I know it’s a madness but then that is what this is all about: oddness, obsession and madness. It is madness because to post this piece I went out of my way on my journey between my studio and Bridport Arts Centre for the AGM and Polly Gifford‘s leaving do. But I had already put the stamp on so what could I do?
The piece itself revisits a recurring and constant theme with some more recent vocabulary.
Poor Bramble had to be put down today. She had cancer of the tongue and it had spread to her kidneys. She seemed ok in many ways but was unable to eat comfortably. Yesterday evening it was clear that she was uncomfortable and a little distressed and although she ate something this morning it was clear she was not going to make it. She had a nice last day in the garden and we were both with her at the end.
Because of this I do not feel able to make today’s piece available for sale. It is too personal and too painful, but it will be opened at the installation.
Yes, 200 up! It’s an achievement not to be sneezed at! Now where did that expression come from? The Plague years? Answers on a postcard please.
Today’s piece is quite interesting in that it is something I was thinking of doing some time back for #Letter365 but I was not sure if what I had envisioned would work on something that would fit into my regulation envelope. I only thought about it again because I opened up the wrong sketchbook and it opened to the page with the note on! I realised 2 things: first I now had a vocabulary that would make it work and secondly I could get the buyer to finish it off. So much of my work is quite demanding on the viewer and I often feel that it is not complete until the viewer makes their contribution mentally or optically, so why not leave it just slightly unfinished with instructions and suggestions for the final configuration?
After a period of popping my offerings in various mailboxes I posted today’s back at my local post box. I am just so tired I couldn’t be doing with breaking my journey and all that palaver. I really don’t want to be doing this blog, I didn’t want to do the envelope, I didn’t want to do the photography and if I am honest I didn’t want to do the artwork! I used up an idea I was wanting to develop elsewhere and in fact it worked pretty well and I was prompted to experiment a little so it was all pretty positive. But now I want to sleep. Well I have wanted to sleep since I got up at 7 this morning. Our poor cat is not eating and I am grieving. So that is all.
Because I have been busy today, mostly nursing and fretting over our sick cat, I didn’t get to do the #Letter365 piece until this evening. I am so pleased that when I bought the photographic lights I got a set that had a soft box on a boom – and that I set it up the other day – without it the studio is not very bright.
And the story is that I was going to be at Bridport Arts Centre tonight for Story Cafe (to be followed tomorrow by a mini story festival tomorrow) and since the special #Letter365 box is broken at present Beki at the bar had to take delivery. I pondered for some time about how Beki spelt her name as I was certain it was not the ordinary way. I almost didn’t use her name because I didn’t want to get it wrong! But then of course as an artist it is good to use my eyes and read the name badge she is wearing in the photograph!!
It’s a first day of issue for the stamp but I almost forgot to do this post on the blog. My daughter rang as I was starting it. She is off to South Africa tomorrow for a holiday with friends who live there. Then it was time to get some food for our meal and tend to Bramble and we were out this evening at a gig at the Arts Centre. So it all got forgotten until almost the last number of the show and I started worrying. No problem in the end as I had loads of time.
It is really satisfying when things go well. I was unable to get to the studio until this evening because we had the BT engineer coming to connect our fibre broadband (woo!) this morning and had to take our poor, sick cat to the vet for her steroid jab (boo!) this afternoon. So I didn’t have long and I didn’t have a clue what I was going to do – and I think that is an important factor. I didn’t have a clue but was open to inspiration and confident that something would come. In a way it is not even confidence, well not in any bullish way. It is just a calm assumption that it will happen. Because time was limited I discarded the first couple of things that occurred to me on the basis they would take too long to dry. So still not having a clue what to do for #Letter365 I decided to work on a piece I had prepared a substrate for yesterday. It started well and then got twee and then I ballsed a bit up that looked ugly then tried to make a bad bit better and made it worse instead then altered the bit that went twee and it became one of the best bits and….and essentially it all went really well. When that piece needed drying time I did think I would do my #Letter365 but just thought I could play with something else while on a roll. In the end I just had to start from scratch and amazingly it all came together brilliantly for me. In a way it was even better than I hoped and has an element or aspect that I didn’t predict – a happy accident?
I was thinking that I hadn’t delivered one by hand recently and thought Thursday would be good because we are at a gig at Bridport Arts Centre that night. Then I realised that there was a new stamp issue and it would be good to do a first day cover. So I thought I would wander round there and take a last look at the Greta Berlin show before it finishes. So imagine my surprise when I saw the box was missing! I don’t know: Polly Gifford, the Director, is leaving soon to take up a new exciting role in Hastings and already the place is falling apart! Lovely Jill took delivery and certainly makes a much more interesting and colourful photo than my hand holding an envelope by a box! She said the box had broken. The question is, “how?” When Rothko’s painting was vandalised at the Tate it was in all the Media. My work is removed without a how-do-you-do let alone a splash in the local press!
It’s not a big philosophical question that I allude to but today’s piece is a bit of an enigma for me. So I don’t mean what is the meaning of this artwork you can’t yet, or perhaps ever, see but what does it mean that I have created something that links work I was doing a year or more ago with work I am doing now! Does it mean that the ideas and issues that motivated me a year or so ago were unresolved; that there is more mileage in them? Are they bubbling under the surface wanting to get out again? As I wrote this I realise that is the case. The other option was that I was just a bit stuck and opted for a familiar path, but I see that was not the case. I see also that there is a continuum rather than separated ideas. I hope the reunion will be fecund.
As to the seal, well I used up the last little bit of that stick stuck on the end of a scalpel and heating it with a lighter. Of course it all melted and fell flaming onto the envelope. I was all for letting it burn a little but it went out of its own accord!
