In These Adjective Times
Making arts, assembling twigs, that Hockney thing and grumpy-git grumbles, The Thing That Is Happening, shopping and a bit of hope.
I’ve been planning An Art. Two in fact. I’ve had a couple of massive canvases sat around for ages and I’ve already made a start on one with a painting that I decided was crap. I liked the basic idea I had but the actual what-it-was I still think was crap. So I’m going to paint over it with a hopefully-not-crap new painting and we’ll see what’s what. Then I’ll have a clean blank canvas for something else, or maybe for the same thing if what I try and do this time turns out crap too. I’m not being harsh, it just didn’t work.
I’ve got another thing to make using some pruned twigs from the garden. Using found objects is quite freeing because of the constraints it adds: there’s only so much you can do so what you do can be anything. I’d be making that to go in one of the blingy gold frames I got, which are so not-very-serious that they’re also quite freeing. Just putting temporary stuff in them has been fun.
Speaking of making art, Hockney posted some iPad paintings he’d done of his place in France. You should have a look and form your own opinion. You could start with “these are supposed to be great art because Hockney did them” and get to “a great artist did images like this”. You might be inspired or end up with “meh”.
I haven’t been to an art gallery in years, but now they’re all closed and I have to stay indoors I miss them. I’m very glad of all my art books. Also, if I was in a gallery I’d be annoyed at all the shorts’n’backpack’n’flipflops tourists everywhere. YES you can wear what you like and NO I’m not telling people what to do and I am hardly fashionable but seriously, get fucking dressed. I am old.
About to clock up another year round the sun too, in a few weeks. I’m fine with it, but after all the health issues I’ve had and the strange state of the world I need to pay attention to what I’m doing with time. That sounds ominously like a mid-life crisis but in reality I think I just need to read some of these books I bought.
I see everyone posting about The Thing That Is Happening and what they’re doing now they have to stay indoors and I’m just “but this is normal for me”. It’s not quite FOMO but you’re all doing new things and moaning about every damn thing that’s just everyday life for me and seeing it all through fresh eyes I wonder why you’re not enjoying it. You don’t have to deal with bus or train timetables or taxis or queueing at the bar or the waiter getting your order wrong or have you got water or food for the park or is the cinema open and… everything.
The food shopping thing is annoying though. The normal services I rely on are all now swamped and unavailable because everyone’s relying on them too, but also there are a bunch of selfish fucks that panic bought everything. A tub of dried yeast lasts for ages you greedy fucks, you only needed to buy one.
Overall though, despite the horror of what’s going on I feel a bit of hope that the after has more of a chance of being better than the before. I’d rather all these people didn’t have to die for that change to happen though.