painting

Deconsumption? Demonetisation?

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I’m not sure ‘deconsumption’ is a word, but how about this:

Let’s stop talking about ‘sustainable [economic] growth’, stop worrying about looking after ‘the economy’ as if it is a counterweight to looking after ‘the environment’, and instead look for ways to live which respect the fact that we are just part of a living system, and acknowledge that we do not have to try and control it. Let’s find ways to re-wild ourselves – to let go of the colonial, extractivist, consumerist mind.

We have allowed the fantasy that money is the ‘bottom line’ to dominate our relations with each other and the world. People say things like ‘it’ll cost too much to make the changes you want to address the climate crisis – you have to be realistic!’ And we try to answer in their terms by pointing out it’ll cost more not to address the climate crisis. Or we call for putting a price on carbon, as if the only tool to change anything is money. But it’s only the fictional nature of money that enables the fantasy of endless ‘growth’. The fact is that however much money (=debt) the banks ‘create’, the world and its intricate systems are finite, and finely balanced. (Amusingly, the richest people in the world seem to think the answer is to colonise another dead world, using the money they have extracted from the rest of us to pay for it, and wreaking yet more destruction on our living planet in the process – infinite growth is their bottom line.)

The real bottom line is that complex human social systems (civilisations) developed during a period of climatic stability (the 11,700 years of the Holocene) and now we are quickly heading for (to us) unprecedented, probably catastrophic, change. Making a foil hat out of money won’t save us or our fellow inhabitants of Earth.

birdskull painting
Watercolour study of bird skull 2021

Living is easy with eyes closed 2nd edition

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After a bit of a hiatus, while the world was turned upside down by the pandemic, I am very happy to report that my exhibition from 2019 is soon to be reincarnated at Florence Arts Centre, Egremont, Cumbria, 22 May–19 June 2021. I’ll also be exhibiting some new work made during 2020/21.

I’m looking forward to seeing how the exhibition will look in a very different space, and perhaps with some new resonances after a year of lockdowns and social isolation.

During the exhibition, I will be on site on Saturdays (or other days by arrangement), making some new portrait drawings which I intend to add to the exhibition. I’ll be taking advantage of Florence Paintmakers’ products (https://www.florenceartscentre.com/florence-paintmakers), experimenting with the pigments they make using Egremont haematite and other local minerals.

If you would like to be a sitter, come along on a Saturday or get in touch to arrange another day (the centre is open Wednesday–Sunday, 11am–4pm).

On the last two Saturdays (12 and 19 June, 2pm-3:30pm), we are planning to hold ‘Climate Conversations’ – an opportunity to share thoughts, feelings and hopes about the climate emergency and how we can respond to it. (Numbers are limited due to Covid regulations, so please contact Florence Arts to book a place if you would like to take part.)

For info about Florence Arts, see: https://www.florenceartscentre.com/ and for info about the history of Florence Mine, see: https://www.nmrs.org.uk/mines-map/iron-mining-in-the-british-isles/cumberland-furness-iron-mines/florence-mine/

And here’s an unrelated image to end with – a recent commission featuring a Pan-Yan pickle jar.

Still life with Pan-Yan jar
Still life with Pan-Yan jar

Why are you painting now?

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We are living in unprecedented times, as people keep saying. We are in a state of constant emergency. We rush towards ecological collapse while worrying about ‘rebuilding the economy’ once the pandemic has brought our system to its knees. A renewed anger in the face of institutional racism fills the streets, overriding any instructions to ‘stay home’. Our politicians seem to be handpicked to do a bad job on the most urgent issues, while they pursue absurd self-inflicted quests for border walls and Brexit.

The sense of obligation to ‘do something’ felt by many of us is expressed mainly in signing petitions and sharing things on social media. We try to be diligent recyclers, eat less meat and use public transport when we can, donate to good causes – all those individual actions which feel so ineffectual when what is needed is system change.

Some braver and more committed souls dedicate themselves to serious activism – they march for change and camp out in trees to hold back the bulldozers. They give up their life plans in hope or despair for a better future.

How can I then sit in my ‘studio’ painting still lifes and wishing for the pandemic to end so that I can get someone to sit for a portrait again? Surely all art should somehow be addressed to these emergencies? Though I am inclined to think polemical art, art with a ‘message’, is usually bad art, does that matter? How can some idea of the self-sufficiency of ‘Art’ (ars gratia artis) outweigh the urgency of the climate crisis, the vast injustices of racism and colonialism? Check your privilege, indeed!

No answer I’m afraid, just a confession that, in spite of everything, I am still sitting here looking at stuff, putting more paint on (reused) surfaces. Feel free to attribute meaning if you like.

in progress
in progress
drapery, oil on board, 2020

Notes to self: Learning to paint etc.

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When modelling in clay, avoid smearing the clay about, or automatically, arbitrarily, smoothing out all the tool marks, etc. Smearing produces an unintended, uncontrolled form (and combined with smoothing, usually a lumpy and uninteresting surface). Instead I want to add or remove clay in response to an observation or an intention.

As in drawing, so in modelling and in painting, each mark, each piece of clay, each brushstroke, ought to be part of an act of seeing, of paying attention to the subject and the work.

So practise, practise … so that the medium becomes a familiar tool to enable that act of seeing, not a hindrance to it. As familiar as this pencil or the hand that holds it.Photo1553

And another thing: don’t hunt for something ‘meaningful’ or ‘significant’ to paint. It isn’t really about the content, or even the form; the significance is in the paying attention.

 

Aside ~ ~ flissw ~ Leave a comment

1 June

The bereaved house stands, neglected, at the end of a short terrace. Paint peeling around its windows, a bright green sea of uncut grass washes around its feet, waiting for the mower to be repaired. And the garden climbs up the walls and fences – roses, clematis, honeysuckle, on the brink of flowering.

Beside the back door, tumbled but convenient, three small piles of coal, logs and kindling.

Inside the neglect is more ingrained, the natural state in a house of two men (father and son – ‘we were two peas in a pod’) not much interested in housework and decoration.

Habitual hands have left their marks, on door frames and light switches, dark stains of countless touches. Many shelves line a room, crammed with dusty books, on art and magic, history and nature – a life-time’s library.

The disorder of illness overlies it all – the bed in the sitting room, a table dismantled in an upstairs room to make way for it, a small pile of plastic bags hold his clothes brought home from the hospital.

‘Here’s a picture of my father…and the dog we had…’ wiping the murky glass with tender fingers as he takes it off the mantelpiece, leaving its shadow in the dust.

But on the wall above the displaced bed there is a picture, a painting in a gilded frame, of a glorious sunlit afternoon – it shines like a jewel in this gloomy room, as fresh as if it were painted yesterday. (Though it is decades old – ‘He wouldn’t let me sell that one.’)

Two great trees stand in a green pasture which runs down to a hidden river. Beyond, the bluer green of farther woods rises to a low horizon.  A black and white cow, three quick dabs of paint, repeats itself, moving slowly from left to right across the picture plane. Leaf shadows ripple blue on the warm tree trunks and the trees’ crowns reach up into a tumbling airy height of sky.

Like a window into shining memory, it redeems the room.

 

Copyright © 2014 Fliss Watts

Story: Disillusionment

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Well – I’m taking advantage of the long weekend (though as a self-employed person that concept doesn’t really apply) to add to the story pages. It is remarkable how proofreading a dull textbook can stimulate the desire to do something else – boredom is a great motivator. 😉

This is an illustration for one of the stories I’ve uploaded that hasn’t appeared as a post already:

 

Photo1499

 

And here is an excerpt:

Mary found the letter at the bottom of the ‘dressing-up’ box, sticking out from the lining. The envelope was still drily stuck down but it seemed eager to open as she pulled it out. She knew she had no right to read it but she couldn’t resist.

 

[If you would like to read the rest of this story, click on the Short fiction link at the top of the blog.]

Copyright © 2014 Fliss Watts