Art

What is one thing you would change about yourself?

Daily writing prompt
What is one thing you would change about yourself?
View all responses

What is the one thing you would change about yourself?

Only one thing? I remember a story about a boy who boarded in a monastery school, and there, like the monks, they all changed their dirty habits once a week. So, is a dirty habit a thing? Probably is, if its a brown, sackcloth habit, tightened around the waist with a white cord by a man wearing open-toed sandals and no socks. So, there we go, once a week, on Wednesdays, like those monks, I also change my dirty habits. I also change my shoes, my socks, my shirts, my sweaters, my jeans.

More important, as I grow older, I have permitted myself to change my mind as often as I like. So, yes, I also change my mind, and not just on Wednesdays. And I really do change it when, like my habits, it gets dirty. “Oooh, you’ve got a dirty mind, you have.” “Well, so I do. Never mind, I’ll just go and change it.”

“What did Big Ben say to the Leaning Tower of Pizza?” – I’ve got the time, if you’ve got the inclination.
“How many ears did Davy Crocket have?” – Three – a left ear, a right ear, and a wild front ear.
“What’s yellow and deadly?” – Shark infested custard.
“What’s black and deadly?” – A crow in a tree with an AK47.
“When is a door not a door?” – When it’s a jar.
“What time is it Eccles?” – “It’s eight o’clock.” “Here, how do you know it’s eight o’clock?” “I’ve got it written down on a piece of paper.” “What do you do if it’s not eight o’clock?” “I don’t look at the paper.”
“Ding-a-ling” – That’s my ear ringing. I’ll just pick it up and answer it.
“What’s the first sign of madness?” – Hairs in the palm of your hand. “What’s the second sign of madness?” – Looking for them.

So what is one thing I would change about myself? Possibly the absolute necessity to tell awfully bad jokes. Easy to say – I’ll probably keep adding to these as I remember more of them. Take care – you have been warned.

“How many – men – does it take to change a light bulb?” – Five. One to hold the bulb and four to turn the ladder. Jokes like these can be good or bad. Good because they are occasionally funny. Bad, because it so easy to insert an adjective before – men – and to turn the joke into something more devious and not necessarily very pleasant.

“And that is the end of the gnus,” said the lion on BBC television, as he licked his paws. “Enough, no more. It is not as sweet now, nor as sour, as it was before. Pass the chow mean, please.”

Bronze Ribbon

Bronze Ribbon

“And time has ticked a ribbon round the stars.” Dylan Thomas, sort of, but a perfect title for this painting that I completed this morning. The acrylic paint is still wet! I brought it downstairs, looked at it in the light from the kitchen window, and the colors had all changed. I angled the painting, then re-angled – it was a chameleon changing color in the shifting light. Then I turned the large ceiling lights on – and this is what I saw.

Exactly the same painting – or is it? When I was studying in Madrid, a long time ago, I visited the Prado every afternoon. Each day I would visit a different room and stay there for the duration of my visit. The tourists who flitted in and out amazed me with the brevity of their visits. A minute or two to see all the paintings by Hieronymous Bosch, for example. I sat in front of just one of them for half an hour – and I could have stayed longer.

When I visited Las Meninas, it stood in a room by itself. It had a full size mirror opposite it, on the far wall. I should add that this was long before it was cleaned and renovated. I looked at it from every possible angle. I drew close and squinted at the lace and wondered at the quality of the brush-strokes. I lay on the ground in front of it. Stood at the side. Watched it change as I changed my position. I discovered art as a living being, not a static moment in time. Imagine me, for a moment, kneeling on the ground, watching the young prince’s horse soar over the top of me, as it would have done, if it had occupied its original spot, angled above a doorway. Change the angle, change the perspective, change the painting, and watch it come alive.

I will never forget my days with Goya. His Disasters of War – wow – such an incredible sequence – took up several afternoons. And the Pinturas Negras – the Black Paintings – they still haunt me, as do the Disasters. Man’s inhumanity to man – not a dead set of etchings but living portraits of an evil that goes on and on. “This I have seen!” “And this!” Indescribable scenes. Words cannot do justice to the depth’s of the feelings generated by such works of art. When will we ever learn? I taught a great variety of students for most of my life and I know all too well that some lessons can never be learned. Like an endless loop on a news tape, people are doomed to repeat them, again and again, and again.

As the BBC Lion said as he finished his supper – “That is the end of the gnus.”
TWTWTW.

What Bothers You and Why?

Daily writing prompt
What bothers you and why?
View all responses

What bothers you and why?

I went to the pharmacy today for my regular shots, booster and upgrade. The pharmacist asked me if I was allergic to anything. “Yes,” I replied. “I am allergic to stupidity.”

Stupidity is a singular thing, but it comes in many forms. The car driver who weaves his car through thick traffic, breaking the speed limit, threading a narrow pathway, overtaking on the inside, the outside, turning a two way street into a three way street by adding a third lane, even though there is oncoming traffic in the new lane he has built for himself. Such people rely on the charity of others to give way and make space.

Then there are incompetent teachers. Not all teachers are incompetent. Some are wonderful, kind, friendly, and comforting. Others are martinets, escaped from the army cage, and strutting the classroom, using the ruler to beat the students into submission. ‘My way or the highway,’ they claim, and what they say goes, even if it climbs to the height of stupidity or falls to the bottom of the well of incompetence.

Goya illustrated the nature of various kinds of stupidity in his wonderful etchings. Witches flying, donkeys braying, simple people worshipping the expensive clothing but never seeing the corruption it covers. So, turn to the Caprichos and the Proverbios, or, if you want to receive a real lesson in man’s inhumanity to man, look at the Desastres de la Guerra, the disasters of war.

Stupidity – a simple word – but with multiple meanings. What bothers me, and why? Stupidity, plain and simple, in its multitudinous forms.

Fin on Swing

Fin on Swing

So, how do you get movement into a two-dimensional space? How do you get the to and fro, the up and down, the legs out front, the hair out back? And there are so many things missing. The alpacas watching. The goats guzzling. The peacock making whatever noise a peacock makes. Oh dear, I forgot all of those things. But then, I was never a great artist – just a dabbler in line and color, in sorrow and joy, but joy and happiness, shape and color, emotions above all. And when childhood meets second childhood – then there is joy and laughter and swings that go faster.

Ornithology

Ornithology

Time to celebrate the seasonal – and totally unexpected – arrival of the Orange Crested Red and Yellow Butter Bird. Magnificent isn’t he-she-it? I know, I know – birding is serious. And no, I am not serious. Just enjoying myself with a red here, a yellow there, a brown underneath, and lovely black outlines.

When childhood meets second childhood, things like this happen. Just sit back, enjoy them, and think of Canada. And yes, I am amused. Why shouldn’t I be?

Oh yes – and Happy Birthday Old Salt – Vive l’Acadie – et bonne fête d’Acadie – and don’t forget Stella Maris and the Blessing of the Fleet.

Bas Bleu

Bas Bleu Clair à Pieds Nus

This has been a time when words have failed me. Thanks to the presence of Finley in the house, my painting and drawing has been restored and I have once again begun to see a new world of shape and color through the eyes of a small child. Small? She is tall for her age and very, very visual. This morning we did online jigsaw puzzles – all art and patterns – and fractals!

Words may fail, but they are ever present. Bas bleu, well we all know what that means in the world of French academia where I once lived, a long, long time ago. Bas bleu clair – well they are light blue, aren’t they? And, like the revolutionary sans culottes, my figure walks barefoot, à pieds nus, that is to say, without shoes, sans chaussures.

I don’t know who started playing with words and cartoons, but Goya was a master at doing so, in his etchings. So words and visions linked, all in a playful game of allusion / elusion. What a wonderful world, that of the childlike, playing mind.