It's a funny thing...
When I stood in the V&A gift shop and knew for certain that I just had to buy the linocut kit, I had no real idea why.
It was only a couple of weeks later, as I was looking through the bookcase for something, or sorting out some papers and stuff, that I came across the catalogue for last year's Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and a memory pinged to the front of my brain from its place in the dusty archives.
We went to the RA exhibition last summer with K's parents (shamefully, I was neither fully aware of the RA's existence, nor had I visited it or the summer exhibition previously), and we had a wonderful day soaking up art, culture and inspiration (or at least, I did).
What I'd forgotten about that day was that, in the print room, I had fallen in love with a print. I can't remember it exactly, but I know that it was one of the cheapest items in the room, and also one of the most beautiful, and I wanted one (pretty much all the items on show are for sale, and in the print room, there's information about the size of the edition, so several people can buy a print, etc.). I wanted this thing with a kind of visceral longing that I rarely have for other people's art, and amazingly, it was within the kind of budget that we could have afforded.
I remember it being a green, oriental inspired, peaceful work, depicting a rain storm. I stood there for ages just staring at it. So simple and understated in a room full of works that competed with each other to be the most attention grabbing in the room. I absolutely loved it.
Tragically, it's beauty and relatively low price had conspired to deny me the consummation of that love and lust, because it was completely sold out. The hung original and all copies that made up the edition were accounted for by an amazingly long series of red dots (and if you don't think I stood there and counted, several times over just to make sure, then you don't know me very well at all).
So what?
Well, it was a lino-cut print.
In that time and place, a tiny seed was sown in my head, the unexpected consequence of which kicked in almost a year later.
I love it when that sort of thing happens.
More practical, I suspect, is the unexpected consequence of being temporarily frustrated with css bugs which results in spontaneous housework happening, but I think I prefer the art.
... the online home and (not very) alter(ed)-ego of Ann McMeekin, a recently freelance Web Accessibility Consultant.
... passionate about many things, most of which will turn up on this site at some time or other.
... contactable via email.
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