I found this on my phone and once again remembered. Those thoughts came back again, sadness, guilt, loss. To lose a sister, it’s not right. When it’s a twin it might be worse. I don’t know. But as our birthday approaches, will I be OK? I somehow feel this should be both of us. I want to get to my next birthday, but the idea seems wrong. I will keep going but I’m not sure I will be happy on that day. And it’s not just me, it’s the rest of the family. I guess we will wait and see…. Sorry to post this but I couldn’t get the idea out of my mind.
Dragons on coffee pots, well one pot, but I was playing with pattern. It was my parents, part of a wedding present I think. It was left to one of my sisters and I took photos last year as part of my final major project for college. I’m not sure if it’s beautiful or ugly, it’s certainly interesting. When you play with images like this you have to choose a favourite. I will rotate the images four times to see which is the best aesthetically, but I do like this one.
I did go to Sixth form at school, but it wasn’t a separate high school. I think things have changed in the UK since I was there. I guess different places in the world run their school systems differently and now Sixth form colleges are often stand alone institutions.
We didn’t have computers when I was at school, they were just coming in when I left. So that’s another thing I didn’t learn! There were typing classes (which I didn’t do) and I think the typewriters were pretty old!
So what did I learn? I did A Levels. One of them was Art, and I loved it. I started to learn about subjects like Pop Art and French Impressionism and Surrealism. It was good to actually learn about the history of art as well as finding out about different techniques. I learned about Andy Warhol and Monet, Cezanne and Salvador Dali. I remember pictures of Campbell soup cans, haystacks and melting clocks. I didn’t learn about female artists though, that came later when I went to college. The Art course made me decide I wanted to do an Art degree, and here I am still being an Artist all these years later.
Describe one positive change you have made in your life.
It was a drastic decision, but I don’t regret it. Each time I thought I knew my job inside out the management changed things. In that sort of situation you could be doing the right thing one day and the wrong the next. That’s the problem with hierarchy, the top decides and the bottom has to implement rules even if they don’t make sense. And each time the goalposts move it’s not likely to be in your favour.
So I found myself out of work, but not regretting it. I had enough money to live on for a while so I set myself up as an artist. Of course I had grand ideas of sales and building a clientele, but at that stage I really didn’t know that my health would not be good. With that and the pandemic (no I haven’t had covid as yet) I found I really didn’t have a business. But I don’t care, I’m away from the humdrum, I’m not being made miserable by rules I don’t like and don’t want to follow. I have had more freedom to be myself than I ever had during the rest of my life. I guess I’m what they call semi retired. A hobbyist? I’d rather paint than do anything else.
Would I reverse the change? Never. I’ve only been back and seen my colleagues a couple of times. The past is the past, let it be!
When I was a lot younger my then boyfriend (now hubby) encouraged me to buy a bike because I couldn’t afford a car. We would cycle short distances but gradually I got fitter and we found we would go off into the countryside to enjoy the landscapes or put the bikes on the train and visit our families (both about forty miles away).
But then we started to cycle to and from the family homes, we had both got to the stage where we had got fit and healthy. It’s a great way of getting around and we eventually bought a second hand tandem which was actually two bikes welded together! We manages a hundred mile reliability trial, despite a pedal falling off because one of the chain wheels had been put on back to front. We then got a Gitane tandem, it was much better but the chain was always too slack. We could get up a good speed on it. We would cycle along and down country lanes. Once we ran into a boy scout jamboree, and also a pony trek with ponies stretched across the road up in the Staffordshire moorlands.
My regret? I got knocked off my bike and ended up with a fractured skull. I carried on cycling for a year. But then one day I was cycling up a hill and the bike collapsed underneath me! I took it in for repair and the cycle shop lost my bike for a year! I got it back eventually but I’d got a car and although I still cycled work got in the way and I didn’t use my bike as often. I now can’t get my leg over the bike because my hips are too stiff. I regret losing that fitness and a wonderful exercise.
I just tried to delete some of my images because the memory on my WordPress media is on 99.8%!
For some reason all the photos went blank and the system would not let me delete any of the images, very worrying. What to do? All I could think was switch the phone off and switch it back on again… I held my breath. Yes! It’s working properly again.
I don’t know why it stopped, I had tried to use the free media section and it would not upload an image from there, so perhaps that created a glitch? All I can say is when I tried to look up the artist John Constable on it I got lots of images that were very generic, and non showed a Constable painting! Oh well….
I always drew for as long as I can remember and I knew I wanted to be an artist. I stuck drawings up on my bedroom walls as I got older, i would copy pictures of Asterix the Gaul, or draw Elizabethan people with ruffs round their necks and wonderful clothing. When the walls got covered I strung string across my side of the bedroom and hung my drawings and paintings on with clothes pegs or sellotape. As I got better at art I was asked to do a painting for one of the deputy head teachers who was retiring. I remember painting portraits of some of my school mates as if they were in the school playground in clothes that would look very old fashioned now. Eventually one of my paintings got sent to a display of childrens art in our twin town in Germany. That was a big highlight of school life. Luckily I got to go to art college, and here I am, still doing art all these decades later!
Mallaband-Brown 