What I’m Doing Instead of the Thing I’m Supposed to be Doing
A golden September morning with forecasts predicting it will not last seems a good time to post a Guilty Pleasure.
Mine right now is looking at bad art, specifically bad art on sale in charity shops around the world. It can’t be downloaded from the internet or self-created. It has to be discovered by members of this private facebook group (ask to join).
As you can’t pop over and browse until the Admin oks your application, here’s a sample:
There are worse examples, some so bad they make your hair hurt while others are the touching result of a classroom project (parents keep them!) or an evening class.
Then every so often there’s a picture that is so good you can’t believe anyone could post it in the group. I mean really good, not I’m being-witty-by-hanging-this-in-my-downstairs-loo good. I mean a picture you’d love to have.
And it for forces you to consider art and perception and the nature of our creative lives. And the importance of paying more attention when you wander into a charity shop.
Then you go back to doing what you should be doing which for me is making a difficult phone call, reading a guide to writing non-fiction, researching Gothic literature and loading the dishwasher.
Oh, and getting dressed.
4 comments on “What I’m Doing Instead of the Thing I’m Supposed to be Doing”
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BRIDGET WHELAN writer 
it is the human figure which is the downfall of many an otherwise merely indifferent artist. the second one would be an unexciting but reasonable memory of somewhere visited but for the figure. You have to give the painter the credit for realising that a figure would enhance the interest of an otherwise indifferent view, an attempt to put the face at the intersection of thirds, and the fence and road to lead the eye in and the connurbation to lead it back to the figure. How someone doing everything right manages to get it so wrong is so sad. It could be improved by overpainting her to be the rear view of a lady with long dark hair, a red raincoat, and a red brolly. Darken the road, to paint out her feet which drangle off the edge, with a bit of a sheen to it to suggest the day is wet, add some interesting clouds to the boring sky and you’ve saved it.
Uh, I suppose you can’t guess I used to teach art.
The first one I’m not sure what the artist was trying to do but I like the boldness of it. There’s courage there. And for other reasons I am rather fond of the second one, although all your comments are valid and on this evidence alone I’d say you were a very good art teacher.
The one thing that gets me is that no bikini-clad woman would saunter down that country road, just as she wouldn’t wear wellies and a mac to the Costa del Sol in the height of summer. However, perhaps it is an attempt to capture the two kinds of holiday the subject enjoys – an ambitious idea but it’s hard to make it work.
I am a bad art fan and a perfect way to spend time when you feel you should be doing something else but need a short respite
Glad you agree, Beth!