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I was a bit disappointed this evening when I discovered that Mirinda told Louise that my art was not very good. They were having fika following Louise’s return from a second attempt at sailing with Oskar and discussing various other things. Little did I know that this included my adventures in Dada. I mentioned to Mirinda that she had no appreciation of ‘modern art’ so her opinion is moot.
And, speaking of art, here is one of the pieces I created today.
It is my attempt at a Dadaist collage. I have never made a collage before. This was another homework exercise. I enjoyed it more than, I think, any homework I’ve had to do before. In my naïveté I have been under the impression that ‘homework’ should be a chore to be endured.
If I was to indulge in a bit of self-criticism, I would suggest that the collage lacks a bit of mystery. It shouldn’t really be so obvious. Still…
The rest of my non-artistic day was spent basically in cutting grass under the blazing sun. At least there was a stiff breeze to cool things down for most of the daylight hours.
Then, late in the day, I had a rather mysterious email from Susan at FATN. She had taken a phone call at the studio from someone wanting to contact me about an article I’d written about someone from Steep. Susan sent me the contact details for the person asking for mine.
She was asking on behalf of her partner who then contacted me after my initial email asking for some clarification. The partner was a bit odd but I managed to get a scanned copy of the article in question.
The thing is, it turns out that the article was not written by me. Actually, the article was in a local paper and written by a journalist and quotes someone called Gerry Cook.
Obviously, I wrote back to the partner saying I was not Gerry and, therefore, did not write the piece which explained why I had no memory of it nor could I find any reference to anything in the article in this blog or the First World War database which contains a lot of my research.
The thing is, though, I want to know what the connection is between Gerry Cook and FATN which they contacted to get in touch with me. The partner said that the paper included a contact bit which was not part of the image he sent me. Presumably this had the FATN phone number and, when Susan answered the phone she thought the person said Gary Cook and, naturally, she thought of me. The original emailer did, after all, say she had a strong Midlands accent.
I don’t know. It is all very mysterious. Unlike my new-found artistic endeavours.
As well as collage and weird cabaret, the Dadaists liked to cut out different coloured shapes and drop them onto something and glue them down. This was nice and random and depended on chance to create something pleasing. Or not.
To demonstrate this method, here is my second piece for today.
In homage to the Dadaists before me, I didn’t glue the pieces down. Rather, I let them lie and took a photo then I scooped everything up and threw it away. And so, in true anti-art style, the original work no longer exists; only the photo remains.
Rest assured that this is the last of my homework. For this week.
I hear a sigh of relief.
