Tag Archives: bottled art

Shards of Glass….

45 Replies

….flew across the room when I flicked on the light switch in my studio. The lightbulb had exploded. I sighed and went to the kitchen for a dustpan and brush. Thankfully no glass had become precariously lodged in the ceiling. Those days were long gone. Or were they? Were these frequent near death experiences related to a bygone era? A long-lost plot? An unfinished paragraph that I had begun in 2006? I gazed into the middle distance and looked thoughtful.

Some hours later, after I had finished thinking and looking pretty at the same time, I ascended the stairs to my purpose-built garret at the bottom of the garden. They were still there where I had left them some years previously – a large cardboard box, and an old thick notebook stuffed with diagrams, maps, menus and all manner of paper ephemera. There was nothing more in the garret other than these items. I lifted the flaps on the box, faded, dry, and dusty, and counted the bottles within, there were two missing, which was no surprise. I pulled out the smallest, the first one I’d made. It contained a wax effigy pierced with pins. I rolled my eyes, how stupid of me to make the effigy using my own hair and clothes.

wax-effigy-in-bottle-on-mantelpiece

On my mantelpiece today….

“I had misguidedly seen fit to use my own hair and clothing to produce the wax effigy, all silly superstitious fears had been pushed aside as I dispassionately pierced the effigy of myself with pins.”

wax-effigy-in-bottle-uk

No wonder I have tinnitus….

It seems I had unwittingly cursed myself with misfortune. Thankfully during my long spell of thinking I had had a couple of interesting thoughts. Perhaps all was not lost. Perhaps I was taking these explosive mishaps a little too literally? Perhaps the mishaps were merely signs? Signs to tell me that I was on the wrong track; signs telling me to return to where it all began.

To be continued. Maybe.

The Big Idea (Tales from Luddley-cum-Mogwash part 5)

11 Replies
bottle-art-trinkets-in-a-bottle-uk

Greed

As Sebastian sat huddled in the bus shelter, drowning his sorrows in a bottle of Campari, hiding from marauding Mogwashian Mimers; Moonchild Etherington-Smythe was conversing with her ironing board and was expressing ironing boardness onto canvas. As Taramind Dewhurst took delivery of twelve pink sponges decorated with assorted plugs and plugholes and puzzled over the instability of representation; I was sitting at my kitchen table next to an ancient Rayburn, in my cosy country kitchen designing a website as an exhibition space for my bottles.

Although viewing life from different perspectives, what Sebastian, Moonchild, Taramind and myself all shared was belief in our own personal vision. At long last I had conceived what I considered to be ‘The Big Idea’. In my hands I held a glittering bottle, a smorgasbord of treasured trinkets, a bottle filled with priceless family heirlooms. This was a bottle of ‘Greed’. It was time (1.05am) to hide this bottle within the vicinity of Luddley-cum-Mogwash . . . time to put my cunning plan into action . . . of course it’d been done before, but what the hell . . .

Overwhelmed with gleeful delight at my sheer brilliance, I buried the bottle of Greed. It was sometime later that the fatal flaw, or to be more precise, flaws in my plan became apparent to me. In my excitement I had neglected to tell anyone of my fiendish scheme, furthermore, even if I had, I had left no indication as to how the bottle could be located. I hung my head in shame, how could I have been so stupid?

bottle-art-greed-uk

Greed

And so was born the cunning plan within the cunning plan. Via my excellent website www.wonky-words.com I would leave my faithful loyal viewers a series of ingenious clues, engaging them in a fascinating, insightful, often informative, and some might say challenging journey, which would eventually lead to the ultimate reward, the bottle of Greed . . .

29 November 2006

How To Make Friends and Influence People (Tales from Luddley-cum-Mogwash, part 1)

3 Replies

10 November 2006

bottled-cruelty-winnie-the-pooh-in-a-bottle-devon-uk

Cruelty

My arrival in the village of Luddley-cum-Mogwash was greeted with general indifference from the local community, I tried to join village societies but more often than not the help I offered was firmly rejected. I secretly hoped that this was because I was more Top-Shop Treacle Tart in a clapped out Peugeot than Boden Yummy Mummy in a Sherman Tank, but, in fairness, I think it had more to do with me being a complete outsider and interloper. Indeed, because of my lowly status it had become something of a village sport to avoid all forms of communication with me; maximum points were awarded to those who could tease me with overtures of friendship, luring me into the trap of leaving never to be returned messages on answering machines.

One neighbour however, had noticed my plight. Sebastian St. Johnson, a lentil munching, idealistic sociology graduate adopted me as his ‘good cause’. Believing that I was from Essex, he had taken it upon himself to extend the breadth of my general knowledge. Speaking deliberately slowly and dropping the odd ‘aitch so as not to intimidate me, he explained to me complicated concepts such as ‘democracy’, ’social identity’ and the cultural relevance of ‘The Archers’.

wnnie-the-pooh-bottled-art-2006-devon-uk-cruelty-bottled-feeling

Cruelty

Sebastian was a newcomer himself, blessed with boyish good looks and considerable charm; it was with envy that I witnessed his meteoric rise through the echelons of village power. Within six months of his arrival he had taken control of several important committees including: The Used T-bag Collectors Club, The Mogwash Mimers and the Watercolourists by Moonlight Society. All this, it later transpired, so that he could gain a seat on the parish council, his first step on the political rung to possible World domination.

I considered my position and realised my predicament… it was highly likely that I would be a good six foot under before being clasped to the bosom of the Mogwash community…  presuming that they would allow me into the cemetery….