www.agracefuldeath.blogspot.com for the progress account of the exhibition I am holding on the End Of A Life
www.antoniarolls.com for my website
antoniarolls1@btinternet.com if you want to email me
Well Folks. What A Life.
Today you need to know the story of this wonderful exhibition I am holding about the last few weeks, days and day of my wonderful former partner's life as he died of cancer. It is called "A Graceful Death" and it is my story of how Steve and I managed to approach his death. It is my journey in paintings, describing how I felt about his failing health and how I felt about loosing him. It also concentrates on the power of life in the last few days. How the human body is not just a victim of disease, but a vehicle for this mysterious thing called Life that is so inexplicable.
I have worked very hard to put together the exhibition, and was offered a venue by the Quakers who understood the power of what I am doing. I wanted to raise money for the two local hopsices, and to raise awareness of the end of life and palliative care. Gosh, I received such a wonderful welcome and support. The hospices could not do enough to help and I was grateful for such experienced help.
The paintings are amazing. Some are hard to look at but all are strong and loving. On seeing them, so many people have found them familiar - their grandfather, or uncle, or mother, or friend, died of cancer like this. Instead of recoiling, they want to talk, tell me their story and connect with the images that are, actually, familiar to them.
I cannot tell you the amount of interest and support I have received for this tiny but raw exhibition. Donations are coming in all the time for the hospices, and that is wonderful.
Some of Steve's relatives have orchestrated a sudden campaign to have the exhibition closed down. The hospices have had to withdraw their public support for the exhibition, which I understand. They cannot be involved in a disagreement. The Quakers too have had to withdraw their support and the venue was cancelled yesterday. They cannot, as an organisation, be seen to be involved in a disagreement.
Oh how sad this is. How is it that the very people who are lost in their own pain and fury are able to make such a fuss? Well, my heart goes out to them. This is precisely why I am holding the Graceful Death exhibition in the first place, to enable a discussion about death and end of life. Steve died. He lived with me and I cared for him every moment I could, even in the hospital and hospice. I changed him when he was incontinent. I knew he wanted orange segments to eat. I knew how to hold his head when it was too heavy for him to lift. And I held him when he could not find his safe place. He talked to me during those final months of all he had hoped for, and asked me to stay with him always. He asked me to marry him and if he was well, I would have. He posed for the photos I took of him to paint him and giggled when we discussed how they would look. Steve was a very unusual and free thinking man. He loved challenges and loved my painting. Some of the paintings I did before he died he kept in his room in the hospital. Steve was a strong and deeply spiritual man, sometimes I thought him too wise for this world.
So I have this exhibition that is being closed down before it is even shown by just a few of Steve's relatives who are hurting so badly they are lashing out.
I have another venue and the show will go on. Since the withdrawal of the hospices and Quakers, I have been overwhelmed with support and offers of more venues. The opening night is still Monday 7 December, from 6pm to 8pm. If you would like to know more, please email me for details on antonia.rolls1@btinternet.com
Monday, 30 November 2009
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
Oh So Late. A Dramatic Moment In A Storm.
http://www.agracefuldeath.blogspot.com/
http://www.antoniarolls.co.uk/
antonia.rolls1@btinternet.com
Here I am at ten minutes to one in the morning. There is, for my benefit, a thunder storm raging outside. Hail rattles my windows as I sit at the computer; hail, wind and rain amongst deafening thunder and forked white lightening out in the black night (the garden), and I feel This Is It. I am an Artist. Only Artists sit late at night in thunder storms and do Stuff in the Studio. Only Artists sit deep into the early hours driven by the need in their Souls to Create and if we are lucky, we get Matching Weather to make us feel special. (And it would be nice if someone could take a picture of us to prove it, but everyone is asleep and you can't take one of yourself and pretend it was a friend that you didn't even see you were so busy being Dramatic and Arty.)
I am not so much creating as preparing. Tomorrow I have a long heavy day. I visit my local hospice in the morning to listen to an interview done of one of their patients. A quick visit back home to see 19 Year Old Daughter who is really poorly with the flu, and then I go to a meeting in London. This is followed by a Christmas Fair I am doing with Eileen, where we will share a stand and probably chat for the whole evening. Both of us think along the same lines and one of us will have snacks and the other will have a thermos of tea. This is the third certainty of life. 1. We are born. 2. We die 3. Eileen will have the snacks and I will have the tea.
I won't be back to Bognor Regis until after midnight. It is possible that my very poorly 19 Year Old Daughter will need tea as soon as I get home, no matter what the time is. She sees me and she needs tea. It is a neural pathway thing now, after all these years, and it is best to just accept it. Eileen will be with me and will also need tea. I have a bit of a reputation with tea so I will probably join them and lo. It will be another very late night.
13 Year Old Son is no longer Bill Sykes. It was the last night tonight, and he did well to last for four consecutive late nights acting his heart out (and barely missing a GBH charge by a whisker as Bill Sykes, the ruffian and murderer, as 13 Year Old Son does a kind of method acting approach) after a long day at school. His day starts at 8.20 and finishes at 4.30. He also has Saturday school, finishing at midday. So it will be interesting to see how long it takes Bill to slip out of his psyche, and for my nice football mad slightly quirky boy to return. I fear that there was a bet placed last night for Bill to ad lib during the tense and dramatic last scene. This is where Nancy's body is found and someone says they saw a man running away. What did he look like? was the cue and 13 Year Old Son called from off stage "Dressed in black and Sexy". I was not there for tonight's performance, and only collected him after the last curtain call. I suspect that it went ahead because 13 Year Old Son got out of his costume and into his uniform (with full black stage make up giving him big black bushy beard, huge black eyebrows and stubble on his neck. He looked from a distance like a wierd hairy pirate trying to pass in a crowd as a school boy), and went off to collect money from certain giggling and admiring members of the cast. I simply don't want to know.
http://www.antoniarolls.co.uk/
antonia.rolls1@btinternet.com
Here I am at ten minutes to one in the morning. There is, for my benefit, a thunder storm raging outside. Hail rattles my windows as I sit at the computer; hail, wind and rain amongst deafening thunder and forked white lightening out in the black night (the garden), and I feel This Is It. I am an Artist. Only Artists sit late at night in thunder storms and do Stuff in the Studio. Only Artists sit deep into the early hours driven by the need in their Souls to Create and if we are lucky, we get Matching Weather to make us feel special. (And it would be nice if someone could take a picture of us to prove it, but everyone is asleep and you can't take one of yourself and pretend it was a friend that you didn't even see you were so busy being Dramatic and Arty.)
I am not so much creating as preparing. Tomorrow I have a long heavy day. I visit my local hospice in the morning to listen to an interview done of one of their patients. A quick visit back home to see 19 Year Old Daughter who is really poorly with the flu, and then I go to a meeting in London. This is followed by a Christmas Fair I am doing with Eileen, where we will share a stand and probably chat for the whole evening. Both of us think along the same lines and one of us will have snacks and the other will have a thermos of tea. This is the third certainty of life. 1. We are born. 2. We die 3. Eileen will have the snacks and I will have the tea.
I won't be back to Bognor Regis until after midnight. It is possible that my very poorly 19 Year Old Daughter will need tea as soon as I get home, no matter what the time is. She sees me and she needs tea. It is a neural pathway thing now, after all these years, and it is best to just accept it. Eileen will be with me and will also need tea. I have a bit of a reputation with tea so I will probably join them and lo. It will be another very late night.
13 Year Old Son is no longer Bill Sykes. It was the last night tonight, and he did well to last for four consecutive late nights acting his heart out (and barely missing a GBH charge by a whisker as Bill Sykes, the ruffian and murderer, as 13 Year Old Son does a kind of method acting approach) after a long day at school. His day starts at 8.20 and finishes at 4.30. He also has Saturday school, finishing at midday. So it will be interesting to see how long it takes Bill to slip out of his psyche, and for my nice football mad slightly quirky boy to return. I fear that there was a bet placed last night for Bill to ad lib during the tense and dramatic last scene. This is where Nancy's body is found and someone says they saw a man running away. What did he look like? was the cue and 13 Year Old Son called from off stage "Dressed in black and Sexy". I was not there for tonight's performance, and only collected him after the last curtain call. I suspect that it went ahead because 13 Year Old Son got out of his costume and into his uniform (with full black stage make up giving him big black bushy beard, huge black eyebrows and stubble on his neck. He looked from a distance like a wierd hairy pirate trying to pass in a crowd as a school boy), and went off to collect money from certain giggling and admiring members of the cast. I simply don't want to know.
Monday, 23 November 2009
The Angels Are Up And Flying In The Oxmarket In Chichester And Bill Sykes Gets His Debut
http://www.agracefuldeath.blogspot.com/ for an account of the exhibition I am putting on in December in Chichester on the End Of A Life with Cancer
http://www.antoniarolls.co.uk/ for my website
antonia.rolls1@btinternet.com if you want to contact me
http://www.antoniarolls.co.uk/ for my website
antonia.rolls1@btinternet.com if you want to contact me
Here is a Teapot Angel to make you want another cup of tea.
We hung the Angels up on Sunday, they are in full glory in the Oxmarket Gallery in the foyer. Eileen came and helped me, and took photographs of them on the Saturday so that she can make prints, and then helped me hang them on the Sunday. We were only the Foyer Artists, there were other Main Exhibition Room Artists too, setting up and being busy and wonderfully arty and modest. We only had 12 Angels to put up, and I had done all the Exhibition Blurb well in advance, so Eileen and I had time to go and preview the other exhibitions. Not only was the work good - there were two groups exhibiting in the big rooms, and one landscape artist in the bigger part of the foyer - but the energy and enthusiasm of the painters and makers-of-things was terribly impressive. It was wonderful to see so many people take their desire to make art seriously and actually Do It. I love these group exhibitions. I think the works displayed are impressive because they are made by dedicated, inspired, brave and ordinary people. The standard is often really high. Many of these modest and clever people do their art professionally now. The landscape artist too, setting up her work, showed beautifully observed and lovingly painted local scenes, framed to set them off at their best.
And now. The school play. At last my 13 Year Old Son could give in to the drunken wife beating murderer in his soul and play Bill Sykes. It was a wonder of wonders. "Oliver" was the school play, and a very good choice too, as much of the school could take part. Indeed, I spotted in the Workhouse Scene a wonderfully well fed and bright little Chinese boy in glasses. Each of the work house children wore the grey school shirt and trousers ripped to shreds, which worked very well. Either they all held each other down for a pre play free-for-all or someone has been collecting lost property. It also explained why Bill Sykes came home recently from school with the breast pocket of his school shirt ripped off. "I ripped Fred's off and he ripped mine off" was all I got for an explanation. "It was fun" he added to make it clearer still.
The characters played their hearts out. My Bill seemed really violent and we could feel the angiush of Oliver, Nancy and Selected Ruffians mothers in the audience, and when Bill got shot in the final scene a tiny child in the audience was heard to say "Oh good". I suspect quite a few of the well brought up liberal thinking parents echoed that deep in their hearts. Bill was full of fury and wore a top hat which made him taller than most, and a big leather coat which made him look like a Hells Angel and big trousers that made him look like he may have Welsh International Rugby Thighs underneath. The whole effect was that my darling little 13 Year Old Son made everyone else look angelic, misunderstood and reasonable.
I have to say though, he met his match in Nancy who played her part with a seriousness and intelligence that made me think she'd never have chosen Bill if she had been asked when the book was being written. She was truly a star, and lovely to watch and listen to. And I know for a fact that her mother found her the perfect dress, red and black, and should be applauded for finding exactly the right outfit.
So. A busy weekend, and much achieved. Briefly, 16 Year Old Son came back for a visit and ate like a mother wants her son to eat, that is, without a pause. Alan paid a welcome visit after his work and tennis, and Oldest Brother and his partner came for Sunday. Monday is a doddle after all that.
We hung the Angels up on Sunday, they are in full glory in the Oxmarket Gallery in the foyer. Eileen came and helped me, and took photographs of them on the Saturday so that she can make prints, and then helped me hang them on the Sunday. We were only the Foyer Artists, there were other Main Exhibition Room Artists too, setting up and being busy and wonderfully arty and modest. We only had 12 Angels to put up, and I had done all the Exhibition Blurb well in advance, so Eileen and I had time to go and preview the other exhibitions. Not only was the work good - there were two groups exhibiting in the big rooms, and one landscape artist in the bigger part of the foyer - but the energy and enthusiasm of the painters and makers-of-things was terribly impressive. It was wonderful to see so many people take their desire to make art seriously and actually Do It. I love these group exhibitions. I think the works displayed are impressive because they are made by dedicated, inspired, brave and ordinary people. The standard is often really high. Many of these modest and clever people do their art professionally now. The landscape artist too, setting up her work, showed beautifully observed and lovingly painted local scenes, framed to set them off at their best.
And now. The school play. At last my 13 Year Old Son could give in to the drunken wife beating murderer in his soul and play Bill Sykes. It was a wonder of wonders. "Oliver" was the school play, and a very good choice too, as much of the school could take part. Indeed, I spotted in the Workhouse Scene a wonderfully well fed and bright little Chinese boy in glasses. Each of the work house children wore the grey school shirt and trousers ripped to shreds, which worked very well. Either they all held each other down for a pre play free-for-all or someone has been collecting lost property. It also explained why Bill Sykes came home recently from school with the breast pocket of his school shirt ripped off. "I ripped Fred's off and he ripped mine off" was all I got for an explanation. "It was fun" he added to make it clearer still.
The characters played their hearts out. My Bill seemed really violent and we could feel the angiush of Oliver, Nancy and Selected Ruffians mothers in the audience, and when Bill got shot in the final scene a tiny child in the audience was heard to say "Oh good". I suspect quite a few of the well brought up liberal thinking parents echoed that deep in their hearts. Bill was full of fury and wore a top hat which made him taller than most, and a big leather coat which made him look like a Hells Angel and big trousers that made him look like he may have Welsh International Rugby Thighs underneath. The whole effect was that my darling little 13 Year Old Son made everyone else look angelic, misunderstood and reasonable.
I have to say though, he met his match in Nancy who played her part with a seriousness and intelligence that made me think she'd never have chosen Bill if she had been asked when the book was being written. She was truly a star, and lovely to watch and listen to. And I know for a fact that her mother found her the perfect dress, red and black, and should be applauded for finding exactly the right outfit.
So. A busy weekend, and much achieved. Briefly, 16 Year Old Son came back for a visit and ate like a mother wants her son to eat, that is, without a pause. Alan paid a welcome visit after his work and tennis, and Oldest Brother and his partner came for Sunday. Monday is a doddle after all that.
Friday, 20 November 2009
A Quickie Today
http://www.agracefuldeath.blogspot.com/ for an account of the exhibition I am mounting on the End Of A Life, in Chichester in December
http://www.antoniarolls.co.uk/ for my website
antonia.rolls1@btinternet.com if you want to contact me
So. A Quickie Today.
Everything is going well, and I have done all that I could have done for my two exhibitions. The Angels get put up this Sunday at the Oxmarket Gallery in Chichester, and that is good. Eileen is coming for the weekend, and will photograph them and help with the hanging.
I have eaten oatcakes and marmalade as a comfort thing as Alan has just left to do Very Important Things somewhere else, and now I have marmalade on the mouse and key board. So I rubbed my hands on my jeans and now I have sticky jeans too. Maybe that will be my new trade mark. Not teapots anymore, just an invisible stickiness on all artworks. "Ah yes, Curruthers. This is a Genuine Post November 2009 Antonia Rolls. Note the marmalade deposits carefully distributed amongst the paint work"
Now. To Work. Posters for the exhibitions. My contact details for the exhibitions. More Tea to make the thinking process smoother. More marmalade to set the mood. So, that is the Quickie Account today.
http://www.antoniarolls.co.uk/ for my website
antonia.rolls1@btinternet.com if you want to contact me
So. A Quickie Today.
Everything is going well, and I have done all that I could have done for my two exhibitions. The Angels get put up this Sunday at the Oxmarket Gallery in Chichester, and that is good. Eileen is coming for the weekend, and will photograph them and help with the hanging.
I have eaten oatcakes and marmalade as a comfort thing as Alan has just left to do Very Important Things somewhere else, and now I have marmalade on the mouse and key board. So I rubbed my hands on my jeans and now I have sticky jeans too. Maybe that will be my new trade mark. Not teapots anymore, just an invisible stickiness on all artworks. "Ah yes, Curruthers. This is a Genuine Post November 2009 Antonia Rolls. Note the marmalade deposits carefully distributed amongst the paint work"
Now. To Work. Posters for the exhibitions. My contact details for the exhibitions. More Tea to make the thinking process smoother. More marmalade to set the mood. So, that is the Quickie Account today.
Wednesday, 18 November 2009
St Wilfrids Hospice Today
http://www.agracefuldeath.blogspot.com/ for the site about setting up the Graceful Death exhibition in Chichester 7-12 December
http://www.antoniarolls.co.uk/ for my website
antonia.rolls1@btinternet if you want to email me.
St Wilfrid's Hospice later today. I am going to introduce myself and ask if I can raise funds for them for this exhibition I am doing about the End Of A Life. I am well so far, I have no need of the hospice as I am, as far as I know, not dying. I hope I don't die before I have understood more about the end of life and how one dies. Perhaps I should say how others die, as I don't want to do it myself yet.
Yesterday I spoke to the very helpful Arts Development Officer at Chichester Council. He was a very dedicated and inspired man, and full of proper good advice for me. That was good, and as he is a big part of Chichester's bid to be the UK's first City Of Culture for 2013, and I was there having a Meeting, I felt Yeah. I'm in the Hub here. Just note, people, who I am talking to on first name terms and bow down low.
In the afternoon I had the pleasure of meeting another very dedicated (and unlike me, experienced in Hospice work) Artist. The Artist in Residence from St Barnabas House Hospice (for whom I am raising money through the Graceful Death exhibition and here for your entertainment is a direct link to the website where you can donate www.justgiving.com/agracefuldeath ) (Just read that over and it looks like I am raising money for the Artist in Residence. Like him though I do, it is the Hospice I am raising money for).
I was inspired and delighted to have the company of the Artist in Residence to visit here. We sat for hours in the studio and talked, and I found another artist who thinks about End of Life like I do. Only this fellow does something about it, and works in the Hospice. I thought he must be a very good man to explore creativity with when you have not much time and have an illness that will cut short your life. There is hope that we can do a project together in the Hospice, and use my Angels which I would love to do.
Then I had to collect 13 Year Old Son from homework club at school to which I have bound him for life, in order for him to at least try to do some homework and I don't have to deal with his passionate disapproval of homework and the politics of avoidance thereof at home. Let The School Do It, I said, It's In Their Job Description. It seems to be working, in that he says he has no homework. But I wouldn't put it past 13 Year Old Son to bypass homework club altogether and set up a business in the classroom and get his pals to pay him for lost House Badges he has found (Found? Found with menace I would think), and elastic bands he convinces them they need, and pencil stubs that always write the right answers etc. He is a canny fellow, but no match for his Headmaster who has seen it all before. So, as far as I know, 13 Year Old Son is doing his homework.
It is windy today and I feel nervous about having taken on so much. I have been offered more exhibition space through a wondeful Hospice Trust in East Sussex, and am full of enthusiasm about it. But every now and then I think What if I can't do it? All these people are helping me so much and there is plenty of space for what I am doing with my End of Life exhibition, I hope I can live up to all our expectations. Then I give myself a little shake and say with iron in my voice, Just Get On With It Antonia. And that is what I shall do. Just Get On With It.
http://www.antoniarolls.co.uk/ for my website
antonia.rolls1@btinternet if you want to email me.
St Wilfrid's Hospice later today. I am going to introduce myself and ask if I can raise funds for them for this exhibition I am doing about the End Of A Life. I am well so far, I have no need of the hospice as I am, as far as I know, not dying. I hope I don't die before I have understood more about the end of life and how one dies. Perhaps I should say how others die, as I don't want to do it myself yet.
Yesterday I spoke to the very helpful Arts Development Officer at Chichester Council. He was a very dedicated and inspired man, and full of proper good advice for me. That was good, and as he is a big part of Chichester's bid to be the UK's first City Of Culture for 2013, and I was there having a Meeting, I felt Yeah. I'm in the Hub here. Just note, people, who I am talking to on first name terms and bow down low.
In the afternoon I had the pleasure of meeting another very dedicated (and unlike me, experienced in Hospice work) Artist. The Artist in Residence from St Barnabas House Hospice (for whom I am raising money through the Graceful Death exhibition and here for your entertainment is a direct link to the website where you can donate www.justgiving.com/agracefuldeath ) (Just read that over and it looks like I am raising money for the Artist in Residence. Like him though I do, it is the Hospice I am raising money for).
I was inspired and delighted to have the company of the Artist in Residence to visit here. We sat for hours in the studio and talked, and I found another artist who thinks about End of Life like I do. Only this fellow does something about it, and works in the Hospice. I thought he must be a very good man to explore creativity with when you have not much time and have an illness that will cut short your life. There is hope that we can do a project together in the Hospice, and use my Angels which I would love to do.
Then I had to collect 13 Year Old Son from homework club at school to which I have bound him for life, in order for him to at least try to do some homework and I don't have to deal with his passionate disapproval of homework and the politics of avoidance thereof at home. Let The School Do It, I said, It's In Their Job Description. It seems to be working, in that he says he has no homework. But I wouldn't put it past 13 Year Old Son to bypass homework club altogether and set up a business in the classroom and get his pals to pay him for lost House Badges he has found (Found? Found with menace I would think), and elastic bands he convinces them they need, and pencil stubs that always write the right answers etc. He is a canny fellow, but no match for his Headmaster who has seen it all before. So, as far as I know, 13 Year Old Son is doing his homework.
It is windy today and I feel nervous about having taken on so much. I have been offered more exhibition space through a wondeful Hospice Trust in East Sussex, and am full of enthusiasm about it. But every now and then I think What if I can't do it? All these people are helping me so much and there is plenty of space for what I am doing with my End of Life exhibition, I hope I can live up to all our expectations. Then I give myself a little shake and say with iron in my voice, Just Get On With It Antonia. And that is what I shall do. Just Get On With It.
Monday, 16 November 2009
Tea, Rain, Angels, Dying, Lists
http://www.agracefuldeath.blogspot.com/ for the exhibition I am holding in December in Chichester on the End of a Life from cancer
http://www.antoniarolls.co.uk/ for my website
antonia.rolls1@btinternet if you want to contact me
Hello All. Yes I have my pot of tea (is the Pope a Catholic) and yes it is raining. Oh and yes, I sent 13 Year Old Son out in the rain to go to school and am worried he will arrive like a little Victorian waif, with his dripping hair plastered to his young impressionable face, and his only set of clothes steaming in the heat of the classroom and dripping puddles by his chair as he sits with a teeny squelch onto his seat. Laughed at by all the others who had a)mothers that drove them b)rain coats c)umbrellas. Except, and this is where I lose my guilt, my dear 13 Year Old Son is too cool to wear a coat and scorns umbrellas and is tall and a bit of a lad, so coming into the classroom like a waif is ridiculous. He will enter his classroom like a Wet Teenager that gets Brownie Points for being out in all weathers, hoping they think he is from a wild and unloving house with a mother that intends her children to Learn the Hard Way. When she remembers who they are.
Angels now. This is absolutely wonderful. For a while today I shall paint my Angels because on Sunday next I put up the exhibition. Angels are really lovely things to paint. They can say anything the artist wants them to say. I hope these Angels make people smile and I hope they bring me some commissions. Prints of them are coming with me to a Christmas Fair in London, in Wimbledon on 26 November. I will finish my Fat Angel and my Night Time Angel and leave it at that. I have to make prints of the images, make a small biography and see how they will hang in the gallery.
Dying is the theme of the Steve exhibition. That needs endless attention (the exhibition) and it seems that it is like something that will never be even half completed. There is always so much more to do. I have to do as my lovely Dublin Scottish friend says, learn where to stop. I am reading a very good book on dying, as one does, and am feeling it is the most fascinating subject. Wait Until Your Time Comes, I hear you say with a frown, And Then See How Fascinated You Are. Well, precisely. It is a bit of an academic interest as I have, as yet, not died or been nearly dead. Steve did it all and I watched.
Lists. Lists! I must make another list! I have only got fifteen hundred lists and I need another! My list will describe what I need to do each day this week, based on the other lists I have done about other lists that were drawn up - and so on and so forth. Oh for a room full of dedicated helpers that wake each morning with bright and effective ideas on how to make everything I do work. And to come in to my studio and cheerily implement them. And when I doubt myself, to tut with a little chuckle and tell me it's all going to be fine.
The rain has stopped. I have finished my pot of tea. Time to do the Angels. A Dying Angel Writing a List in the Rain with a Pot of Tea. Only joking.
http://www.antoniarolls.co.uk/ for my website
antonia.rolls1@btinternet if you want to contact me
Hello All. Yes I have my pot of tea (is the Pope a Catholic) and yes it is raining. Oh and yes, I sent 13 Year Old Son out in the rain to go to school and am worried he will arrive like a little Victorian waif, with his dripping hair plastered to his young impressionable face, and his only set of clothes steaming in the heat of the classroom and dripping puddles by his chair as he sits with a teeny squelch onto his seat. Laughed at by all the others who had a)mothers that drove them b)rain coats c)umbrellas. Except, and this is where I lose my guilt, my dear 13 Year Old Son is too cool to wear a coat and scorns umbrellas and is tall and a bit of a lad, so coming into the classroom like a waif is ridiculous. He will enter his classroom like a Wet Teenager that gets Brownie Points for being out in all weathers, hoping they think he is from a wild and unloving house with a mother that intends her children to Learn the Hard Way. When she remembers who they are.
Angels now. This is absolutely wonderful. For a while today I shall paint my Angels because on Sunday next I put up the exhibition. Angels are really lovely things to paint. They can say anything the artist wants them to say. I hope these Angels make people smile and I hope they bring me some commissions. Prints of them are coming with me to a Christmas Fair in London, in Wimbledon on 26 November. I will finish my Fat Angel and my Night Time Angel and leave it at that. I have to make prints of the images, make a small biography and see how they will hang in the gallery.
Dying is the theme of the Steve exhibition. That needs endless attention (the exhibition) and it seems that it is like something that will never be even half completed. There is always so much more to do. I have to do as my lovely Dublin Scottish friend says, learn where to stop. I am reading a very good book on dying, as one does, and am feeling it is the most fascinating subject. Wait Until Your Time Comes, I hear you say with a frown, And Then See How Fascinated You Are. Well, precisely. It is a bit of an academic interest as I have, as yet, not died or been nearly dead. Steve did it all and I watched.
Lists. Lists! I must make another list! I have only got fifteen hundred lists and I need another! My list will describe what I need to do each day this week, based on the other lists I have done about other lists that were drawn up - and so on and so forth. Oh for a room full of dedicated helpers that wake each morning with bright and effective ideas on how to make everything I do work. And to come in to my studio and cheerily implement them. And when I doubt myself, to tut with a little chuckle and tell me it's all going to be fine.
The rain has stopped. I have finished my pot of tea. Time to do the Angels. A Dying Angel Writing a List in the Rain with a Pot of Tea. Only joking.
Friday, 13 November 2009
Antonia Rolls, Artist Extraordinaire, Needs A Day Off
http://www.agracefuldeath.blogspot.com/ for an account of the Graceful Death Exhibition coming up in December in Chichester
http://www.antoniarolls.co.uk/ for my website with examples of paintings
antonia.rolls1@btinternet.com if you want to contact me
I need a day off. It is raining fit to wash Bognor off the map. I am tired through much socialising and tired through much Exhibition-ing and tired through much painting. Add to this a little overeating and a spot of overcycling, and you get a droopy, well meaning but rather pathetic artist and mother who just needs Housework Fairies to appear and do all the chores. A Taxi Fairy to take over the car and an inspired and committed Events Organiser Fairy to do the rest of the Angels and Graceful Death exhibitions. And then a Bubble Bath Fairy a Pot of Tea Fairy and an Early Night Fairy to share the rest of the work between them. With of course the Chocolate Cake Fairy. She is a Given.
I have just been to Middleton to collect the old bit of tree my artist friend has kept for me. I am using it in the Graceful Death exhibition on which to tie ribbons of rememberance. I have a photographer from our local paper coming to the studio soon and I am worried I will not look on top of things. I am worried it will look as if the real artist had to go to an important meeting about being very successful somewhere else and has asked their rather dim friend to stand in and look the part. "No one will know" says the successful artist as she dances to the door with grace and energy. "Just wear old clothes and say things like 'Oh the Muse, the Muse' and 'Yes, I cannot describe nor explain' and look through the window into the middle distance. Byee. Gotta go, got lunch with the Queen and Simon Cowell" and off goes successful artist leaving droopy inarticulate but well meaning artist-stand-in to impress the photographer.
It will be fine. I am wearing nice lipstick, that always helps. I will doodle and potter after the photos are done, and wait for 13 Year Old Son to come home after football practice in the rain, for 16 Year Old Son to come home from college in London (I'm on a train to Inverness could you come and get me?) and 19 Year Old Daughter to come to a Station Near Here at 10pm tonight in order to watch a dvd with us tomorrow morning and then go back to her own world. Grandma comes for tea tomorrow afternoon and Alan comes after his tennis. All next week there are meetings and decisions to be made. How exciting it all is but Oh. Just one day off.
http://www.antoniarolls.co.uk/ for my website with examples of paintings
antonia.rolls1@btinternet.com if you want to contact me
I need a day off. It is raining fit to wash Bognor off the map. I am tired through much socialising and tired through much Exhibition-ing and tired through much painting. Add to this a little overeating and a spot of overcycling, and you get a droopy, well meaning but rather pathetic artist and mother who just needs Housework Fairies to appear and do all the chores. A Taxi Fairy to take over the car and an inspired and committed Events Organiser Fairy to do the rest of the Angels and Graceful Death exhibitions. And then a Bubble Bath Fairy a Pot of Tea Fairy and an Early Night Fairy to share the rest of the work between them. With of course the Chocolate Cake Fairy. She is a Given.
I have just been to Middleton to collect the old bit of tree my artist friend has kept for me. I am using it in the Graceful Death exhibition on which to tie ribbons of rememberance. I have a photographer from our local paper coming to the studio soon and I am worried I will not look on top of things. I am worried it will look as if the real artist had to go to an important meeting about being very successful somewhere else and has asked their rather dim friend to stand in and look the part. "No one will know" says the successful artist as she dances to the door with grace and energy. "Just wear old clothes and say things like 'Oh the Muse, the Muse' and 'Yes, I cannot describe nor explain' and look through the window into the middle distance. Byee. Gotta go, got lunch with the Queen and Simon Cowell" and off goes successful artist leaving droopy inarticulate but well meaning artist-stand-in to impress the photographer.
It will be fine. I am wearing nice lipstick, that always helps. I will doodle and potter after the photos are done, and wait for 13 Year Old Son to come home after football practice in the rain, for 16 Year Old Son to come home from college in London (I'm on a train to Inverness could you come and get me?) and 19 Year Old Daughter to come to a Station Near Here at 10pm tonight in order to watch a dvd with us tomorrow morning and then go back to her own world. Grandma comes for tea tomorrow afternoon and Alan comes after his tennis. All next week there are meetings and decisions to be made. How exciting it all is but Oh. Just one day off.
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