ode to roy

I was talking to my mum the other day about something and nothing and happened to say, ‘You remember my GCSE Art coursework don’t you?’. Of course, this was a stupid thing to say as my mum remembered it so well she gave a small whimper of fear and shot me a look that almost said, ‘Why would you bring this up again after all these years?  Why?’. 

My GCSE Art coursework has gone down as the stuff of legends in our family.  You think coursework and like most people, may imagine a long, drawn out project with time spent researching and collecting pictures and ideas for ‘mood boards’ and reading up on artists who you feel are an influence and examining their techniques and ethos and approach to their work.  Well, you’d be wrong.  For me GCSE Art coursework was going to my mum two nights before it was due to be handed in and asking if she could help me with some homework.  And by help I meant sit down, do half of the hard slog and at no point whatsoever get any credit for it.  Because you love me.

But sat down she did.  For two solid evenings we cut and glued and drew and painted and mercilessly ripped off various pop artists along the way (sorry Andy, apologies Jasper…) until finally we came up with the goods and my project was ready to be handed in, on time and looking like the well planned and thoughtful coursework folder it wasn’t.

I still have various bits and bobs from that project hidden away in various corners of my flat and my mum’s attic but one piece – probably the bit that I was proudest of – mysteriously vanished somewhere between handing it in to my art teacher and asking for it back a month or so later.  It was an oil on canvas tribute to this painting by Roy Lichtenstein that was so completely different to his other work, so monochromatic in a sea of cartoon colours that I was instantly drawn to it,

It’s one of the many things that I’ve lost along my way in life that I always think back to, like the plaid shirt I had when grunge was at it’s peak and would love to be able to wear now, and the Get-Along Gang clothes stand that went AWOL when we moved house when I was thirteen, and my Pulp CD that a friend burned (burt?) for me but didn’t label and is now lost amongst 50 identical unlabelled and possibly blank CDs…  Anyway, I digress. 

The reason I mention it is because that most recent time I imagined my old art teacher eating his tea with a passable Lichenstein rip-off hanging over him in the background I decided not to grind my teeth and wail at the sky as usual, but do something about it.  So I made up this,

 

and I’m really rather pleased with it.  So there you go, old Art teacher of mine.  You can’t go and lose this one can you?

stories

The other day John’s sister was saying to me how she loved hearing other people’s stories and how it’s funny to think that everyone in the world is walking round with these unique little tales inside them that make them different from the person next to them.  And when you think about it is a strange thing, sort of like the idea that no two snowflakes are the same or ladybirds having different markings.

When Cathy said this it reminded me of something I gave you a sneak preview of last week, something I picked up from a car boot sale.  Whilst haphazardly browsing the stalls my mum and I stumbled across this cushion cover,

 

that was stuffed with this half made quilt,

 

and all the stuff that was needed to finish it off; the templates, ready cut fabric, some already made-up pieces, everything short of a needle and thread.  As we got talking to the man behind the stall we found out that it was his wife who had started the quilt back when she was at college, had worked on it over the years then ended up putting it away and forgetting about it until they started the car boot clear out.  And when they’d rediscovered it she decided she would never finish it now and she might as well get rid of it.

 

So I bought it for two pounds and gave it a new home.  Then after lunch on Monday my mum and I sat for four hours straight working on it together, sewing pieces, checking progress, talking about silly little things, imagining what story it was in this woman’s life that made her eventually give up on the quilt and thinking about the new story I would have to tell when in the future people ask about the handmade quilt on the back of the sofa.

stars

Sunday was the last real day of the summer holidays for me and in order to combat the back to school blues we took a trip out ot Jodrell Bank, home of the Lovell Telescope.

Human beings are pretty amazing things aren’t we?  I mean, we look up at the skies and we decide we want to know what’s going on up there so we build a telescope to see the stars.  Then, as time goes by, these telescopes get bigger and stronger and more complex until you end up with something like this,

and it still keeps getting more sophisticated. 

Jodrell Bank is a typically British kind of tourist attraction.  It’s obviously a working observatory and it’s only real acknowledgements of people coming to see it are a cafe and gift shop, a series of information boards posted around the telescope itself and a 3D theatre showing ten minute films.

Then it was back home to watch Rushmore and do some embroidery (get excited Becky!) before I jump back into the real world with a vengeance x