RothKOed

Yesterday Maggi and I trained up to the Big Bad City [no not the craven broadcasting medium that won't show an appeal for the sorely tested Gaza people] - we went to London, the Tate Modern and visited Mr. Rothko, or at least his remains.

The picture above lies in its teeth as the background is maroon, not purple. I swallowed my good taste and bought this collection of fridge magnets to remind moi of the power of some of his paintings, tiny silly stickies in the kitchen, huge monolithic paintings in the Tate, seemed cheery somehow.

When I make something I am a throwback to the Modernists, I like to create emotive figures redolent with my adolescent angst.

Old Rothko wanted to get rid of any recognisable representation, or any link to the artist. He thought hmmmmmm.........painting, surely that should consist of paint.

So there we are - maybe 20 years of dragging himself out of an alcoholic stupor [he was still immured in that stereotype of an artist] swishing about with a paintbrush, trying to make us meditate on the qualities of colour on colour, eventually black on black. Somewhat uncompromising.

When he killed himself he was found in a large puddle of scarlet blood, which some have taken as his last statement, but I doubt he really cared by then.

Which is a shame, if he had seen the hoardes of small children yesterday, coralled by bemused teachers, crawling delightedly over the parquet flooring in front of the paintings, scribbling rectangles onto the pages of their sketchbooks, avidly pencilling them in with great enthusiasm, he might have felt happier. I hope somehow he knows.

The Seagram collection, scarlet on maroon, [some of which were already in their own small room at the Tate] now fill a huge room with an unearthly glow.

Other rooms have brown on black and the infamous black on black.

Rothko used different additives to his paint, [like Da Vinci he sometimes used eggs] to give varying and subtle surfaces. The scarlet hollow boxes smeared at the edges onto the dark maroon became mesmerising, against my will.

One Art Lecturer said - to be Contemporary the work should implode the expected scale, [be monumental or tiny] and the artist has to live in the appropriate city, London or New York, otherwise people will not even bother to raise their eyebrows as the walk on by.

Probably the artist should also be touched by the angels/devil as I doubt anyone else could conceive of what Rothco did, make a flat surface - sing.

Shame it wasn't enough for him.

new soul, old soul

It is sunny and my grandson is a happy babe.

Today went over to help out a friend who recently walked out on her husband. Big Mistake, always ask the man to leave!

She is 82, which does not stop her having loads of energy and initiative, but after 6 months renting a drafty cottage while they thought it over - she realised she was going to have to find somewhere permanent to live [he had changed the locks].

They both assumed that the marital home would sell for a fortune, split the proceeds and move on................another victim of the Credit Crunch.

The house remains unsold, with hubby still comfortably inside having his dinner cooked by concerned friends and neighbours.

Divorces take time.

My friend was told she was too old for a new mortgage, eventually she threatened to break back into her former home if he didn't cough up a deposit, the threat worked.

So there she is in her new apartment in the sky, many boxes and no furniture except one chair, one tiny table and one new bed.

In some ways it is encouraging that she is forging on, in another it is depressing that at no age can one relax and think it is all sorted.

Like me she is a textile artist, so the spare room is awash with boxes and boxes of paints, threads, books, canvases, machinery and presses. Not surprisingly she stalled, unsure what to put where, so we had a push and pull till she could see daylight and had a plan.

The apartment block is in an old Maltings, historic on the outside, long anonymous corridors within.

What should happen is that all her lovely work is hung up and around, at least you could tell if you have wandered this way before, but who to ask? Will Health and Safety allow it. "What if everyone does it?" It looks and feels a bit like being back at school.

time line

We sat and watched and cried and laughed with young Barack Hussein - thinking he's right - but do we dare to believe in him, can he believe in himself, or at least in his ability to turn the huge tanker round that is America.

Can Gordon turn Great Britain round?

Oh dear, it is all going to be so difficult.

It was a bit of light relief to see Barack fluff his lines, all that wonderful preparation and presentation but if something can go wrong it will, thank the Goddess. I thought maybe he had stumbled over the verb "to execute" but it seems he just stumbled because he was fed the words in the wrong order.

Such a delight that he made sure of his position by doing it again later in the day in case someone tried to prove he wasn't president after all. My Grandma would have made reference to Fred Karno's Army.

I phoned Daughter Dearest, in Nevada, to get her reaction, and as I should have expected woke her up, she is still on baby's timetable . "Oh is it today?"

Special Son in California was at work, but had popped home to catch a glimpse of the events. His messenger group is a co-op and they are beginning to notice the work slowing up, so that is worrying as he is not sure he has saved enough to pay his taxes. They are all happy to cycle up and down hill all day but no-one wants to take responsibility for the tax returns.

Can't think what I have been up to lately. Retired Person has been happily hacking through the garden and we may have the joy of a bonfire, once it stops raining which may be never.

I am working on this old patchwork quilt that belonged to one of RP's ancient relatives. It is worn into holes with several younger and totally unsympathetic patches sewn over them.

Could have been RP's grand father as he was a a competent sewer and knitter. When he went to school in the village in the late 1800s they were all taught useful skills no matter which gender. I would have said he had no artistic skills given the clashing patches, but when he returned home after the First World War he worked on regaining his serenity by painting several pictures of the countryside round here, and they aren't bad.

I have printed some photos of young women of about the same era on fabric and dotted them among the patches. I have in mind some idea of time passing, but at the moment it just looks like a old wrinkled pinky patchwork, but it is pleasing stitching on a big soft piece of fabric so I shall twiddle on for a while.

I guess that after the first World War they felt much the same as us now, fearful and hopeful. They got through it tho, grandad married, had a daughter.

He became a policeman, only ever arrested one person and was retired on his pension for longer than he policed, as he lived to 92.

Then he gardened morning till night, RP has some work to do to match him.

bye bye Bubble

The good news is this is the first time in my life that I have kept a diary [however intermitently] for a complete year.

The bad news is that Bubble the girlcat [on the right] has had to leave us. The cats are brother and sister, their other sister managed to get run over some years ago. Tilly was white with just a patch of tabby, all three of them had 6 claws on each foot. My son has a 6 clawed cat, Cedric in San Francisco so it can't be that rare, if that makes any sense.

My 2, Aggamemnon and Bubble are about 14 I think, and were both fine, mostly ignoring us and each other unless it got cold, when they would cuddle up.

But last w/e Bubbs started sitting around looking dazed. We both managed to accidently tread on her tail as she was sitting in such odd places, and not moving even at the approach of big boots.

I had to start hand feeding her, suspecting big brother was pinching all her food, but it didn't improve her lethargy so we took her to the vet, and of course it was cancer.

So now she is buried in the garden in the growing line of much missed dogs and cats.

Death is a definite design fault, tho necesary I suppose.

Hunt and gather

Went to my first SLAPPERS meeting today. The Retired Person coped well on his own, it is confusing to be a Self Starter after over thirty years working between the tram lines as a Civil Servant. So he got in his car and did some Retail Therapy, traditional solution, trusted and true - as preferred by Her Majesty's workforce.

When I retreated from the chalkface I bounced off the walls quite often at first, which was upsetting for Hattie the dog, so we went for a walk which helped a lot.

This week 's temperature has mostly been below zero, so the RP has been very welcome, manly stand in. I am a feminist, but although I see the sexes as equal they are not the same. Men are the the Hunters and need their dignity as thus maintained. This Gatherer is happy to let RP's testosterone keep him warm in this weather.

The oestrogen level was high at SLAPPERS with six mature ladies showing and telling. Plans were laid, workshops timetabled and encouragement poured in large quantities over all.

I left in a rosy glow as usual, a sceptic humbled by sheer good nature, which is good for me.

Now the RP has left for his end of the week pint at the local hostelry, a nice way to end a week of work and the start of the freedom of he w/e, except- oh yes he hasn't been to work. Some routines will never be changed.

Yesterday we drove thru the beautiful hoare frost to Hunt and Gather some coal. Altho RP was a proud Boy Scout with all the badges I light the evening fire, it's all part of creating beauty perhaps. So I didn't feel too bad to sit in the car while RP humped 10cwt of coal sacks into the back.

The coal yard was like a page of Dickens, concrete bunkers dripping with freezing coal sludge, white fog leering between the skeletal trees and a couple of blokes trudging around i layers of blackened clothes.

We had 5 women murdered in Ipswich last year, [by the same deranged burk] and one of the stripped bodies was found thrown in the river nearby. It was not a cosy feeling and we got out soon as poss with our bounty.

Now the coal is burning brightly in the grate, the cats and Hatty the dog are stretched out and soon RP will skate back, and we will all share the warmth.

friends of Artemis

It is so cold today, we left the heating on all night for once.

After a week in Norfolk - East coast, East wind - I would have thought I would be acclimatised, but I guess I am not so active now I am home.

Just sent Retired Man out on dog walk on his own, which i wouldn't have done on holiday when I expect myself to muck in and "enjoy" myself. Double glazing behind this computer doesn't seem to keep out the draughts, but when it is warm enough to examine the seal round the periphery i forget the problem.
Now Peterson and the cricket coach have thrown their handbags out of the pram, oh dear, just when we stood a chance of winning the Ashes back. What a fiasco.
Should have gone to my Textile Group meeting this morning, but wimped out because of general icyness, so now I feel I must take advantage of this time to set The New Year into gear......hmmmmmmmmmmm
Lots of stitching to be organised. I have to [yes I do] "interpret" a section of fabric design sourced from the Warner textile Collection. We each get a different copy of a piece of fabric from the collection, and are asked to "Do" something creative it.

This is a competition. Last time I won the category Most Amusing entry, which i think is probably a double edged compliment.
My source is a detail of flowers, big blousey pink roses and chrysanthemum type flowers arching across the page. Immediately i thought of big blousey pink ladies cavorting [as I do] so I have to meld the two in some fashion. I think i can silk paint a scene of ladies within petals, like obese flower fairies. Someone has to!
Then I have to finish off the piece for the Long Shop Museum. I have left some prints of the women who worked there in past times and I would like to do another piece with those and clocks..........loads of ideas. Just lack the lackeys to carry them out for me.
What i should be doing is adding to my Dance Series. I have this wondrous mass of unfelted but combed wool, dyed in fantastic shades of deep bronze which I want to embellish with really fat dancing ladies, but for some reason I keep pushing it to the back of the queue, where hopefully it is marinating.

I have been asked to do one of my portraits of this elderly couple, but they may not last long enough to receive it.

This one I did of two stitching friends,

and this is the back view of the elderly couple, now they want their front done.

Also Artemis awaits..................inspiration, I hope to make something as impressive without becoming too "amusing".

ancient and modern

We are staying in a small cottage described as Grade II listed, altho the inside has been ripped up, turned round and plaster boarded out of all recognition to the builders who put up the row of tiny terraced houses in 1825.

King George IV was on the throne [going noisily mad?] when the first people moved into it's one up, one down, plus privy and wash house out the back.

Now it has another bedroom, kitchen and bathroom grafted on. The only original space is probably the chimney space where the range [cast iron stove] was set. I understand people often used to rent then, and moved up to bigger things, as and when they could afford it, as the family [inevitably]increased. So sometimes they would own/rent collapsible ranges, which they would pile on the cart and trundle up the street to the next home.

When I lived in Carlisle with 2 children [in a similarly extended house] I found it rather cramped. Mr Graham next door thought me a total lightweight [for several reasons], he had been bought up with 8 other kids in his family in the same space.

When I was home tutoring in Carlisle, the mother would stick a shovel in the roaring coal fire and carry it next door to start another in the grate for the lesson. Of course they were Council houses, built to certain rules which made sure tenants had good sized rooms and houses to live in, unlike modern mouse traps. Carlisle had one of the largest number of council houses in the country, was told, proudly. Then Mrs Thatcher enabled tenants to buy, and the money wasn't ploughed back into the system...............

Graylag Cottage, our Norfolk abode this week, is flint faced and maybe from the front looks much like it did nearly 200 years ago. The walls are very thick, we haven't heard a peep from either side, and once you get some heat going it is very cosy.

Out back there is a yard and outhouses and then some fields with horses and pheasants doing sentry duty. There is also a rather nice summer house, but not comfortable this time of year, which is a shame as it is very calm out there.

The road is called Freeman Street as it was a toll free way of getting into the town. During the day it is a road busy with cars, but at night it quietens, the stars come out and the Xmas lights add to the glow.

Twelfth night tomorrow, all decorations must come down or mayhem ensue, so we have to whizz home and make sure Hill Cottage is free from curse for another year.

Today we drove to Holkham Beach and marched through the few spats of snow till we got too cold and bored.This an authentic flake of snow.

These are the most interesting sights on a cold beach






Retired Man and Hattie the dog.






















Evidence of past potterers.

to dongle or not to dongle

Here we are in Norfolk, mostly at 0 degrees [centigrade for foreign readers who use the measurement I was taught as a child] it is bitingly cold.
I am wearing a vest, 2 jumpers a padded jacket and a padded coat, because it is not a nice dry cold here, it is horribly damp and invasive. hattie the dog is obviously dressed and ready for anything at any time.
The much vaunted "dongle" does work, but only if we go to the pub on the hill[Him Who Is Now Retired] swears he has not fixed it thus. It just refuses to receive it's signal down in our cosy cottage by the shore.
We have walked all the byways and beaches within reach in true British fashion, best foot forward - whatever the weather. The sun is a low white disc on the horizon glittering thru the clouds with a raw nervous energy, rarely chasing shadows.
That's it really, long healthy walks, some fairly nice food, regular beers and coffees and the routine migraine that appears whatever the weather, also.
Have read 3 books, really enjoyed American Wife. P complained as it is based on Mrs Bush, and she doesn't know how accurately. I wasn't bothered as I thought it had some nice observations on the compromises necessary in a marriage. Next 2 books covered the necessary strategies necessary to catch your serial killer. I could do with my Mrs Gaskell now as an antidote, but have left her at home.