OCA Changeing Lives Exhibition

Yesterday I drove through from the Wild West (of Scotland) to the Erudite East to submit three paintings into an Open College of the Arts (OCA) exhibition at Ocean Terminal, Leith Docks, Edinburgh.
I could have submitted three more recent paintings but I didn't really have anything else created under the auspices of the OCA. These three were done circa 2005 when I last painted anything for the "Painting 2: Finding Your Way" Course, or as I like to term it: "Painting 2: Losing Your Way". I lost all confidence in my painting at that time, although when I look back I now feel perhaps I shouldn't have.
Ce'st la vie, can't re-live time, I can only move forward from here. And these are what I chose to put into this exhibition:



All three are painted in acrylics on paper, and framed in natural wood.

The exhibition space is not ideal, being 3 or 4 stories up on a kind of top-level open gallery of a shopping mall with the paintings displayed high on widely spaced columns. I'll go back there again next week and take some photo's to show you what I mean. Still, I understand it is almost impossible to get affordable gallery space anywhere in our nation's capital city, or anywhere for that matter.
So, I shouldn't complain - I am just happy to have three paintings hanging anywhere in public at the moment without me nailed up there beside them :o{

First Album

I must be off my head - this has taken me just about all day to assemble but I'm sure you'll a' think it's worth it and be clamouring for copies!

And it is Melanie at My Croft that's all to blame. You see I was checking to see if she was back blogging again and sure enough there she was, the wee lamb, blethering away about this fabby new Blogger-Land game she herself was caught up in and I thought it was brilliant too!

The game is to follow a set of instructions and randomly come up with the name of your band, the title of your first album, and the cover artwork. This is doing the rounds so I'll give a mention to those from whence it apparently has come:
66squarefeet
Secretnotebookswildpages , and
moreidlethoughts


And here are the instructions:
To create your own band name and album cover, follow these easy instructions from m. heart:
1. Click wikipedia. The first random article you get is the name of your band.

2. Click quotations. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3. Click flicker. Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4. Use Photoshop (or similar) to put it all together.

Anyway, here's my take on it:

"Emotions are Violent" by Danskammer.



Danskammer Point Light is, of course, a lighthouse sitting out on some exposed coastal headland near New York (I'm sure you know it well Melanie?), and the quote comes from W.Somerset Maugham - "When you're eighteen your emotions are violent but they're not durable".

And the excellent photo of a lovely lassie is by Stink Poop on Flickr.

I thought the three parts came together rather well with the Scandanavian name, the coldly lit girl, and the raw emotional tag.

Anyway if all of that hasn't made you weep yet, then this will: My first track on the album will be "La Campursita" by Gerardo Matos Rodriguez, played deftly on an A+ Moon mandolin by that Plucky Plectrum all the way from East Kilbride -
yours truly, "Wee Davey Twangathon" :




[standing ovation and thunderous applause]

Thank you, thank you, thank you, don't throw flowers, just throw money!

Les Ballets Trocadero de Monte Carlo

Absolutely fantastic!

Ballet Trocadero at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow.

What a show, what movement, what colour, what grace, what technique, what broad shoulders!

These guys were just fantastic..a brilliant parody on female ballerina's, and their facial expressions as well :o{

The dying swan from Swan Lake was...to die laughing for, with his/her tutu shedding feathers like a hen being plucked!

I cannot really do any justice to the fun and amazement this bunch of guys provided, but, for what it's worth, here goes:
















If only I was 40 years younger and didn't give a toss!

Change of Name.

Having thought this ower for a few days (who said ah wisnae quick?) ah hae decided that "Sleekit" is far too derogatory a term fur sich a nice lady from New Zealand, whom I hardly even ken (yet).
So, since it's ma game and ah can dae whit ah like, ah'm gonnae gae her a new nom-de-plume: Hens Forth she sall be lumbered wi'...Lady Neeps!!! Yayyyyyayayay!!!

So, wi' Lady Haggis, and now Lady Neeps, a' that's needed is fur us tae find a 'Lord, or Lady Tatties'.

Any offers oot there?

Anybody daft enough?

Ye ken whit ye huv tae dae!

Dinnae be shy :o)

Lady Sleekit!

And my second award for services to the Scottish Vernacular goes to...dinahmow (http://moreidlethoughts.wordpress.com/)! Yayyy!!!




She is only the second person (with an empty brain) to receive this prestigous accolade, and from Hens Forth will be known as...Lady Sleekit (as in "Wee sleekit, cowrin', tim'rous beastie) frae Aft Agley (as in "the best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley").

Keep up the guid work, hen!

Happy 250th Birthday Rabbie!

Jacqueline, Pencil on paper, circa 1975


"My love is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June :
My love is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in love am I :
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun :
And I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only love,
And fare thee weel a while !
And I will come again, my love,
Thou’ it were ten thousand mile."

Happy 250th birthday Rabbie!

It also happens to be my mothers birthday, even though she's gone these past 20 years.

Very Bad

It’s very strange how words, often spoken in jest, can come back and bite you on the arm - literally.
Last week when I replied to comments from ‘Susans’ I quoted Mae West with her famous words - “When I’m good I’m good, but when I’m bad I’m very bad!”. Now I don’t know who is the worst here but when Sparky’s increasingly aggressive behaviour towards me reached a scary pitch I had no choice but to return him to the cattery.
The first couple of incidents I just passed off as initial nervousness by him at being in a whole new environment with people he didn’t know yet, but as the week progressed he started attacking me, hissing and baring his teeth and lashing out. In the first major attack he managed to claw my forehead with deep cuts, just above my left eye, and in the second, while I was preparing a bedtime meal for him, he launched himself off the kitchen unit and bit me on my arm. I threw him off but still he was hissing and snarling, facing up to me. I don’t know what I did to provoke this but it left me badly shaken. Next morning when I came down to give him breakfast he was still bristling at me and made to go for my leg. I couldn’t handle this and no longer trusted him wondering when next he would turn on me. Although he hadn’t attacked Jacqui yet, apart from a bit of hissing, I couldn’t allow that to happen - she would freak out if it did and I thought it was only a matter of time. I decided there and then that I had to return him to the cattery which I did on Saturday. It broke my heart. I feel so sorry for him. We were told he had behavioural problems without specifying what they were and I just thought it was finding himself in a Rescue Centre cage with lots of strange people and noise - nothing a bit of TLC wouldn’t cure. So now I am without a cat again and don’t know if and when I will try again.
A sorry tale, and one that causes me a lot of sadness and pain, but another experience of life which I have learned much from.