art social

This week I spent an enjoyable half hour engaging in an activity led by the Art Social young people's group at The Hepworth Wakefield. Art Social selected and placed four artworks in Gallery 1, producing interpretation text and poems to accompany the work. They invited gallery visitors to create their own poems using pre-written words. Below is my poem in response to A Picnic. 

The Eva Rothschild sculpture bought back memories, as she was the first contemporary artist to exhibit in the gallery when THW opened in May 2011.

 Eva Rothschild,  Wandering Palm, 2011

Jesmonite, aluminium, patent leather

Albert Wainwright, A Picnic 1928

Ink & wash, watercolour on paper

the hepworth wakefield

A stroll around the building on a bright winters day.

i made it

Excuse me, excuse me!
I love your hat, where did you get it?
I made it.

food

FOOD - my word for 2017. Happy New Year x

year word

Realising that I'd been working too hard in 2014 I gave 2015 the word FUN, and lived with that in mind during the year. In 2016 my word was SHARE, as I'd recognised a trait of self sabotage in negative self talk, gaging myself in expressing thoughts and ideas. So, in 2016, whenever I had an idea, wrote something, had a response to someone, positive or challenging, I shared it! Praising and naming qualities admired in others, calling others out if their behaviours were destructive in any way. Professionally, the result is 30 posts on this blog, 30 news updates on my website, a successful application for a residency, exhibiting in four exhibitions and developing a new body of work.

Emotionally, in telling my truth I've not allowed assumptions to be made. It was uncomfortable at times and in this discomfort was a new experience, of pushing against a boundary, of misbehaving and not being the good girl. Some friends have drawn closer, others become distant.

December was a relief, as I'd begun to tire of speaking my truth and will relish not telling. Not telling will feel different, it will be my choice if I allow assumptions to be made or allow the emotional intimacy of sharing my inner life, this is me - who are you?

hitch

My flat on Leytonstone High Road is steps away from the birthplace of Alfred Hitchcock. He is celebrated locally with a collection of fantastic mosaics along the walkways to Leytonstone Underground station. These mosaics are marvellous, clever in their depiction of characters and places, skilled in design and use of colour. This morning, the view from my flat was blurred with fog, edges softened, timeless, by the time I'd walked to the station this had cleared to become a dull December day. 

This work is called The Hitchcock Gallery, opened May 3rd, 2001. The gallery celebrates the life and work of the great film-maker Alfred Hitchcock, born in Leytonstone on 13th August 1899. The mosaics were made at The Greenwich Mural Workshop.

 Young Alfred by his father's shop

Number 17

 The Pleasure Garden

 Hitchcock the Director

 Strangers on a Train

 Psycho

 Vertigo

 Suspicion

 The Skin Game

  North by Northwest

 The Birds

 Saboteur

 To Catch a Thief

 Hitchcock with Dietrich

 Rear Window

 Rebecca

The Wrong Man

manor park cemetery

On a misty December day my sister and I found our Uncle Andrew's grave in Manor Park Cemetery. 20 years had passed since we last visited, his gravestone now grey with age and lichen, listing to the left on soil that had shifted over the decades. We plan to return in the spring to plant something bright and green for Alfons Dabrowski.