New paintings and regular art updates.
I’m wrapped up in thought
Tied in knots
Fearful and hopeful
Maybe happy?
Trails of thoughts
Run along tracks
I need to slip off
Onto free land
Find my way out
Beyond the gravity
Of memory
Break those bonds
Clear my mind
Float into space….
Have you ever clocked on? I did for a few weeks one summer when I got a holiday job. The clock machine we had to use was a big grey box with cards in slots next to it.
I also clocked on for an art project. Each time I went into my studio I clocked on, and off. The cards were collected and turned into an artwork later on.
So seeing this at the museum rang a bell… Some forty year old thought woke up and reminded me of a dirty grey factory floor, oil splashed on the machines, knurling air filters for cars (joining the concertinerd paper together) with two clogged wheels that pressed the ends together to hold them in place before they had cages and the rubberised circles fixed to the top and bottoms, then clock off and go home at the end of a long, boring day. So clocking on? I’ve done that.
Describe a decision you made in the past that helped you learn or grow.
Things happen and suddenly you have to decide what to do. Your life can carry on the same old way or you can adjust it. Mostly though that happens when you get a little older. That’s what happened to me.
I knew I would be OK as I was taking a calculated step, but what I didn’t bank on was Brexit (why?), then the pandemic and now the cost of living crisis, and health issues.
So would I do it again? Yes of course. I know I’m not probably as well off and secure as I would have been, but I know I’m happier. I won’t describe why I left, but I wasn’t happy. Things changed and I could explain, but it’s in the past now. All I know is that I feel more confident, it has definitely helped me grow as a person.
What’s next? I’ll keep trying to make things work. I have to. I wish anyone else who has made a similar decision all the best and good luck.
Has anyone else got a box of old coins that they have collected over the years? Sometimes it’s because prices are £9.99 so you get a penny change…
Then other bits and pieces of detritus arrive in the box. This is hubbys main doing. Elastic bands, bits of wire, his allergy tablets.
When we are short of cash we copper up. Digging out any silver coins or pound coins. So in a way it should be silver up? Making discoveries of literally lots of five pence coins! Today we uncoppered about ten pounds in change. Hard to take shopping, but there is a coin exchange machine in the supermarket which gives shopping vouchers to the value of your change.
The best thing about this photo? the verdigris on one of the coins.
Is the cost of living crisis affecting whether you buy or collect art?
As a small time seller of art I’m interested in how the rises in inflation and reduction in pay rises is affecting the Art economy. I’m sure decisions are being made that people either put off buying, or don’t buy art at all.
Art is everywhere, in designs of clothes, furniture, architecture, advertising, maps, car design, and even the Art in people’s walls. The Art economy is worth Billions to the economy as a whole, but I think it is under recognised. We like to be surrounded by visual and auditory stimulation, but do people even notice it’s there. Do you notice a painting on a restaurant wall? Or classical music played in a supermarket. I wonder how things will work out?
This arrived today! It’s almost the length and width of our settee. My hubbys brother has sent it in the post. Why? It’s meant to be a pond yatch. But our pond is smaller than the box!
I don’t need more stuff in the house. I don’t know how much wrapping is inside the box, I just told my hubby I’ve now got something to put him in when he has passed away.
Hubby and brother used to make toy boats as children, they had a small lake near their childhood home where they built ships and then reinacted naval battles and set fire to the ships (I don’t have to say what I want to do with it do I?)
Oh well, another start to another weird day. Household peace may resume. But I’m not sure when! I just wish he’d open the box, but he seems happy just to look at it!
Lapis lazuli
I love you
Blue rock heated
Sulphur in it
See the world
As a blue marble
A small blue dot
In infinite space.
Now we know
Other blue planets
But is there water
On those orbs?
What place in the world do you never want to visit? Why?
OK, but why?
The Earth is quite a large planet to humans, but it is also a finite place. It doesn’t go on for ever and it has limited resources.
I know there are wonderful places to visit and also terrible places, it depends mainly on human activity. We may preserve a place or tear it apart. Every time a person travels though they have a carbon footprint, the amount of carbon dioxide that is produced by the vehicle you travel in, what energy it takes to make it and what is used to fuel the vehicle.
But with satellites, television and the Internet I can visit almost every corner of the world without actually going there. So why should I? I visit places in the UK because it doesn’t cause too much pollution. If I could, I would cycle to where I want to visit. If I want to go abroad I would prefer to use a sailboat or at the most a ferry. I don’t want to fly unless there are solar powered planes.
Another reason not to travel is the fear of disease. There have been films about escaped viruses and diseases, but I never thought I would experience a real pandemic. I guess it’s a case of once bitten, twice shy. I don’t know what I might catch ‘out there’. I am not xenophobic, I’m happy for anyone to come here. I just want people to think first. Do you need to visit, do you want to increase your carbon footprint? It’s a different situation if you are fleeing violence or oppression, then in my opinion you are very welcome. The world is a strange place. I’m lucky to be here.
Describe a positive thing a family member has done for you.
I will always be grateful for my mother’s encouragement for me to go to art college. She had to work to support us all and when I finished school she might have insisted that I work full time.
Instead she let me go to college (though I had a couple of part time jobs). I initially went on a preparatory course, then left home to do my degree.
I was aware that my cousin who was also artistic had to go to work in a factory and forget her dreams. I don’t know what happened to her after I moved away. But in my case I was always welcomed home in the holidays.
I’m glad my mom gave me the freedom to do art. Learning has always been something that I enjoyed, and to do a subject that I love? I will always be eternally grateful to her.
Going home over the years I realised how proud she was of me. She was always encouraging us all to do the best we could.
Dad used to grow these. You can see why they are called pompom dahlias. He had a whole patch of them in the back garden. I found some in the local garden centre so I have bought a packet of tubers just to see if I can grow them.
The best place to see dahlias in the area is the dahlia walk at the Biddulph Grange garden in Biddulph, Staffordshire. The National Trust owns the house and gardens. The building is only accessible in a few rooms, but the gardens are magnificent. Part classic gardening, part themed garden it is worth visiting and you have to see the Dahlia Walk in late summer. Sections separated by hedges on either side of a central pathway are filled with all sorts of Dahlia plants in all sorts of colours, for example red Bishop of Llandaff ones. Other sections in the garden have various themes, a Swiss cottage next to an Egyptian tomb, grottos and stepping stones and a Chinese temple and giant stone frog and golden calf!
Worth a visit if you are in the area.
Mallaband-Brown