Wilton Moose's Head

I did a job at the Town Hall Hotel in Bethnal Green yesterday, once a town hall, now a swanky hotel all done up with a fair dollop of idiosyncratic art. Now I like idiosyncratic art, and I like seeing it in hotels, rather than having it languishing in private collections, because anybody can go and see it there. Of course the hotel won't tell you much, they aren't there to elucidate, unlike museums, they are only interested in decoration, interest, or whatever aura a work of art can lend, but at least you can see the stuff. And it's quite interesting to see it out of a museum or gallery context; this is art being used.

Anyway, I found this:

         

Just hidden around the corner from the main stairwell. This, to me, says everything about art in hotels and is particularly relevant to this one. Combining Wilton carpet and stag's head, both high status objects, conveying pretension to status, situated in a building transformed from municipal function into a commercial enterprise. The hotel is trying to attract high status clients, (blue-chip companies, et al.) and this object gently pokes fun at its pretension.

I found another connotation though, and I wonder if this is more what the artist originally meant. Perhaps you'll think it pretty tenuous, but I'll play with it anyway.

There is, in the London National Gallery, a famous and rare work of 14th century art, in the gothic style, called the Wilton Diptych. You can find more information about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilton_Diptych 

It was made for the unpopular English King, Richard II, on the outside is a picture of a white stag (or hart) which was his emblem. The artist is unknown, and is popularly called the Wilton master. His nationality is also unknown, and is quoted to be from 'every possible nation'. Perhaps it is possible that it was worked on in a studio by several artists, that being commonplace; the importance of individual artistic vision not being so relevant then, as it is today. Perhaps, this is a sort of elegy to that person, or people. A note that things are so very different now.

Is this okay? Yes, I think so. It is perfectly valid for a work of art to have more than one interpretation, they exist in the world as objects of their own volition, quite apart from the artist's intention, their meaning subtly changed by situation, and subsequent ownership.

If by any chance you know who made it the Wilton Stag, please don't hesitate to let me know.

Write

WRITE

Write.
Write a poem.
Visit all the castles in Wales
and write a book of tales.
Become obsessed with collecting porcelain

or brewing beer, or  cycling.

Train spotting goes unrecognised
As a useful waste of time.

Shoes:
Make a decent collection
and
you can wear them.

The shiny oblong: this

that doesn’t know you

exist.

(I’ve been a passive admirer)

Opportunity missed.

1st of the month

     I've been pretty good about doing a bit a day, and it's no good trying to write novel while I'm this busy, earning a crust and what have you, but what I'm trying to avoid doing, more than I am trying to make myself do anything, is not treat this blog, like my employers, from long long ago, treated their CCTV.
     They'd go home after a long day running the office, however complicated that got, and spend the evening watching what had been going on in their garden that day; all the squirrels, neighbour's cats shitting under bushes, that sort of thing. That must be a sign that you need to work less and take time to be in the actual garden.
     So I don't have CCTV, but I do have Stats, and I think Stats could be bad for me, I could end up watching them like they watched that CCTV.

Micro Story: 'Crows'

Have you ever seen how airplanes appear to hang totally motionless in the sky when your own speed and angle of travel countermands theirs? I've only seen it on the approach to London, from the A4, when the planes were perhaps a mile into their ascent from City Airport.

CROWS

The upper and greater of two crows angled itself explicitly into a bullet-shaped mark against a pearly-white strip of sky trapped beneath an ash-strapped darkened cloud. They glided precisely over the hedge, losing speed and height on a declining course, but from where I was, the first appeared to hang motionless for an improbably lengthened second.

You were sitting next to me when I last witnessed this optical pause in time and space. You won’t remember that though, your mind dwelt on more important things back then, and I hadn't said anything at the time; I didn’t want to distract you.

You won’t remember that morning. It was when the airplanes first flew again after that Icelandic volcano stopped all flights and we were driving to London to some or other meeting. The sky between the buildings was lemon tinted and from where we sat, in our angle of vision, because of the distance and our speed of travel, the planes appeared immobile again, but this time in the sky, as if they were painted on a mural. 

            For a moment I'd supposed they were model airplanes strategically placed between office blocks by a body of government wanting to reacclimatise us to the sight of human flight; to reassure us after many days of isolation that we would be reconnected.

Constantly anxious, I imagined reassurances but you gave them unasked, you were my personal government; a delicate chain of office, I imagined your effective management of my truths, imperfections, fey uncertainties and doubt.

I didn't doubt this crow; the control it exerted over its body against the wind was effortless.

It eventually floated into the corner of my watery eye, darker than India ink on coldpress paper, implacably solid, unreservedly precise. Its lower, lesser fellow, its doppelganger, flapped sluggishly after, untidy in its slipstream. Then there was nothing more than the road ruling onwards beside the brow of an arable field topped by a row of small silhouetted trees; three fat full stops.

I’m so sorry love; I should have flown today.

Poem #1: ‘The Alpha Mum’s Tale’ or ‘Everybody hates an overachiever’

She woke early, and so by Ten
Had raised two children
To an Oxbridge education.

To salve boredom then
She renovated property
Until Three.

And in the hour to Four,

Mastered the idiosyncrasies of law.

And by the strike of Seven came
Her novels numbered just the same.

Quickly the hour of Eight drew nigh

So she made a feast for Nine,
And had girlfriends round to dine.

Yet, although perfectly cooked
She’d been completely fXXked.

For her cooking spree could not have been
Less fondly seen.

So, by midnight she was dead
By her own hand. The note said,

‘Is nothing I do enough?’

Parent & baby DooDoo

Found this in a sketchbook which was in the pocket of a very underused suitcase which I have decided to take to Athens. Can't remember when I drew it or why a dismayed parent Dodo was amusing me at the time.