Would anyone like these?

I am still up to my pearls in decluttering.

Yesterday, film negatives,

today, very old newspapers.

Would you like to help me?

What do you find hardest to let go of?

Finnished*

keskiviikko 4. syyskuuta 2013

Tämä on minun lounas. Paahdettua punajuurta. 

Very nice. 

Ruisleipä liikaa.
Mieluummin nähdä itseni takana sumuinen verho.

*A respectful homage to Liivia Sirola, whose blog is even more ethereal and enigmatic after it has been through Google Translate.I am strangely drawn to it and wish my life to be glimpsed through gauzy filters from hereon in.

My mother's tutu

by Dorothy King, RBA

Dorothy King (1907-1990) was a painter best known for her nudes 
and subjects from the ballet in oil and pastel. 

She studied at Hornsey School of Art and later at the Slade school. 

After the war she took up painting professionally and in 1947 

was elected a member of the prestigious 
Royal Society of British Artists. 

She exhibited at the Royal Academy, New English Art Club, 

Society of Women Artists and is represented in 

the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York City. 

In later life she spent time teaching art classes.

Je cherche

Marie Josephine.

I would want to find her,

even if we weren't related.

This sweet portrait,

by Jean Francois Bosio is called

Girl Feeding a Canary.

I have to confess,

it may not be her,

but she had a pet canary

and it escaped from its cage.

She followed it into the vineyard and called to it 

and returned to the house

with the bird perched on her finger

which pleased her people so much that

 they had her portrait taken lifesize

with the bird on her finger.

So it will do for me.

Being roped in

One of my favourite museums has just moved closer

thanks to the extension of the East London Line.

That was an exciting afternoon.

A family affair.

Someone we know was roped in to busk at the last minute

as part of the celebrations.

He hadn't expected the marriage proposal.

I first went to the Geoffrye Museum 
as a child with my primary school.

I was chosen to dress up as a Tudor boy

and invited to step over the rope

into the reconstructed Tudor room.

Beyond the rope I was

no longer a sensible little girl in a brown school uniform,

I was liberated. Reborn. Transformed.

All sense of decorum deserted me and

I stuck my tongue out at a teacher.

Portrait of a Boy - Robert Peake the Elder (1551 - 1619)

A Danish

Following yesterday's enforced domesticity 

an antidote was needed.

What better than a dose of pure clear Danish air?

So Maddy and I,

 poised as we are on the jetty of Life

watching as the last of our young row off into the distance,

went to the Christen Købke exhibition,

and gazed compassionately at this portrait

of his mother.

Her slight frown, stoical gaze, and clamped lips

capturing the expression of a woman

who had brought eleven children into the world

and no doubt waved farewell eleven times too.

This cheerful and confident sloucher 

was his friend the landscape painter,

Frederick Hansen Sødring.

They shared a studio.

I wonder if their mothers were friends.

Frederiksborg Palace in the Evening Light

was a tranquil place to linger.

Christen died of pneumonia aged 37.

His father had died two years earlier, 

but of his mother we heard no more.

Calling and calling cards

Once again I am indebted to Lady Troubridge 
for her advice on this matter.

 The correct manner in which to visit blogs and leave comments is a social minefield and she dedicates twenty pages

to the rules which if neglected

either through ignorance or carelessness will result

in lessening the number of one's friends.

Making the First Advance

The matter of paying the first call is often a delicate one.

Frequently, sensitive people are offended by some unconscious slight on the part of a friend or acquaintance.

The newcomer to a country neighbourhood must wait 

for older residents to call upon her.

If she has friends who can vouch for her and who will 

write to one of her neighbours saying,

"Mrs Smith has come to live near you. She is an old friend of mine and such a charming woman," or something to that effect, 
it is all to the good of the newcomer.

Length of Calls

The length of this first call should not be

more than a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes.

Never prolong a call...

until your departure becomes a relief to your hostess.

When two ladies meet at the house of a friend it is for the lady of highest rank or superior social position to make the first advance.
She should say, "I should so much like to come and see you,"
and should call shortly after...
or this advance may be met with, "That would be delightful -
 but won't you come to tea?
I should be so sorry to be out when you came";
or the more important or older lady might say,
"Do come and see me. I am always in to tea" or "after five",
 or "on Thursdays," as the case may be.
When ladies are of much the same age and standing
it does not matter which of them makes the first advance.

Returning Calls
It is of the utmost importance that calls should be returned promptly, and more especially the first call, for neglect to return it within two weeks or three at the most, or to explain by letter why it cannot be returned, is to indicate tacitly that the caller's friendship is not desired. This, of course is an extremely rude and inconsiderate method to chooses, and if one really does not desire to cultivate a certain friendship there are many less unkind means of indicating that desire, as, for example, the leaving of cards without inquiring if the owner of the house is at home.

Receiving Calls
If a woman has a day "at Home" she should be in her drawing room punctually at the hour at which she has announced
that she will receive her guests.

Calls can be made any time between half-past three and 
half-past five in the afternoon.

Morning calls are only made between the most intimate friends,
 and are not always acceptable even then.

Making a Chance Call

A woman calling on a friend or acquaintance who has no fixed day for reception makes some such inquiry as this 
from the servant at the door,
"Is Mrs Henderson at home?". If she receives a reply in the negative the caller leaves her card... and departs. When the servant announces that her mistress is 'not at home' it may mean either that she is out of the house or that she does not wish to see people. In either case the report of the servant must be taken as final and should never be questioned. There are many people who become very angry if they learn that the person upon whom they have called and who they have been told is 'not at home', was in her house all the time. But their anger is not justifiable. The expression has come to be regarded as a civil expression of not being able to receive callers as well as an expression of fact.

Calling by Men
A man is expected to make calls of condolence, inquiry,
and congratulation upon all his intimate friends,
both men and women.
A bachelor taking up residence in a new neighbourhood
is expected to return all the first calls made upon him,
but if he has a sister or another woman relative living with him,
she can make the call in his name.
It is quite permissible for a girl who has made the acquaintance of a
 young man at the house of friends
to ask him to call upon her mother.
The young man may also ask for permission to call.

I hope that helps.

Picture credits from top to bottom

The Rain it Raineth Every Day - George Frederick Watts

Portrait of Madame de Sevigne Writing - French School

Woman in Grey - Jean Baptiste Camille Corot

Caller Waiting - Kenneth Hayes Miller

The Morning Call - Sir William Quiller Orchardson

Cloudy - Walter John Knewstub

Front cover John Bull

Threads

This post brought to mind two moments from my day

and a hugely important chunk of my past.

I was talking with my friend Maddy about significant items of clothing -

things I wished I had kept, indeed, thought I had kept

and this jumper was one of them,

preserved only in this unfinished

oil on gesso painting from my art student days in Bristol.

The jumper was a brave purchase by my mother.

She laid it out on my bed as a surprise for me 

when I came home from school.

On first sight I hated it.

It was too loud, too brash, too different.

But I tried it on and it grew on me,

probably because people admired it

and then I wore it a lot...

Jane's post reminded me about 
all the Georgian windows that appeared

in my etchings and paintings and in my final year dissertation.

This one was in the freezing bathroom 

and the pink blobs

are part of an indestructible Bizzy Lizzy 

which I carted around with me from house to house.

The clogs were from Olaf's Daughters.

I longed to have some long green lace up boots like my friend Charlotte,

but could only afford these.

The mirror came from a skip,

and  still hangs in a bathroom.

And just to complete the circle,

the woodcut in the reflection

is by Judy Stevens

who started at  Art college with me

and became a very Fine Artist indeed.

Advice from Laura, Lady Troubridge

Following yesterday's rather dubious suggestion

for a simple supper,

Running a House without Help

offers this, in the chapter entitled Good Health for Mind and Body:


NEVER BE AFRAID


Never be afraid. Be sad and sorry sometimes, 
because we must all be that way now and then. 
Be perplexed because life is not all plain-sailing. 
But never let life be too much for you. 
It won't if you take as your motto these three words 
which I'll repeat again:
Never be afraid.
Imagine yourself equal to any and every call 
that can be made upon you. 
Instead of seeing yourself mentally as poor, small, defeated and inadequate, 
it's just as easy to see yourself as adequate, conquering,
 doing and being all the things you wish to do and be.


Never let such words as "things always go wrong with me" or 
" it seems I can't do anything right" get into your brain, 
and so emerge on your lips.


I looked her up. 
Here she is aged about 14 in 1880. 
Portrait by George Frederick Watts.

She was the wife of the 4th baronet and a writer of romantic novels 
and books on etiquette.
One of these is on its way, because it has a beautiful cover.

Writer's block

'More & more do  I become in a state of undress.

I believe this affects my writing - or its the other way about.'

So said Virginia Woolf in her diary entry for February 16th 1921.

Discuss.

Nina Hamnett a contemporary of Virginia Woolf

looking surprisingly modern in this portrait by Roger Fry.

Two self portraits

one of them by Rembrandt.