Owl and pussycat

Looking at random things in the house. On my bookcase upstairs these two friends. I think I put them together because they remind me of Edward Lears poem.

The owl and the pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea green boat.

They took some honey and plenty of money wrapped up in a five pound note…..

Which is the female and which is the male? I don’t know, is it important? I don’t  remember the full poem and I often get it mixed up with Lewis Carrolls Jabberwocky poem.

It’s amazing what pops up in your memory when you see things. I have a good visual memory and that helps when I’m painting. I often talk to myself if I’m trying to remember what something looks like or how it’s put together. X

The Owl and the Pussycat

Went to sea, in a beautiful pea green boat…

They took some money and plenty of honey, wrapped up in a five pound note….

A nonsense poem by Edward Lear, who also wrote the Dong with the luminous nose and the Yonghie Bonghie Bo. There used to be a TV show in the seventies that included these characters, but the animation was very weird and too colourful if that’s possible with the poems set to odd music, and I’m afraid it actually put me off reading them!

I also get Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll ( who wrote Alice in Wonderland etc) mixed up.

I realised this morning that I have the iconic animals sitting on my bookcase in the bedroom. They are a tiny cat made by an artist friend and an owl  I made of clay pressed into a mold. I hadn’t put two and two together before. I guess that anything can spark a chain of memories, there’s a phrase for it in semiotics, about signs and signifiers, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten it!