M-m-m-My Corona part 16. We are the virus.

 When I was in my short-trouser pre-teens, the black & white newspapers were full of people carrying banners. All adhered to the same mode of dress: Duffel coats, college scarves, beards, and pipes. The women could manage the pipe, but as a substitute for the beard they took to wearing outsized knee length woolly sweaters, always in black, and known in the UK as “Fisherman’s Jumpers”.

They were protesters, marching back and forth between a military base in Aldermaston and London in an effort to “Ban the Bomb”. Several amongst them would strum cheap guitars and banjos, accompanied by the occasional clarinet or trumpet, in a god-awful never-ending rendition of “O When the Saints”, which in turn probably gave rise to a form of music as horrific as the bomb itself: British Trad Jazz, performed by potbellied waistcoated men with a penchant for “real ale”, and probably equally guilty of Morris Dancing on their weekends off. But I digress.

Even as a child I was informed that, if the Russians launched a nuclear attack, (it was always “the Russians” in those days), we would have just 4 minutes before it struck us. The “4-minute warning” became a part of everyday conversation. More specifically, “If you had 4 minutes left to live, what would you do?” Teenagers older than me invariably answered “Have sex!” (Some chance of that in late 1950s Britain). I probably thought raiding the local shop of crème eggs and scoffing the lot a better option. Today we face an even bigger threat, but hopefully more than 4 minutes left before the grand finale, also known as the end of times.

I draw no distinction between Covid 19 and the 14 million tons of plastic on the ocean floor (not counting the surface); or the 98% of English and Welsh meadowlands, plus 50% of the remaining ancient woods, destroyed in my life time; or the currently raging forest fires in South America, California and Australia; or the million metric tons of ice melting every minute from the ice caps. I draw no distinction because “We” are the cause. Whether Covid was deliberate or an “innocent” result of unnecessary cross species contamination, the argument still holds. Instead of a gung-ho “Can we? Yes, we can!” we never ask “Should we?”

People talk about saving the planet. The planet is going be fine. It can change and evolve without us. It’s done it before. What they mean is “save us”, and that might not be possible. From Mother Earth’s perspective, “we” are the virus.

All text and artwork copyright Ian G Craig.

#printoctober

 

Three fairly simple card prints for this October Twitter hashtag.

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

Photography during the Covid epidemic.

 Above: Lockdown car park, Carrington, Nottingham.

 Above: Photographs from my early morning walks around the neighbourhood. 

All photography copyright ian gordon craig.

M-m-m-My Corona part 15.

 

 Please.


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

M-m-m-My Corona part 14.

 

Eye test? Check.
Car serviced? Check
Flu jab? Check.
Loo rolls & hand sanitizer secret stash? Check.

Okay. Bring it on.

In all honesty I’ve pretty much remained in lock-down. Those times I have ventured forth for simple things like a local beer or coffee, getting told where to stand, where to sit, and being asked for contact details, just takes all the pleasure out of it. I understand the necessity, and I comply with the rules, but I don’t want to remember some of my favourite haunts that way. And I won’t.

Making sure I don’t become permanently bonded to either the sofa, the doorstep, the CD collection, the paintbrush, or the TV remote, during these months, my daily routine starts with a brisk stride around the block. It’s this which has reignited my love of photography. So, m-m-m-My Corona weeks ahead may well see me pursuing this one-time “hobby” a little more.

All text and photographs copyright ian gordon craig.

#paintseptember 2020

 

The idea for the nine squares format came from a piece I made a long time ago.

All text and artwork copyright Ian G Craig.

#drawingaugust 2020

 

Above top to bottom: Skegness Pier, Newstead Abbey, Lady Bay Bridge, Green Hut Cafe (Ollerton Roundabout), Clumber Park,  Big Fish restaurant (Ollerton Roundabout). Drawing August was a Twitter art challenge.

All text and artwork copyright Ian G Craig.

M-m-m-My Corona part 13. Summer in the City.

 Straw Trilby? – Check.
Face mask? – Check.
Reactor-light glasses? – Check.
Bus pass? – Check, although beneath my face mask disguise, its passport style photo is totally useless.

Today I decided on my first trip into town since lockdown began. It seems longer. Regardless of the virus, I no longer tend to browse shops. These days the word “browse” is officially defined as an internet activity, number 2 on the Cambridge Dictionary charts as such. People no longer browse in the real world.

The bus into the city centre deposited so much sanitizer onto my hands it would have facilitated a full shower. Shortly thereafter, just as that first dose managed total evaporation, the Art Gallery dispenser’s sticky deposit made for a generous top-up. And that’s when the identity requests began, with a curator like a border guard asking for my papers. Once upon a long ago, at various night club doors, it was “If you’re not wearing a tie, you’re not coming in”. Now, one is expected to provide contact details, “just in case”. Yeh right. I do appreciate and accept the need for all this. But for me, the simple joy of “going for a coffee” is fast being negated by what now feels like a form filling, tax return activity.

There are winners in this world of the Nouveau Normals. A few short years ago the bright blue Caffe Nero stores were very much the new kids on the block. Not so today. Wherever one walks in the city a veritable host of bright blue Deliveroo bicycles, carrying huge bright blue food boxes, dash, hover, and surge as they negotiate their narrow way through masked pedestrians. “Meals on Wheels” has become yet another term with a brand-new meaning for the 21st century.


All text copyright Ian G Craig.

M-m-m-My Corona part 12. Doorbells & Doorknobs.

 Today was teeth day, having completed five sides of a pre-visit questionnaire before attending, and remembering the instruction not to touch the doorbell on arrival as they would come out to receive me, hand sanitizers locked and loaded

There are no waiting rooms in the new normal. Once inside, I took up position on the hallway tiles designated spot for my temperature check, involving a strange Star Trek device which apparently gleans all the information it requires from shooting a beam of light two meters from my forehead. It informed me my temperature is slightly low, but it didn’t prevent me from being able to move on and into the treatment room; the one which never lives up to its name as there are never ever any treats.

Somewhere beneath all the hulking layers of protective plastic stood the dentist I’ve known since 1975, and her assistant. It was impossible to distinguish which was which, or to interpret what their masked voices were saying. They resembled dastardly scientists from a 1950s sci-fi movie, eager to strap me down and set to with the neatly arranged instruments close by. And what if it wasn’t my actual dentist at all? Bracing myself for whatever fate had in store, I mounted The Chair and opened wide…

Happily, my check-up was completed with efficiency and speed, (I have the best dentist), and I even remembered to exit without touching those doorknobs. Nevertheless, on arriving home I still considered immersing my entire body in a bath tub of hand sanitiser, just as a precaution you understand.

I don’t think I’m ready to risk the pub quite yet.

All text copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

#figurejuly 2020

 

 Figure July was a Twitter art challenge.

All artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

M-m-m-My Corona part 11, into the New Normal.

 Have you all got your cam-chat backdrops sorted out? No, not the screens on your cell phone or computer, but what you choose to strategically place behind you when you’re on camera. I think you need to, now we are entering the New Normal.

The default choice in England (can’t speak for the rest of the UK), would appear to be bookshelves. Especially for politicians. Every time I see an interview now on the T.V. they all have rows and rows of books lined up behind them. I can imagine them barking orders to their assistants: “Get me some books! Lots of them!” So, don’t choose books. It’s been done. Not to mention the fact, with HD pictures, people can easily read the titles of whatever it is you’re into. I think at least one politician got caught out with some reading matter regarded as dodgy.

Not sure what I’ll be choosing, if at all. The only webcam I have is one of those crazily wide-angle things on my laptop. In fact, it’s SO wide angle I have to practically scrub and tidy my entire house before I dare turn it on. But be sure you will be judged by your cam-chat backdrop, just as surely as you were once judged by the manner and style of your dress.

Something for you to be thinking about.

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

#growjune 2020

 

 #GrowJune was a Twitter art challenge.

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

#movemay 2020

#MoveMay was a Twitter art challenge.

 All artwork, copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

May sketchbook.

 

 

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

M-m-m-My Corona part 10.

 “Are you drawing Thoresby Hall?”

The voice comes from behind me. I am facing Thoresby Hall and obviously drawing it.

“No”.

She doesn’t get it. Or maybe it’s a sh*t likeness.

Now the lockdown has loosened its grip slightly on some of my favoured regions for sketching and strolling, my sketchbook opted for Thoresby Park as first choice. There are few visitors today.
Since UK TV has started to include several art programmes in its lockdown schedule, I am finding more and more people wanting to approach me with questions about what I’m doing, no doubt trying to imitate the judges and commentators they’ve seen on TV. Normally this would drive me nuts, but in the present circumstances the company is rather nice, albeit socially distant and possibly unsighted.

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

Alternative Skegness 2. Plastic Pollution.

 

 Finished today. I was going to hold this one back from social media for a while in the hope it would have more impact come exhibition entry time, but I’ve weakened. No exhibitions during lockdown.

I made an ink drawing of this scenario in November 2018, then started this painting at the end of 2019. It’s my second painting about plastic pollution. It does make me angry when every I see at least a dozen different children’s comics along the supermarket shelves, each with a plastic bag containing about 6 free plastic toys. And that’s every supermarket across the UK, every week. Do the maths.

Not currently having a model to pose for me I took a very iconic pose from a very famous black & white James Mason movie and developed the girl from that. Those plastic toys in your grandchildren’s toy box will serve as teaching aids when they want to know what elephants and tigers once looked like.

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

M-m-m-My Corona part 9.

 I couldn’t understand why the covid infection rate for the East Midlands (153.9), is higher than that of Nottinghamshire as a whole (145.3). The East Midlands does not have the overcrowding, the international student population, the high immigration, nor the poorer quarters that the city itself has. Then I looked down the list of the East Midlands’ towns and villages most affected:

Gedling – 199
Broxtowe - 222
Rushcliffe - 155
Newark and Sherwood - 129
Mansfield - 109
Bassetlaw - 176
Ashfield – 206

I saw in a heartbeat what links all those places. They all had a colliery. Indeed, in some cases more than one. A significant proportion of the retired male population now living in those areas would have been coal miners; employment which took a toll on their lungs, affecting many for life. (An uncle of mine spent his final years with oxygen tanks constantly on hand).

I have no idea if anyone has considered this as a so called “underlying condition” when assessing chances of infection or fatality, nor if it would be of use to do so anyway. But it perhaps does explain what I thought to be a curious statistic.

(Note: All above statistics are official as published on-line by the Nottingham Post).

 All text copyright Ian Gordon Craig.

M-m-m My Corona part 8.

 This is how it works: The pandemic doctor calls first. As if the diagnosis has already been diagnosed. That’s why the BBC is careful to say died “with” Corona virus rather than “of”. Keeping it legal. And don’t forget the all important “underlying causes”. Or is that simply under lying.

Either way I’ve stopped applauding the NHS on Thursday nights. It’s not just the dance routines in empty wards, wearing expensive protective clothing we are told is in short supply. It’s the knowledge of how many hours those routines take to rehearse when they could have been doing something more useful.

The pandemic doctor had no bad news. She just wanted to clarify details: Yes, mum's DNR notice is correct. (Do Not Resuscitate). Yes, if the tests are positive, we think care in the care home would be better than care in the hospital, whether full of strangers or empty.


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

#buildapril 2020

 Build April was a Twitter sketchbook challenge.