Sundays #bandofsketchers prompt was cuts. This was a head scratcher! I thought of a paper cut and decided to go a bit surreal. Instead of the paper cutting my finger I drew my hand cutting through a page of my sketchbook. Pastle colour felt pens and silver metallic pen.
I saw this on WordPress Reader and had to share. The council claim its only a minimal cut (of around £600,00!). Its important that our industrial heritage is saved, otherwise Stoke on Trent would lose its raison d’etre.
Mystery Play mask. From 2018 or 2019. An outside play we did in the summer. One day only. About the history of the potteries. Set in a pottery museum that comes to life.
Why this? Because our local council want to cut jobs for curators and close the Gladstone Museum in Longton, Stoke-on- Trent, for five months a year and reduce the opening times for the Potteries Museum and Art gallery in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent. Why aren’t we promoting tourism, getting people to visit? The council say their £600,000 will only have a minimal effect!
It’s happening here in my home city all the time. I report it but the council probably don’t have the staff to deal with it anymore because of the cuts (austerity cuts in local government by our National government). A few years ago the council used to have days when people could have their bulky rubbish collected, but now people have to pay to take stuff to the tip and they don’t have the money. They should be encouraged not charged to use the tip. Also I guess covid isn’t helping…
The world is full of rubbish, plastic, toxic waste, pollution, CO2, fluorocarbon, the list seems endless. What we leave in our neighbourhoods is just a small part of the wreck we are making of the Earth.
I remember Walsall illuminations over the years. We went most years as children, it was always wonderful to wander through the Arboretum, a huge park in Walsall. The lights as we called them usually ran from September and the leaves that were starting to change, were lit with coloured lights, some of the light displays were brought in from Blackpool. The beauty was that you could walk through the park, eventually coming out by the boating lake where you could see a spectacular light show, especially in later years when they used lasers and fountains. Part of the charm was that they kept some of the tableau for years. Like the clock family. These were clock shaped with legs and arms and the hour and minute hands formed the faces. They were fibre glass and painted bright colours. With bulbs placed in them to light them. There was always a fair on in the park so children could go on the rides and have candy floss. It’s ten years since ‘cost cutting’ closed them down. So sad……