Sunday 21 January 2018
Tuesday 2 January 2018
12 days of Christmas
"Listen, I need you to do something for me. I need you to tell them after I'm gone..."
How did I ever think that on a day like today I'd finish it? Her decade as well...the subconscious has a way of intertwining the new and the old and so will I. There is no point in going against, I will follow the stream and it will take me where I need to go. Swept away by a velvety blue. This will contain both the beginning and the end of my journey through the spirits of Christmas. I call this my 12 days of Christmas.
"I really thought I would be the first one to make this phone call..my heart..my recklessness."
The first three people were made in such detail, I had energy and ambition for them! It is far easier to make the house fit the people than to make the people fit the house and it seems like a more realistic way to go about it. I wanted their faces to be expressive in an exaggerated way, like in the caricatures I saw at the exhibition, slightly real but slightly ridiculous. Only one is based on a real person, I call him Geoffrey. I don't particularly like the lady, but the little boy made me laugh to tears! Those teeth..!
"Hey, do you remember that first night? on your balcony. That book was so hilarious!"
The houses grew out of just two pictures of opposite sides of Petty Cury from the 1870's so I took some artistic liberties. Petty Cury in the 1850's wasn't a particularly good place to live, it was full of backstreet slums and very old houses but it had shops and was one of the streets leading to the market place. I wanted to make a picturesque street with sharp edges.
There is the bakers, mrs Lovett, with the Christmas food display. "He regarded it as her greatest achievement since their marriage." A quote from a Christmas carol. Now, that is supposed to be said by one of the "nice guys" so it really sets the tone here! Forget the children and any ambitions mrs Cratchit might be having, it's the dinner that counts.
Next to the bakery is the passageway for carriges arriving to the inn.
In case you haven't noticed though, after you are done shopping for puddings and pies you can always have a shave upstairs. Blood splatter is only coincidental.
"Of course I don't..I would do the very same thing. I will love you forever, remember that."
Walk a little further and you come to the seamstress and toy shop. It's the same house..or is it? The way into the toy shop is through the passage way so you'll have to wait until the morning but the seamstresses door is always open. Not literally. It is now because someone is about to close the door after putting down all those presents. There is a fire lit upstairs. A red scarf and a silhouette framed on the wall. The sign, not in colour, oh no, not in the 1850's, tells us very clearly there is no sewing machine involved in the making of the dresses. On the back it tells another story... While becoming a city seamstress was popular, it allowed you to keep your femininity, it was hard and often led to prostitution. As if not everything did...
Outside the toy shop there is a snowball fight going on! One child in the window and another hiding in the passageway. A man hit by an accidental snowball has dropped his hat. Who knows where that came from... The teenage girl notices nothing, she is mesmerised by the toys in the window, the marbles most of all. And the dominoes. "the true meaning of Christmas: consumerism!" proclaims the text behind the curtains. It was after all the Victorians that created our notion of Christmas.
"I will wait for you on the other side. Good night..."
Lastly we come to the Public house, the inn, the Falcon. This is allegedly a pub that was on Petty Cury at this time, I have taken a guess and set it in the largest house. On the street the two first people meet. Her crinoline makes her impossible to reach, there were popular jokes advising husbands to register their wives at the fire insurance company. "Hands off barmaids". Much like with the little girl of a chimney sweep I like the idea of that not even then could rigid sexism and gender roles have been 100% enforced. It wasn't a time of industrious improvement and women burning up in their wide skirted fashions all the time. It was a time of children falling asleep on gin but somewhere, if only just once, maybe not even for good, something slips through the cracks. In the windows of the pub there are only shadows. But on the second floor a faint purple light and two travel bags. One like the male version of the other. The window is open and curtains fall out...
How did I ever think that on a day like today I'd finish it? Her decade as well...the subconscious has a way of intertwining the new and the old and so will I. There is no point in going against, I will follow the stream and it will take me where I need to go. Swept away by a velvety blue. This will contain both the beginning and the end of my journey through the spirits of Christmas. I call this my 12 days of Christmas.
"I really thought I would be the first one to make this phone call..my heart..my recklessness."
"So did I. But it seems it's not working out that way."
The first three people were made in such detail, I had energy and ambition for them! It is far easier to make the house fit the people than to make the people fit the house and it seems like a more realistic way to go about it. I wanted their faces to be expressive in an exaggerated way, like in the caricatures I saw at the exhibition, slightly real but slightly ridiculous. Only one is based on a real person, I call him Geoffrey. I don't particularly like the lady, but the little boy made me laugh to tears! Those teeth..!
"Hey, do you remember that first night? on your balcony. That book was so hilarious!"
The houses grew out of just two pictures of opposite sides of Petty Cury from the 1870's so I took some artistic liberties. Petty Cury in the 1850's wasn't a particularly good place to live, it was full of backstreet slums and very old houses but it had shops and was one of the streets leading to the market place. I wanted to make a picturesque street with sharp edges.
There is the bakers, mrs Lovett, with the Christmas food display. "He regarded it as her greatest achievement since their marriage." A quote from a Christmas carol. Now, that is supposed to be said by one of the "nice guys" so it really sets the tone here! Forget the children and any ambitions mrs Cratchit might be having, it's the dinner that counts.
Next to the bakery is the passageway for carriges arriving to the inn.
In case you haven't noticed though, after you are done shopping for puddings and pies you can always have a shave upstairs. Blood splatter is only coincidental.
"Of course I don't..I would do the very same thing. I will love you forever, remember that."
Walk a little further and you come to the seamstress and toy shop. It's the same house..or is it? The way into the toy shop is through the passage way so you'll have to wait until the morning but the seamstresses door is always open. Not literally. It is now because someone is about to close the door after putting down all those presents. There is a fire lit upstairs. A red scarf and a silhouette framed on the wall. The sign, not in colour, oh no, not in the 1850's, tells us very clearly there is no sewing machine involved in the making of the dresses. On the back it tells another story... While becoming a city seamstress was popular, it allowed you to keep your femininity, it was hard and often led to prostitution. As if not everything did...Outside the toy shop there is a snowball fight going on! One child in the window and another hiding in the passageway. A man hit by an accidental snowball has dropped his hat. Who knows where that came from... The teenage girl notices nothing, she is mesmerised by the toys in the window, the marbles most of all. And the dominoes. "the true meaning of Christmas: consumerism!" proclaims the text behind the curtains. It was after all the Victorians that created our notion of Christmas.
"I will wait for you on the other side. Good night..."
Lastly we come to the Public house, the inn, the Falcon. This is allegedly a pub that was on Petty Cury at this time, I have taken a guess and set it in the largest house. On the street the two first people meet. Her crinoline makes her impossible to reach, there were popular jokes advising husbands to register their wives at the fire insurance company. "Hands off barmaids". Much like with the little girl of a chimney sweep I like the idea of that not even then could rigid sexism and gender roles have been 100% enforced. It wasn't a time of industrious improvement and women burning up in their wide skirted fashions all the time. It was a time of children falling asleep on gin but somewhere, if only just once, maybe not even for good, something slips through the cracks. In the windows of the pub there are only shadows. But on the second floor a faint purple light and two travel bags. One like the male version of the other. The window is open and curtains fall out...
"..strangely familiar."
"A little bit of fantasy is a good thing"
The snow has fallen on this street but it isn't quite finished. It needs a street sign. At least one, probably more people are missing...There are a few more days of Christmas. Maybe til then...
"Be serious - just for a moment."
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