
Arthur Berry was an artist, author, poet and playwright from Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England.
Arthur was also one of my tutors at college and I was really happy when he said my paintings had a bit of something about them. He always seemed to wear a flat cap and tweed jacket. He was a well built man but had a withered arm. His voice sometimes boomed with emotion and joy.
His art is distinctive, charcoal and pastels, oils, mixed media. Often called the Potteries Lowry, he depicted local people and the interior and exterior landscape of the industrial north Midlands city of Stoke-on-Trent.
The works are semi abstract and strongly atmospheric. The portraits show emotions and feelings, aging couples kissing. The titles are often amusing.
Arthur wrote a series of intriguing plays, darkly comic. Set in old libraries or local pubs. They depict everyday life in the 6 towns of potteries, Grit, Grime and Clay. I saw several of them in the Victoria Theatre in Hartshill. This was replaced by the New Victoria Theatre in Newcastle under Lyme.
Arthur’s poems were funny and about his life and surroundings. His “ode to the oatcake” celebrating a local food delicacy which he once described as the potteries papadum
He really was someone worth knowing.
An Artist
When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I must have been about five when I realised I wanted to do art. I would make patterns on graph paper, draw and doodle and sketch. I know my mother started to collect some of my drawings. As I got older I put them on my walls. I even strung them across my bedroom held on by pegs because I didn’t have enough wall space.
When I was in my teens one of my paintings was sent to our twin town in Germany to be exhibited. My headmistress was given a drawing I did of my fellow pupils as a leaving present and I knew I wanted to be an artist as I told my careers teacher, not a nurse as she tried to persuade me. On to Art school to do a degree, and even 40 years later an MA in illustration. Now. I’m struggling. But iooking at different methods and skills. I’m not giving up!
Playing with art
I used a photo of a mural painted on the ground outside one of the entrances of Spode in Stoke on Trent. I was explaining photodirector to someone so I used it to alter the image. Apologies to the artist. I will delete if this is not acceptable.
An artist!
When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Give me crayons, give me colouring books. Books with paper covered in dots that you wet with a paintbrush and colours emerge.. Dot to dot books, pages with squares on that I could turn into patterns. I might have been a bit older than five for some of these, but I always wanted art things for my birthday or Christmas. I must have heard of artists because I always wanted to be one. I got an etch-a-sketch machine to draw with, I loved that.
My sister wanted to be a musician, she eventually borrowed a violin from school. I got jealous because my parents said I was doing art and they couldn’t let me have a musical instrument, so I overtightened the strings on the violin and they snapped ( bad/very guilty memory!)…
Now? I’ve been an artist all my life. I started drawing when I was a child such as historical people in tudor dress, Asterix the Gaul, horses, clouds, all sorts of things. I still do that, anything is interesting to me.
Losing my marbles
I collect all sorts of things, and today I remembered I have a bowl made of buttons glued together, inside it is my marble collection. I need to clear the bowl out, it’s very dusty and some of the leaves from the plant above it have fallen in over the winter. I can’t wash it because it’s held together with PVA glue. I’m going to remove the marbles, (hopefully without losing them), wash them and dry them then put them back in the bowl.
So why am I writing about this? I guess it’s just that I collect all sorts of things, perhaps I should get rid of things? Maybe it’s a trait about being an artist, gathering shiny objects. I guess I’m a bit of a Magpie.
Overlays
I added different textures, scratches, and overlays to my dotty drawing from earlier oni don’t know why but I have to push the boundaries to my work until it feels finished. I guess that’s why I call myself an experimental fine artist. I like the way it’s digital but it could be painted and then weathered and flaking. I keep editing until I cannot get an improvement in the image.
Lion
A photo of a lion at Saltaire by my friend Timothy Hargreaves.
I think I remember him telling me that the lions at Trafalgar square in London were made by the same sculptor. There are on the hill going down to the entrance of Salts Mill in Saltaire, Yorkshire, and they look extremely magnificent in the Spring sunshine. I wish we had sculptures like this nearby. It’s very impressive and I think Victorian?
Martha’s Gallery
https://marthakennedy.wordpress.com/portfolio-of-available-paintings-by-martha-ann-kennedy/
My friend Martha Kennedy has created a portfolio of her work that’s for sale.
She’s a talented artist and writer who lives in America. I love to see her paintings of ‘the big empty’, with mountains in the distance. And a ‘refuge’ for Sand Cranes and other birds and animals.
Living in a city in the UK I can only imagine the wide open spaces she sees. Or what I would call wilderness. X
Take a look…..
Art competition
Write about a time when you didn’t take action but wish you had. What would you do differently?
So many times I have missed deadlines for art competitions. I somehow freeze and lose confidence.
I think it stems from a college tutor who told me I would do badly and not get a good degree. I believed him and when I was successful I still questioned my validity. I come from a working class home and I didn’t have the self confidence to dismiss his opinion. I took three years to get over it and forever after I have felt some degree of imposter syndrome. I was once asked as l local artist to judge an art competition. It was so hard, I didn’t know what to do, whether I would disappoint people. The result was announced and I think people were pleased with my choice, but I felt great guilt!
It’s hard to think that those few words my tutor spoke forty years ago, sank deep into my heart. What would I be doing if I hadn’t listened to his poisoned words. I wish I knew then what I do now.
Mallaband-Brown 