As well as making dolls, I do people, flat, as it were.
For about twelve years or more, I’ve been going to portraiture, run by a local art shop, the owners of which, paid someone to sit still for a couple of hours so I, and some others, can get busy drawing. Here are a few of the latest and, sadly, the last because portraiture has closed. The owner went off to India for a year, during which it sort of fell over.
When new dolls come out of the kiln, I used to think ‘Well, no one actually looks like that,’ until, of course I saw them. Portraiture was intended to help with the representation of people. It never fails to amaze me that, given the standard arrangement of faces, you know, two eyes at the top, nose in the middle, mouth underneath, people can be so different.
But that’s the end of that.
To help with all the arty stuff and keep my mojo going, as it were, I’ve watched Create and Craft shopping TV which has been going, under various names, for twenty years. I loved it all and especially the presenters, some of whom were obviously nuts, some of whom you had to watch for a good five minutes to detect the kind of insanity that can be engendered by being forced to talk about a tube of glue for ten long unscripted minutes. I particularly loved emailing in to respond to a comment as fast as my fingers could fly and have it read out, unrehearsed, on air, two minutes after I’d pressed send. My aim was, occasionally to make a sensible comment, but, much more often, to make the presenter laugh. If I could make them crease up so much they couldn’t speak, it cheered me up for the rest of the day and I hope it did the same for them.
But that’s the end of that. For a few weeks, although the channel is still broadcasting recordings, a banner across the screen declares it is unable to take payment. A visit online to companies house unearths a declaration of pending receivership.
One of the greatest joys of the channel was presenter, Northerner and all round arty person, Leonie Pujol. Always 100% authentically herself and nicer than the nicest thing you can think of with added ice cream, Leonie demonstrated, presented and sold me more arty stuff than any shop could ever have done, even if it had stayed open all night and was situated next door.
Down the tubes with everyone else and an enormous warehouse which had featured in adverts, full of stuff I want, which now, presumably, has a big bar across the door until the contents go to landfill or get sold off in church halls across the land next to Mrs. Somebody’s kibble and custard traybakes to support Snail Awareness Week in Bratislava.
I used to go to Al-Anon family groups once a week but stopped that last week, at variance with the idea of some, that you can cure a disease by prayer and you can’t talk about the science. I want to talk about the science. If you’re a regular reader (hello! How are you?) you know of my interest in the human brain, easily the most interesting thing on the planet. How can you not talk about it with it? As for curing disease by prayer, doesn’t work, I tried.
So that was the end of that.
And then there was my friend Lynne, who I talked to every week for thirty years. A writer and miniaturist admiring of all artists and coming from a similar ghastly childhood, blinking into the light and ended too, too soon, missed every day.
And that’s the end of that.
Adrift on an ocean of nothing, as deserted as the Marie Celeste by all the things and people that anchored me, I feel the pull and sink of nothingness more than Richard Dawkins must do when he opens his eyes every morning.
I have, however spotted a couple of little life rafts.
If you put Leonie Pujol Art Inspirations into a search engine, scroll down and sign up she will email you when she is going to broadcast a video from her kitchen. You could find this out on Facebook, which I tried to join and failed (perhaps my face didn’t fit, they sent me a button which turned out to be circular). Sensibly Leonie is also videocasting on You Tube which you don’t have to join, find a password for, or put your mugshot into, you can just watch it. On Sunday Leonie was demonstrating how to spread coloured glitter glue through a stencil, disliking some of the results but doing it anyway. If this isn’t proof that art is for everyone, then there is no proof.
The other little life raft is Tim Holtz, general genius, who does lengthy live videos whenever new products from various companies, which he has designed, are released into the wild. He is rare for an artist being both left and right brained, he has the words and the pictures. Clever lad, that lad.
I am trying in a desultory manner to remind myself of assorted clever clogs sayings about doors shutting and windows opening but so far have failed to convince myself.
I’ve got out doll stuff and put it away again.
I’ve got out paper crafting and looked at it.
I did a bit of gardening, but only because I had to.
I am not sure when tomorrow will commence. I’m guessing not for a while.
Meanwhile you could go and watch Leonie or Tim, I will.
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