mushrooms or doves?

Grumpy as a seal in the afterlife really

It’s mildly amusing to see ourselves as ‘Grumpy Old Women’ or ‘Grumpy Old Men’ – there’s a tv show so it’s valid to feel this way…. But we aren’t grumpy because we are old.

I was a grumpy teenager. I couldn’t understand why I had to share the world with Ronald Reagan, Lang Hangcock and Idi Amin or why people thought it was perfectly reasonable to bop creatures on the head and strip them bloodily of their skins while they are probably still alive. But I’m just grumpy I guess.

semi irrational thoughts

why can't we all just be nice to one another

On art

I like doing art. I like looking at art. I like watching artists do art. I’m interested in what artists think. I’m generally not greatly interested or impressed by writing about art – there have been exceptions, but few and far between and life is too short really.

I like making things. I like thinking while making these things and later when I look at what I’ve made, I can see what I was thinking about. Not sure if anyone else can; hopefully they get something from it (but do I really care?).

Art made about art bores me; but each to their own. I prefer art about life, politics, society, people, dreams, science… and about thoughts, feelings and emotions. I like to see things that I haven’t seen before. A sense of wonder is part of the whole experience.

When I go to a gallery I get a great deal of satisfaction from ‘busy’ art with more than one concept going on – or at least a concept that can be explored a bit. But art is not the same in a gallery as in a home. Some mild-mannered pieces of art sit on a wall for years and they grow upon you gradually until you find them indispensable to your life.

I’m always surprised by other people’s blank walls. Maybe I’m not getting it – could that be the ultimate in art minimalism and indispensable to their lives?