M-m-m-my Corona part 2.

 

 “How long now?”
“Third week for me”.
“And you’re already talking to yourself?”
“No, I've been doing that for years”.

I seem to be in competition with myself as to how much coffee I can drink. I won’t win. Nobody I know drinks more coffee than me these days. Does anyone remember “Camp Coffee”? It was a brown liquid; something to do with chicory essence. No doubt more chicory than coffee. It had a “faithful servant” Sikh soldier on the label, waiting on the needs of his Scottish Major, a Gordon Highlander. (Maybe he was a “camp” soldier?) Anyway, it would have been the Gordon Highlander name that got it into our house. I was practically breast fed on “Camp" because of the kilt on the label. It was only going to be a matter of time before I hit the harder stuff.

You know how the 20th century actually started in 1914? And, on a smaller scale, the sixties in 1963? Or perhaps you don’t. Well, it feels like the 21st century has gotten underway. Twenty years after Tony Blair’s silly Millennium Tent; nine later than the loss of the Twin Towers. Remember what Jack Harkness said: “The 21st Century that’s when it all began”. Welcome.

Today I donned my purple surgeon’s gloves, pulled a scarf up over my face, and joined the line of Sainsbury’s shopping trolleys. Police tape on the ground measured out the distance between each customer, as limited numbers were allowed to enter the store. I felt and looked like a cross between Claude Rains' Invisible Man and the Lone Ranger. Have to confess, in a “dark” sort of way it was quite humorous.

Seeing anyone cough or sneeze now, is a bit like that moment in a soap opera or movie when you think “that’s it, they’re going to be written out of the script”.

White oil paint has become the new toilet roll in terms of rarity, at least that’s what it seemed like trying to purchase some Titanium White on the ‘net today. Maybe everyone is doing what I’ve been doing: Locking myself away and painting. I still have a long since unfinished plastic pollution painting, which I’ll get around to during the months of confinement ahead. Today I re-arranged my laptop and easel for maximum efficiency, enquired about a new place I might want to move to, ate far too many chocolate bourbons, and got news that relatives in London have sore throats. It’ll be fine.

 All text copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

#animalmarch 2020

 

 Animal March was a Twitter art challenge.

All text, pros, poetry & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig. Gordon Craig.

M-m-m-my Corona part 1.

 

 

This pandemic is going to be around for a LONG time, isn’t it? One is reminded of the “over by Christmas” promises of a century ago. I very much doubt we’ll reach any such deadlines.

I was out shopping this morning. The first Sainsburys I went to had a long equidistant line of supermarket trolleys around the car park, monitored by security guards. Deciding to drive to an alternative Sainsbury’s slightly nearer home, I found I could walk straight in and purchase pretty much anything I liked, in moderation. The petrol station at the end of my road has a floor to ceiling toilet roll display. In a crisis, toilet rolls always become a kind of currency in the UK.

I have enough stuff, for now. Probably more tins of beans and macaroni cheese than I’ve ever eaten in my life, but also a good stock of fresh fruit and veggies for my morning blender. (Can’t cook won’t cook). And vitamin pills.

Obviously, I’m spending time making art. I think I started on this self-isolation malarkey back in 1960. My favourite childhood weekend activity was setting out with a home-made sketchbook and an improvised specimen box for the pheasant feathers and owl pellets I collected along the way, all then to be studied and sketched beside a strictly out of bounds deer hut. No such opportunity at present. Over these past two days the sunshine brought to mind all the places I like to go sketching but can’t visit, as scenic estates and attractions across the county are understandably shut down. No complaints.

Yesterday, as I stood on my doorstep nursing my usual morning coffee, a peacock butterfly came past and settled down on the sunlit path. It seemed so out of place.

All text & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

#LandFebruary 2020.

Above: Clipstone Colliery. Positioned at the side of the route to mother's care home, this view would be familiar to all the family.

Land February was a Twitter art challenge.

All text, pros, poetry & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig

#sketchjanuary 2020

 From #sketchjanuary to #stilldecember, Twitter has an art hashtag for each month. As a personal challenge I am intending to produce several artworks per month through 2020 using those tags.

Just stop.

 

December 2019. I returned to writing / editing “my intended novel” with the best of intentions. The plan was to use the dark nights, not best suited to painting, for writing. At first all was well, but distractions soon set in. Some business, some personal. Whatever. So, I stopped. I just stopped.

Stopped thinking about writing; stopped thinking about painting and galleries; stopped thinking about social engagements that felt now more like appointments; stopped the delusion that social media was of any value in promoting my work. Stopped, and took a little time to think through what it is I want to do, and what the deadline might be. It’s difficult to explain, but considering how much time I spend in my own company, I never think I have a peaceful life. It always seems so cluttered.

So, I have begun clearing the clutter. Gradually I have started to get a clearer perspective on things. I look forward to 2020. I’m hoping there will be less cake and more sunshine.

 All text, pros, poetry, photos & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

if a picture paints a thousand words.

 

 All text, pros, poetry, photos & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Closure on those "blue remembered hills"?

 Thoresby Park dominated much of the month. Firstly, the photographs I sorted out for them at their request, for an intended exhibition / publication, were enthusiastically received. I also received a request from a “Ploughing Competition” event being held there to use some pictures from my Thoresby blog for a display. I of course agreed.

Secondly, two of my artworks were hung there in this year’s Open Exhibition, although I have to confess the gallery there is not what it once was.

Thirdly, and importantly, I attended their Heritage Day event, which proved to be quite a revelation. I had always thought the estate’s status effectively ended with the death of Lady Rozelle, the last of the Manvers family line, but not so. She had sought out a distant descendant of the Pierrepont's, and it is he who now lives in the large purpose-built mansion I used to observe from the far side of the lake, and which now harbours several artefacts from the Hall.

At the end of the tour I gained permission to walk around the outside of the Woodyard and take some photographs, Permission I was soon in need of when a security van pulled up to ask me what I was doing! It meant a lot to be able to do that one last time. Box ticked. Closure?
 

 All text, pros, poetry, photos & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Self Portraits.

 “I always take a close look at those who lose themselves in self-portraits. They are solitary souls, prone to introspection” (Young-Ha Kim).

I find myself more and more interested in bright, primary colours. “Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow” (Ralph W Emerson).

“I loathe my own face, and I've done self-portraits because I've had nobody else to do”. (Francis Bacon).

“O would the gift, the gift He’d give us, to see ourselves as others see us.” (Robert Burns, translated from the Scottish).

All artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Harley Gallery, Worksop.

 

 

All text, pros, poetry, photos & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

The days go by. 2

 My sketchbook pages are actually visual diaries.

"A chair is a difficult object. A skyscraper is almost easier. That is why Thomas Chippendale is famous". ( Mies van der Rohe).

"Our children will think of bananas as green or something teacher used to demonstrate condoms. Fine. Their children will think tigers and gorillas were mythical creatures like dragons which never truly existed. Not fine". (Ian Gordon Craig).

 All text, pros, poetry, photos & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Piper at the Gates of Dawn.

"The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow,
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now."
(Byron).

When my Scottish grandmother retired, her fellow nurses bought her “The Complete Works of Byron”. I don’t know if it was Byron’s work she liked or his legend. When I got my hands on it many years later it looked like it had never been opened, and yet its spine still promptly fell apart in my hands. What really got me into Byron was a combination of Byron’s long poem “Manfred” and the Tchaikovsky symphony which it inspired.

Newstead Abbey carries a similar “deception”. Although the property was owned by the Byron family for many years, he only lived there for two, just six months of which were of a permanent nature. But because of that brief residence the place continues to be a favoured tourist attraction in the county. And, as a fellow Gordon, that’s good by me.

 The statue here is often mistaken by visitors to be a devil. No. It is of course Pan, God of the Wild, companion of the nymphs, as well as a brief co-star appearance at the Gates of Dawn, in Wind in the Willows.
 

All text, pros, poetry, photos & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

The days go by.

 

All artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

Music alphabet.

 

I didn't complete the alphabet. But what on earth was I thinking? Sometimes I reckon art is just a therapy. Something to keep occupied no matter how little the worth.

All text, pros, poetry, photos & artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.