Naive Alphabet

That’s how it seems in other ways; Artist’s Open House starts in just over a month and neither our building works, our garden nor – much to the point – does my art work feel as if they are bursting into life. There’s plenty under way; it just seems held back like the Spring. We need the equivalent of a good downpour and some hot sunshine and all that nearly-finished work, like those half-emerging plants, that nearly-completed bathroom, will surge into new life!

Instead of always displaying work that’s complete, that looks as if it were done from start to finish according to one plan or sweep of ideas, I thought it’d be interesting to start showing some unfinished pieces. Some struggle into existence over days, weeks, even (occasionally) years. Just a few spring into life in one fell swoop. Joyous and liberating when it happens. But I think you need the alternation between hard graft and spur-of-the-moment, perspiration and inspiration. It’s just like writing or (I imagine) composing: you need to be able to get right into the detail, but also pull back and be your own editor, to cast a cold eye over what you’re doing.

Recently there’s been a lot of perspiration after an unintentionally long break from proper work in the studio. I need unbroken time to get through the barrier of over-editing, being too critical, too hard on myself. There’s a moment when, after lots of thought and/or hard work, everything seems poised and ready for action, resolution and completion. I thought I’d got there this week but there have been more interruptions (good as well as bad!). By next week some of these pieces (and more) should be taking their final form.

Lots afoot since my last post: building, plumbing, house repairs of all kinds. Harder to pick up the threads of my art work, much interrupted. Now it’s time to register The Wolf at the Door for Artists’ Open House again – for which I’ll need lots of new work anyway. Ideas have been knocking on my mind’s door, been postponed, piled up, got confused. If I don’t get stuck in now I will soon be embroiled in exhibition admin!

So here are some pics of my studio and about ten or twelve pieces of work in progress and lots of raw materials – not the ideal way to work but the only way I can pick up the threads.

It’s like a metaphor for my mind at present: some organised and distinct bits in there but a lot of chaos and disorder, things swirling about and recombining in unexpected ways. So now I know it’s starting to work again, after the usual doubts: that mixture of design/plan and serendipity/chance that I’ve talked about before, and the boldness to take risks and maybe wreck it all!

Have a look at the Jill Tattersall Artist and Wolf at the Door Facebook pages to see what’s going on in more detail.

Two moves in two years, two seasons of Brighton and Hove Artists’ Open House, then some unexpected disasters. A broken ankle with complications, a dodgy back, a disastrous removal firm – fair reasons I guess for a limited artistic output.
The workshops haven’t yet begun either, with the exception of a splendid day making wondrous things with children (and veg) for the Brighton Science Festival. It’s going to be repeated next February, which reminds me to post some pictures here soon of the wonderful creations we made last year.

Now we’re bogged down in more predictable kitchen sink dramas: broken boiler, solar panels to install, overgrown garden. But a few green shoots of recovery:

I’ve a feeling I’ve delighted us all long enough with these snapshots of the crises and trials of 2003. Time I got on with the travails of 2011. So I’m going to bring this little project to a close with the square entitled ‘Strike’. There are indications that strikes are brewing again, in particular among public sector workers re pensions. But we’ve had the tube drivers threatening to quit before the Olympics (an expensive one), and there are rumblings among teachers and many others – anyone who isn’t scared stiff about losing their job.

And then if the library closures go ahead, and the ‘surplus’ hospitals…

Enough of politics, I’m getting back to painting, mixed media, Hove artists an’all – and maybe starting up some workshops. There will be a newsletter soon from the Wolf at the Door. May I remind you?

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Wolf-at-the-Door/193126690726221

But PFI , now! This is the (to me) infamous public/private finance set-up that enabled all those hospitals to be built – hospitals which it seems now we don’t need and can’t afford to run. I would much rather not have been proved right, but wasn’t it always obvious that this formula meant pay a bit less now, pay a lot lot more later – and compromise future spending and decision-making in the process? All those contracts tied up for years ….Of course principled politicians should plan for the long-term good, not present gain. Do they ever? Indeed, does the system make this easy for them?

Incidentally I’ve always been interested in text at the point where it becomes illegible and merely a form of pattern. More on this later. I didn’t intend these comments to become a political rant! This square used sweet-papers – glittering, alluring and throwaway – and non-enduring inks. Symbolism a bit heavy, perhaps?!

Academies are the new buzzword. They may have been in existence in 2003 but quite a few are now an established part of the educational scene. Good or bad? For others to say. What doesn’t seem to have changed is the constant tweaking of syllabuses, strategies, initiatives, so that practising teachers still complain about time spent on paperwork and coping with the inspectorate rather than teaching.

The implications of allowing parental choice (and coping with the backlash when the reality falls short of desire) seem to be at the base of a lot of dissatisfaction. Which could be avoided if there were a commitment to improving each and every school and a presumption that every child would attend the neighbourhood establishment? Perhaps then they’d be able to walk there, avoid distant playdates, save time, travel and pollution…

I can’t actually read the text of this square on the photo. It must have faded a lot. Is this symbolic in some way? With the financial crisis education does seem to have faded into the background as a newspaper topic.

This seems an apposite topic for the day when the Secretary of State for Defence has resigned. It is one of several War squares. There was so much going on during that Blair era: the run-up to the Iraq war, the Dodgy Dossier, the Kelly affair, weapons of mass destruction…. And huge, huge public disquiet about what was being said and done in our name.

Enough for today.

I wonder how many books have been published in the eight years since 2003 on the pursuit of happiness? If, indeed, happiness can be achieved by pursuit, rather than being a fleeting by-product of other activities and states of mind. Happiness studies are beginning to figure on progressive curricula – that’s new. But are we after the impossible? Mental equilibrium, acceptance, contentment, satisfaction, happiness: are they separate or part of a continuum ?

I can’t remember the ‘happiness’ rankings in various countries as quantified by a fairly recent (was it UNESCO?) inquiry. That some countries live by a general philosophy of life more conducive to contentment than others is quite plausible. But clearly mental health is linked to economic circumstances, even if being happy isn’t dependent on having a lot of things. (Another recent study showed that, once the basics of life are assured, extra possessions don’t add more than fleetingly to people’s level of satisfaction)

However, anxiety, fear of poverty, loss of status, uncertainty, all these things are on the rise. As in 2003, the psychological and mental results begin to hit the headlines as the cuts work their way through the system. Let’s not be unduly pessimistic but we should expect some long-term consequences.

Seemingly miraculous new cures do emerge, for which we’re profoundly thankful when they affect our nearest and dearest. But it’s always at a cost. One man’s funded treatment is another’s post-code lottery. Drugs are big business and tradeable commodities.

Develop one new treatment and a drug-resistant strain emerges. Generic drugs can’t be provided to third-world countries because patents are still operative and the named drugs are too expensive.

Colloidal silver, a promising line of treatment abandoned when antibiotics became big business (in the 1960s? I’m ignorant!) , is back on the scene. Tim is having his surgical wound from the screws put in his broken ankle painted with a silver lollipop. This pleases me, although no doubt silver’s been patented too. Perhaps we’ll all soon be aspiring to drink gold (aurum potabile) as the universal cure, like they did in the Middle Ages. But of course the recession has sent gold prices soaring….