Today’s good thing was bringing this painting home.
It was done, on canvas, by David Ranson.
David is an artist who came to painting after he had a stroke.
I’d call him a compulsive painter.
He experiments, in the truest sense of the word.
This big cockatoo was on a stretcher but we cut it off and David mounted it in this IKEA 70x100.
I am giving him a Cow Shitting Pretty hand coloured print.
He’s giving it to his wife.
This mornings highlight.
Me-What do you think of George Galloway?
Merilyn-Oh my god, I hate him! He’s a mysoginist. You can imagine he’s got really perverse sexual tendencies that involve animals.
Laura-Oh my god, he’s like a Victorian confidence trickster.
Me-Oh, okay.
Ways of coping living in a tiny town where no one ever/rarely buys/looks at your paintings/drawings.
6. Quality, not Quantity.
Well that’s my motto, anyway.
Friends, clothing, food.
But particularly in the production of art.
Prolific whilst being particular.
Today’s good thing was a chat with Bill and Janet from Banbury, who are probably the only people EVER to come into my studio and NOT say, ooooh, these must take you a long time to do.
'We usually go to Chipping Norton for Arts Weeks,' Janet said, but we missed it this year and came here instead, '
Bill particularly liked my Anti-Pope drawing.
I’m always slightly anxious about how it will be received, as it calls Benedict the Filth a plague-mongering, pedophile-protecting nazi boy (I have such a disliking for the Pope and all his nonsense, I made a little film about him)
'You like that, don't you?' said Janet to Bill while Bill was smiling and looking at The Pope.
'I think Richard Dawkins would like it too,' said Bill.
'Yeh,' I said, 'and probably Sam Harris and hopefully Christopher Hitchens.'
Then Janet asked for my card.
'Chris would like these,' she said to me and Bill, telling me Chris was their son.
'Well, I hope he does,' I said as they were going out the door.
'He will,' said Janet, 'oh, yes he will.'
And then, because I sincerely meant it, I said, ‘Pop in next time you’re in town. We usually have a sofa here and I’ll make you a cup of tea.
The Pope Print £50
70x100cm
Fits a £20 70x100cm IKEA Ribba frame (looks good in the white one)
Postage included
Get in touch at lebusque(at)me.com if you want one
Ways of coping living in a tiny town where no one ever/rarely buys/looks at your paintings/drawings.
5. Draw and ignore.*
If I worked as like, a personal banker, say, people wouldn’t just show up at my desk and sit down and start talking to me, interrupting me without an appointment, start telling me their personal problems or stories about their grandchildren or hemorrhoids.
So why do they do it to me in my studio?
They do it because they think being an artist ISN’T A PROPER JOB.
That’s why.
They think we run to no timetable and are therefore available whenever for whatever.
And then they say things like, ‘oh, how lovely it would be to just sit around drawing all day!’
Yeh, they’re right.
It is lovely to come and sit around and draw all day.
It’s divine coming to a studio all day, every day, thinking up stuff to do, good stuff, stuff with merit, stuff you will get judged on.
I’ve worked in an office, and a hardware shop, and a pub and a call centre and I’d never ever want to go back, not even for the pay cheque that people who work in ‘proper’ jobs get that us artists don’t.
But next time you want to pop in on an artist, think about whether you would want to be popped in on if you had your head under the bonnet of a car changing …whatever you do or counting out hundred pound bills….or…..
Actually, you probably would want to be interrupted.
Today’s good thing was an unexpected discussion about death that I had in the Co op with a lovely woman whose son and granddaughter I know well.
Both of us had experience unexpected deaths of close family members.
As the discussion was winding down she said, and even though I have only ever met her once before in my life. -‘Come around any time you want to talk,’
'I will,' I said, I'll come for a tea if you don't mind,'
'Yes, do,' she said.
'Funny thing,' I said, 'is that sometimes it's easier to be with people you don't know because they don't expect you to be how you were before the death because they didn't even know you before,'
'Yes,' she said, 'exactly.
And then she gave me a hug and I felt more connected-up and understood than I have in weeks.
*Drawing by Amy Waters
There’s nothing I am expert at.
That’s why I don’t write posts that pass comment on politics or religion or the state of education or Dick Cleggerons education policy or budget cuts.
The only thing I really know anything about is my family, and that’s only because I’ve been in it for so long.
I know my place in the family tree, on what branch I sit.
I know WHO the individual members, and I know HOW they are in relation to me.
I have an opinion of them; I like or don’t like them.
I know what they do but I don’t pretend to know their minds.
I’m making this little book about them.
I’ve shrunk family photos down, laid them out on a 6x4 inch template and then printed them out at Boots.
I then cut them into 4cm squares and, with photo corners that I picked off an old photo album I found at a car boot sale, stuck them into the book I made today from paper I got at the 99p shop.
Ways of coping living in a tiny town where no one ever/rarely buys/looks at your paintings/drawings.
4. Drag strangers into the studio to show you how to do things that you don’t know how to do.
Today Daniel came in to show us all how to hand make books with our own hands.
It was such a pleasure to have some input from an outsider that we’ve decided to keep him and will be displaying him every Thursday as our artist in residence.
So if you want to see a live illustrator, come on Thursdays between 9 and 3 and have a look at him.
Today’s good thing was an email from my best friend telling me how to deal with thrush.
Just in case, I repeat here-
"definately no alcohol
take acidophillus 10 billion ish is a good strength. no wiping from your back bottom to your frontno yeast bread or dairy
try that and lots of sleep can help. shower before bed, dirty girl.”
I ate 500gms of yoghurt, and had coffee for breakfast x 2, but no bread
The wiping bit; I generally follow the proscribed route.
And the alcohol? No chance.
I’ve seen the scans of my mother’s pancreas and liver.
That’s enough to put one off.
Today the bad wolf dined.
He dined on the filthy language and vengeful intent with which I filled this drawing-swine and fuck and cunt and oink and fuck head directed at those I feel have slighted me.
That naughty wolf dined so well that hopefully he will be too fat to feast for a while.
He might be dining because, though it’s informative and entertaining, I’ve gone back to listening to On Point and it doesn’t have that good-vibe-change-the world-for-the-better feel that TED.com has.
However, I feel the bad wolf dines primarily because of the messy way things ended up in Australia around my mother’s recent death.
I’m trying to resolve my ‘issues’ by drawing them.
Fuck knows if it will work.
Today’s good thing was a surprise visit from Amy Waters.
She has a studio here but doesn’t get in often because of her minimum wage paying job.
Today she told me of her trip to Cornwall where she jumped of cliffs and lived in a caravan with 7 artists for a week.
As she left her brain must have been muddled by the chlorine from the pool where she works and she called out ‘NICE’ instead of bye and we all laughed.
————————
This drawing had the working title of ‘You, My Friend, Are a 4 Letter Word and it is Not LOVE’.
However, I’ve had a midstream name change and decided on ‘I Can Say Anything I Want Because It’s Art’.
70x100cm black ink on Fabriano
Today’s good thing was a visit from a nice man called Adam and his daughter, Sarah.
I had a good laugh with them and Adam liked what he referred to as my Weeping Otter t-shirt.
In fact he liked it so much he wants to bring back a tee shirt and have me draw a weeping otter on it for him.
The other good thing was a comment on my film, Gay School (by a user called doomedamerica) which went something like this-“FAG FILTH…AMERICA IS DOOMED..FAGS DOOM NATIONS,GENESIS 19”
PS- Here’s Gay School Part II.
Today was kids drawing workshop in my studio.
I laid out a long piece of lining paper and lined up a load of drawing materials.
I had 2 rules-
1-put the lids back on the colouring pens.
2-put my lettering stamps back in their box in alphabetical order.
They followed the rules pretty well.
This coming Friday there will be another drawing workshop along with a badge making session.
