Seasonal Stuff & Nonsense

Wreathed in smiles...


I bought this delicious festive nonsense in Broadway Market (London) yesterday

from Bernie Malone an old friend of mine. At first I thought, what's she doing selling Christmas wreaths?  until I drew closer and noticed how witty and brilliant they were. That's a pink scouring pad at the top.    

They are made by Bernie and  Madeline Herbert, both notable artists,  so for anything between ten and thirty notes (depending on the size and illuminations)  you are getting rather more than a door decoration I can't help thinking.  

Something more on the traditional side here

And, finally,  another Christmas send-up..

Gorgeous, no?


Find the whole collection here

Swansong

My childhood friend Laura McKechnie says she wants a viking funeral in a swan boat and I wish I had thought of that.  Would our families oblige, I wonder?  This whimsy from Tim Walker in Casa Vogue reminded me of our elegiac fantasy.

Meanwhile here are some more of the beauties, some more serene and some you might feel a bit of a tit in but who doesn't love them?

Boston's majestic fleet here

Ueno Park, Hanami, Japan here

Plaza Swanboat, Disneyworld here

Nestlenook Estate New Hampshire here

 Kawaguchiko Japan here

Hanoi's West Lake here

  at the wonderfully old-fashioned Camden Amusement Park, West Virginia here

Good Works: Me? At Buckingham Palace?

I  have just come across a note I scribbled whilst raising money for the RNLI  a few years back. Lady Somebody-or-Other nobbled me to turn up at 7 am at the Buckingham Palace tradesmen's entrance with a roll of stickers and seduce hapless Palace employees into putting money in my bucket.  Any time before 11 am (that point when I can generally manage to talk) is clearly out of my comfort zone so I accounted this expedition way beyond the call of duty. Besides, I wasn't best pleased to get Below Stairs as my station, fondly hoping to bump into the Queen or at least a brace of corgis.  (At least on this occasion I didn't have to wear yellow oilskins and a comedy red life-vest as I was once did outside Westminster Tube.)

Life Boat Flag Day 7.30 am  B Palace


Looking alert: resting one buttock on maroon baize table rather than settling passively onto  slightly tacky gilt chair with red satin seat.  I feel like a BBC anchor woman at such a positive angle.


I like the men who burrow through layers of mac/overcoat to find a suitable lapel for my sticker.


Always try to establish eye contact.


Strangely unregal and unromantic vestibule.. pipework, lino, fire extinguishers etc.


Someone drops a knob of butter off his toast onto the lino - I point out its presence to a footman and two housemaids but it's ignored.  I clean it up finally with the waxed paper from my stickers.


Yow!   A footman and a groom together  His jodhpurs marked all along the saddle area.

*    *    *

Blimey.

HALLOWEEN SHOCK HORROR

Finding ourselves with but a half-eaten bag of  chocolate raisins in the fruit bowl, the wizard and I had to turn off the porch light and batten down the hatches.

Trick or treating came over from America and continues to take us by surprise. As kids in post-war Britain we might run to apple-bobbing or inviting scaredycats to feel Nelson’s eye in a darkened room. (A peeled grape, if grapes weren’t on rationing).  What we really loved was Guy Fawkes night on 5^th November.

image  © Rosie West

Why I've been Away

I mentioned in my last post that I was expecting a grandchild and here is the proof. He's called Lucien and Lucky for short born 11 October.  I spent a few days with Olivia, bossing her and her husband about and pretending to be a nursery nurse - something our mothers had perhaps.  I rather wanted a crisp uniform and  some white lace-up shoes and a thermometer in my top pocket but just felt a bit scruffy and in need of a hair appointment (which is why I have cropped as much of myself as possible in  this picture).  A manicure too, I see.  

So that accounts for a week or more of my blogging absence and  I can't remember where the rest went.  


More baby stuff at Lucien's mother's blog here

It's All Go In the Women's Auxiliary Balloon Corps

A Balloon Site, Coventry, 1943 by Dame Laura Knight (RA). Women from the Auxiliary Territorial Service work the mooring ropes on a barrage balloon. Image  courtesy of the Imperial War Museum




'It's all go in the women's auxiliary balloon corps', a phrase borrowed from the sublime Blackadder television series, has become a bit of a mantra in our family when things get busy.  And it's beautifully illustrated here by one of my favourite English artists Dame Laura Knight (1877-1970).


It's all go for me now because my daughter Olivia is about to give birth to her second child and I am off tomorrow to help her prepare, hold the fort and do what needs to be done.   In haste right now but here is some more of Laura Knight's work:

Ruby Loftus screwing a breech-ring

Gypsies at Epsom Down

Lamorna Cove

Self Portrait

Zebras

Clowns and Acrobat

The Artist

Read a brief biography of her here

English painter and designer. She studied at Nottingham College of Art from 1889. In 1894 the deaths of her mother and grandmother left her dependent on her own earnings, and she taught art from a studio in the Castle Rooms, Nottingham. From 1903 she exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, London, and in the same year married the painter Harold Knight (1874–1961); they lived in an artists' community in Staithes, north Yorkshire, until 1907, also spending time in another community in Laren, Netherlands. They then moved to Newlyn, Cornwall, attracted by the presence of a number of prominent artists. Although Knight painted various subjects, her reputation was founded on paintings of the ballet and the circus, which became predominant after she moved to London. Technically of a high standard, her narrative realist works were painted in bright colours and have limited depth of expression (e.g. Ballet, 1936; Port Sunlight, Lady Lever A.G.). She painted backstage during the Diaghilev ballet's seasons in London and took lessons at Tillers Dancing Academy in St Martin's Lane in order to draw there; she also travelled with the Mills and Carmos Circus. In the 1930s she started painting horses and gypsies at the races, as in Gypsy (1938–9; London, Tate). An accomplished portrait painter, she painted wartime commissions and was the official artist at the Nuremberg War-Crime Trials. She also did etchings (e.g. Some Holiday, aquatint, 1925; see Fox, p. 60) and executed designs for stained-glass windows.Exhibited first at the RA in 1903, first exhibition with Harold at Leicester Galleries in 1906. Elected RA in 1936, became Dame in 1939. Retrospective exhitibion at Upper Grovesnor Galleries in 1969. Her work is represented in major public art collections, including the Tate Gallery and Imperial War Museum.

English painter and designer. She studied at Nottingham College of Art from 1889. In 1894 the deaths of her mother and grandmother left her dependent on her own earnings, and she taught art from a studio in the Castle Rooms, Nottingham. From 1903 she exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, London, and in the same year married the painter Harold Knight (1874–1961); they lived in an artists' community in Staithes, north Yorkshire, until 1907, also spending time in another community in Laren, Netherlands. They then moved to Newlyn, Cornwall, attracted by the presence of a number of prominent artists. Although Knight painted various subjects, her reputation was founded on paintings of the ballet and the circus, which became predominant after she moved to London. Technically of a high standard, her narrative realist works were painted in bright colours and have limited depth of expression (e.g. Ballet, 1936; Port Sunlight, Lady Lever A.G.). She painted backstage during the Diaghilev ballet's seasons in London and took lessons at Tillers Dancing Academy in St Martin's Lane in order to draw there; she also travelled with the Mills and Carmos Circus. In the 1930s she started painting horses and gypsies at the races, as in Gypsy (1938–9; London, Tate). An accomplished portrait painter, she painted wartime commissions and was the official artist at the Nuremberg War-Crime Trials. She also did etchings (e.g. Some Holiday, aquatint, 1925; see Fox, p. 60) and executed designs for stained-glass windows.Exhibited first at the RA in 1903, first exhibition with Harold at Leicester Galleries in 1906. Elected RA in 1936, became Dame in 1939. Retrospective exhitibion at Upper Grovesnor Galleries in 1969. Her work is represented in major public art collections, including the Tate Gallery and Imperial War Museum.

English painter and designer. She studied at Nottingham College of Art from 1889. In 1894 the deaths of her mother and grandmother left her dependent on her own earnings, and she taught art from a studio in the Castle Rooms, Nottingham. From 1903 she exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, London, and in the same year married the painter Harold Knight (1874–1961); they lived in an artists' community in Staithes, north Yorkshire, until 1907, also spending time in another community in Laren, Netherlands. They then moved to Newlyn, Cornwall, attracted by the presence of a number of prominent artists. Although Knight painted various subjects, her reputation was founded on paintings of the ballet and the circus, which became predominant after she moved to London. Technically of a high standard, her narrative realist works were painted in bright colours and have limited depth of expression (e.g. Ballet, 1936; Port Sunlight, Lady Lever A.G.). She painted backstage during the Diaghilev ballet's seasons in London and took lessons at Tillers Dancing Academy in St Martin's Lane in order to draw there; she also travelled with the Mills and Carmos Circus. In the 1930s she started painting horses and gypsies at the races, as in Gypsy (1938–9; London, Tate). An accomplished portrait painter, she painted wartime commissions and was the official artist at the Nuremberg War-Crime Trials. She also did etchings (e.g. Some Holiday, aquatint, 1925; see Fox, p. 60) and executed designs for stained-glass windows.Exhibited first at the RA in 1903, first exhibition with Harold at Leicester Galleries in 1906. Elected RA in 1936, became Dame in 1939. Retrospective exhitibion at Upper Grovesnor Galleries in 1969. Her work is represented in major public art collections, including the Tate Gallery and Imperial War Museum.

Attention to Detail

If  you haven't caught this sweet viral video yet, trust me you'll like it.  It comes from the studios of Aardmann, creators of Wallace and Grommit.  Dot is the world's smallest stop-motion animation and it's shot on the Nokia N8.   Dot really is that tiny.  Marvel at how it was all achieved in the second film below.

Another for the Marble Halls of Embarrassment: the woman who loved Tommy Steele

At a supper party last night, instead of trying to suss out the lay of the land as I normally do,  I just asked the man on my right 'What do you do?'   He said he was a musician and my heart sank because I can never find anything intelligent to say to musicians.  I lament the fact I'm an unmusical, elderly Radio 4 addict with embarrassingly middle of the road tastes.  You only have to look at my blog profile: 

• Doris Day
 
• bland 60s standards
 
• Mozart
 
• Tommy Steele
 
• nothing clever except for Delius

I sighed a little, apologised and asked if he could kind of put himself 'in a musical context' for me.

He replied  'I play in a band called Pink Floyd'.  


And he really does, has done since the beginning.  Hard to describe how I felt at that moment.. basically the flight option of the so-called fight or flight response to a situation that is none too comfortable.  But I need not have panicked because Nick Mason, the band's drummer, was utterly charming and far from offended.  I suggested  I lost interest in pop music in 1965 and he teased me for liking Tommy Steele (spot on) and sang me a couple of bars of  'Green Door' by Frankie Vaughan  - both British  names, lost in the mists of time to everyone else I suspect. We were virtually quits by now and the conversation moved to everything but music. Well, that's not quite true because I found out that Nick Mason loves working with youngsters and encouraging their musical ambitions.

Had he been to art school as many  musicians had?  No, but he had a degree in architecture.

I was beginning to realise that this was no ordinary world famous rock star.  He's clearly addicted to adventure and admitted  - somewhat affectingly - that he loves collecting certificates. 'I got my helicopter's pilot licence but not content with that I became a helicopter instructor. I did scuba diving but had to become a diving instructor. And then I had to qualify as a rescue diver!'   This didn't strike me as boasting, just the natural enthusiasm of a terrifically talented and intelligent man. It was only when I looked him up on Wikipedia that I found he has a phenomenal collection of cars, has taken part in the 24-hour Le Mans race and lives in the house formerly owned by Camilla Park Bowles.   Oh, and he has a gorgeous wife called Nettie who is also a helicopter pilot.  (I didn't bother to tell them that I have got a million plus score at a  computer game called Bejeweled.)

By the way, I am labelling this post 'name-dropping'.

Here is  Nick Mason as I confess I never remember him:

And here is Tommy Steele.  Can you spot me in the audience?  Well, it could have been 
me.

ABRACADABRA! The mess in my house disappears

  

A new dawn breaks in my kitchen

The work surface used to look like this  on a bad day (out of focus, the way I prefer to remember it)

Where I used to blog  

Where I would paint on the dining table which gave me an excuse to eat standing up at the fridge

Bingo! The reason it's all changed

I took over a spare bedroom and all this was beautifully made for me by Colin Failes, a multi-talented man who worked on the massive Armada paintings for the House of Lords [here].  I had a bit of a flouncey moment when the pinboard stuff arrived and it was a cold slatey blue.  Colin looked perplexed but set about giving it the subtle trompe l'oeil effect you can just see here.  I should have got him to sign it, dammit.  I can only describe him as a class act, suggesting  the wide plan-chest drawers and a fold down table to the right of the picture. 

This isn't quite the end of the story. For a number of regrettable reasons,  I have just decided to give up my studio in Bermondsey and that's full of canvases, paint, books, drawings, a  mountain of paint-spattered old clothes, a glorious easel on wheels, my virgin's couch (a Vono 1950s studio bed that's past redemption) and a pommel horse I upholstered at art school.  I stood there last night and practically wept.  Where the hell will I put it all? 

  

My MA (Textiles) show at Goldsmiths College, London 2003.  The series of paintings entitled 'Calamity Fixes Her Makeup' are in the Ernst & Young Collection but I am stuck with the pommel horse entitled 'Last Chance for Horseplay'.  It's conceptual innit.

I produced the screen-printed fabric myself which contains illustrations of how to sit in a ladylike manner  from a 50's beauty book.  Someone else did the upholstery, which is beyond my pay-grade, in an attempt to morph the horse into a dressing table like the one I had growing up.  I am still kicking myself for not making it pale lilac instead of pink to match the ground in the paintings. I am proud to say that it was recommended for the Warden's prize but the poor man said he didn't think he could live with it in his office.  I could hardly blame him.  Shall I put it in my bedroom and use it as a clothes horse?

[Last two images courtesy Gerard Williams.  All artwork © Rosie West]

The Holiday Wardrobe

'There's no such thing as bad weather only bad clothing.' (Trust the Norwegians to coin such a phrase.) Most of us got it right for a pre-breakfast walk in the drizzle along the cliff path.  But someone decided that to save on washing (eight days in our delightful rural siberia sans  electricity,  sans water even that didn't have to be pumped out of the rainwater tank by hand) he'd dispense with one of his precious pairs of trousers. We decided later that it was just as well that my small grandson hadn't gone out alone with his grandfather,  yikes.  (I've illustrated his shorts just to prove he was wearing some.)  

Young Storm, appropriately named for the abysmal weather that luckily didn't coincide with our arrival but kept us housebound playing SNAP the second day, became the most elegant person on this stretch of National Trust coastline. Being a bit chesty, we fashioned a blue and white silk spotted scarf of mine into a cravat for him and he was quite oblivious of looking like Cary Grant.

The next day I set off for a little painting en plein air.

Ah but the next day dawned fine and clear and Olivia woke early.  This was partly because she had retired at nine fed up with listening to Radio 4 in the guttering candlelight, partly because she had to share the other double bed with a restless Storm who was kicking her tummy.  Dressed casually for the weather then, she wandered out onto the cliff with her large Canon to capture the dawn.  Imagine the surprise of a keep-fit fanatic on his wordless encounter with a tousle-haired seven-month pregnant woman in a nightdress apparently waiting to take his picture at 6 am.  I suppose it gave him something to think about on his long run home.

Actually, we had a spiffing time all in all.

Images © Rosie West

Outward Bound

I am not sure if anyone's terribly interested, but I am off on holiday here till the beginning of September.  As the the old coastguard house, part of a row of seven (the big dark smudge on top of this Dorset cliff) has no electricity,  I shall be in radio silence.  Unable then, to answer any comments were you to be kind enough to think of making any.  There's a tempest and torrential rain forecast for tomorrow as we drive there across the fields ( who's going to open the damn gates? You guessed it) and unload food, water, foul weather gear, torch batteries, gas mantles and rather a lot of booze.
I think I might be getting too old for this game. I'll tell you later.

My son Will made a little film about the place . He introduces it like this "We shot this at one of my favorite places in the world, in Dorset. Exact location to remain a secret. Its an adaptation of a joke my dad used to tell; any excuse for a film.  And this was real micro- budget. 75 pounds for radio mics, and 25 for sandwiches and petrol!

Image © Rosie West 

The Generation Game: The Distaff Side

For the distaff side of my family, I  recently came across this crumpled photo of me with my daughter Olivia, as embellished by her.  I was presented with it by way of a birthday card a few years ago.  As  she has become a photographer herself (with her own blog) I hope she will now treat other people's work with more respect!  This  and the one below were taken by artist Peter Glover, an old friend of ours.

We looked rather more like this at the time.

My mother Mitzi with me. I remember that dress.  I wrote about her here.

My grandmother Ethel with my mother.  I could only find this image of her superimposed with a fragment of a sort of poem I wrote about her once.  Like my maternal grandfather I never knew her or very much about her but nothing ill was spoken of her.  She ended her life in London but had once run a club for gentlemen in Durban, South Africa or possibly in Laurenco Marques, now called Maputo in Mozambique. My mother said that this probably accounted for smart chaps in London's St. James tipping their hat to her. Funny the things you remember.   She was married to my raffish grandfather here.  


And finally, I have a granddaughter of my own.  

Arabella India Rose born in May this year with my daughter-in-law Joan (neé Gibbons)