Tag Archives: Taramind Dewhurst

An Error of Sorts….

24 Replies

1st April 2015

bottle-of-love-uk

Bottled Love…

I winced as I read the comments on my previous post. How could I have made such a glaring error? No, not the one about the lion feasting on caribou… but the one that alluded to time travel. Thanks to the wonders of modern day technology I could, and would, rectify my omission. But this was not the same as getting it right the first time and my legion of readers, followers, trolls, pixies, and people who regularly clicked onto my website looking for a crossword solution [please see Calligraphy Tip No. 1 – Thickening Downstrokes], had been left bemused, baffled, perplexed and perhaps even a little befuddled. This was not what they had come to expect from me.

My head hurt a little as I fiddled around in my WordPress dashboard, I was still recovering from my Easter over indulgence and felt a bit sick, but a post had to be written, mistakes had to be corrected, relevant quotations had to be found, a Pot Noodle had to be photographed, a used teabag had to be ironed, the sound of a vacuum cleaner had to be recorded, and invitations had to be delivered…

An Invitation of Sorts….

27 Replies

8th April 2015

Taramind Dewhurst, the immaculately groomed curator of The Onion Gallery, held the envelope in her grubby little hands. She had always had small hands, even as a child, they were delicate but had a firm grasp on her paperwork. She turned the envelope over and caressed her name and address, which felt raised, as if embossed.

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A double constrictor knot…

Not printed then, she purred, knitting her brows into a double constrictor knot, which is unflattering on anyone of any age. Taramind was familiar with the craft of calligraphy and it was not a craft that she particularly cared for, she preferred the clean lines and balanced features of printed fonts, but she had to concede that this calligraphy had an awkward, yet modern charm. She hesitated before ripping the envelope open, as a lion would do before feasting on a caribou, and tried to guess the nature of the invitation, because surely this had to be an invitation?
She reached across her desk for her letter opener. Taking the antique bronze dagger from its sheath she made an opening incision, thus removing precisely 2mm from the top of the envelope. Within the envelope were two pieces of brown cardboard that were taped together to protect the inner content. With a concentration that caused her brows to knit once more, this time into a pair of socks, Taramind picked at the tape with her manicured nails. Two hours and one broken nail later, Taramind placed the contents on her blotter.
What sort of game is this? She wondered in italics. Why would anyone send her a photograph of a Pot Noodle? She turned the photograph over. There was a date, 21st November 2045, and an address for a village hall in a place called Mogwash….

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An invitation of sorts….

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

11 Replies
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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?

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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

The Cultural Relevance of Pot Noodle (A moment of self doubt)

8 Replies
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Pain

My attempts to curry favour with gallery owners and curators are best described as ill advised moments of insanity. Possibly for personal amusement, Taramind Dewhurst, the Chloe clad, immaculately groomed curator of ‘The Onion’ gallery, sacrificed some time to see me.

Ushering me towards a vast fibreglass sculpture of what appeared to be a rabid representation of a cat in decline, Taramind purred, “It’s sublime isn’t it? Such a poignant reference to the transient quality of life and the finality of death in such an inescapable way”.

I adopted what I considered to be a knowledgeable pose and nodded sagely. Tracing a finger across the belly of the cat, Taramind turned to me, a smile playing on her glossy lips, “So tell me about your bottles”.

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Misery. Time to hit the bottle and get smashed.

I managed to cobble together a stuttering of words relating to semiotics, structuralism and of my position within popular culture, but I knew I was out of my depth. Taramind gazed at me, slightly flirtatiously, but with just about the right amount of derision to ensure the onset of an anxiety attack.

Sometime later, whilst recovering in my car it occurred to me that if Picasso was a culinary four course extravaganza, served in only the best restaurants in town, then I was the artistic equivalent of Pot Noodle, a grubby secret, instantly gratifying but leaving no lasting impression. I recognised my place in the food chain, something had to be done and so began the machinations of my masterplan.

17 November 2006