This week I had the kind of email I had been expecting from all my on-line orders. Something along the lines of, awfully sorry you can’t have your (object of choice) even though you’ve probably paid for it, because this pandemic business has made filling your order impossible. The reality is that this, so far has only happened once, in this case from the greenhouse we ordered back in April. They took the money and probably would have run but they’re in lockdown.
All other orders came promptly and in some cases a little too promptly. Amazon have been amazing. I ordered 3 books on the Friday. I received their response saying the books would be with me about the end of June I think. I never order Prime because I think it’s a rip-off. So I’m quite happy to wait for my allocated delivery slot. I got an email on Saturday saying it would come on the following Monday. Then one almost immediately saying my books were coming that day. And they did and this wasn’t the first time.
Similarly, our Sky box arrived a day early. In this case it was a problem because we were away but planning to get home in time to receive it and for them to do whatever needs doing to a Sky box. As we weren’t in they helpfully left it in the garden. They must have very good weather-forecasters because after two very hot days about half an hour after we got home it started to piss it down. Sky boxes must be waterproof.
Admittedly, Mrs Summerhouse’s iPad lead ordered several weeks ago hasn’t arrived yet but I assume that’s because it’s coming from China and they’re trying to punish us for something Trump did. And yes IKEA still hold the record for the weeks it took their photo frames to arrive. But overall we’ve been pleasantly surprised at the promptness of arrival of our orders.
There is just one item that arrived in very good time, just 3 days after placing the on-line order. This was an item that I wished had been delayed. This was the item above. The more perceptive of you and those with good eyesight, will see from the photo below that it is the easel I ordered in an effort to restart my ‘career’ as an artist.
The fact that it is still, about two weeks after arrival, in its box, gives a clue that this brilliant lockdown scheme and a clever use of our newly water-proofed garage hasn’t been a runaway success. Despite Mrs SH’s continual prompting and useful suggestions, I have remained inert in this area. She even brought back from her barn / studio several large, bright, squeezy tubes of paint for me to use. Oh, and also a very large canvas which she has bequeathed to me.
Mrs SH is kind enough to remind me of the time when she re-started her artistic efforts and how I tried to be helpful by being incredibly encouraging. I bought her paints and canvases at one end of the spectrum of sophistication and a WACOM drawing pad in case she needed an electronic approach. Not to mention a later iPad with David Hockney app.
She admitted that she found it very difficult to take that first step into the artistic unknown and that all my helpfulness merely increased the pressure she felt upon her. But she is now engaged in precisely the same process.
I just cannot seem to get started. This brilliant idea of going back to my art college roots*, the wheel turning full circle and a dozen other clichés, all of which appear to be insufficient to get me started on lockdown project 351. Or whatever the number.
There have been plenty of them, projects that is, and for the most part, greenhouse excepted, they’ve gone quite well. So why has this particular monkey remained resolutely attached to my back? Mrs Summerhouse has been steaming ahead on the arts front. She’s posted two doodle blogs and with the strong likelihood of number three being posted this coming Friday.
Perhaps every social bubble is allocated only a certain amount of creative artistic-ness and she’s used all of our designated amount. Hmm, I might have something there.
To get that elusive quality, inspiration, I’ve tried resurrecting my old art college slides of paintings 50 or more years old. Somewhere I’ve even got my old sketch books for such things were de rigeur in those art college days. I doubt that they still are. I’ve looked through dozens of photos for inspiration. Looked at pictures in books of the work of favourite artists (I’ve given you a couple of examples of art from the Futurist movement above – Roberto M Baldessari and below, Luigi Russolo, one day I’ll explain why I like them so much) and at the many actual works of art we have on our walls. But nothing so far.
So taking that first step in the visual art field is proving very difficult. The writing – a short story submitted to a competition, book published, blogs still going although reduced to two a week, even a podcast on the way – is going along fine. So literary-wise, fairly prolific but the visual arts, not even on the runway let alone ready for take-off. I will through this retirement blog of course keep you informed of any progress or lack of.
*My plan, on leaving art college, was to train as an art therapist. There was only one college in the country that had a one-year qualification in this discipline. St Albans I believe it was. Don’t know whether it’s still there? I wasn’t entirely sure that’s what I wanted to do but I did know that I wasn’t talented enough to make a living as an artist and I certainly didn’t want to be an art teacher, so this seemed like a possible option.
My uncertainty was based on the fact that much of art therapy was, at that time, based on Freudian and Jungian psychology. I didn’t have much time for that type of psychology (a bit too speculative for my taste at the time). But then they wouldn’t give me another grant to study in this area anyway. After 4 years they probably thought I’d had enough free-loading. Compared with today’s student financing they would certainly have been right. They did however agree to fund my one year teacher training course. And so my life, after being an art student, unfolded, although not as an art teacher. 50 years later, art in the garage? A life turned full circle? Not as yet.
