Sunday 22 December 2013

'2013'

'2013' JULIAN CLORAN.
LINE DRAWING, A5 PAPER. PROBABLY ONE OF THE LAST DRAWINGS I WILL HAVE TIME TO PRODUCE THIS YEAR. THE TITLE IS WEAK BUT APT: I DREW THIS ON THE BACK PAGE OF THIS YEAR'S (SOON TO RUN OUT) DIARY.

Saturday 21 December 2013

APE FASHION

APE FASHION by Narolc
APE FASHION, a photo by Narolc on Flickr.
Via Flickr:
Collage/drawing, colour gel pens and pencil on paper. Approx: 19cm high x 13cm wide.

Emerging from water, man becomes (ex-stream) extreme. Then refined as he develops language to replace his crude grunting. But, on the down side of the evolutionary process, we see those slower at evolving merely being more subtle about their barbarism... Their sophistication is a superficial front. Wise men (represented bottom right) turn their backs on ignorant speculation and reflect on lost forms of magic...

 

Sunday 8 December 2013

SHRINKING VIOLET

Vi was dying of cancer.
Over the recent past months she’d lost a lot of weight.
Her doctor said it was only a matter of time…


Ever since she was a little girl,
Vi wanted to be a florist.
She used to dream of selling flowers and plants,
And even types of trees—before she woke up in a forest.


But Vi never became a florist,
She never got the chance.
Just as when she went out with friends,
She was never asked to dance.


Instead, Vi worked as a stock-taker in a warehouse,
She remained single and typically drank on her own,
In her flat with a bottle of Famous Grouse.


All her life she’d been lonely and dissatisfied with her job,
She lost her virginity at the age of forty two—raped by a drunken yob.

Getting cancer was the last straw,
But it came as no surprise in a life so raw.


Before she died, Vi longed to sell some flowers,
So, to fulfil her dream, she stole a tray of Remembrance Day poppies.


It wasn’t quite like the real thing, but she didn’t mind.
Even after she was arrested and subsequently fined.


‘If I’m lucky,’ Vi thought. ‘I’ll die before I have to pay!’


 

 

 

 

NELSON MANDELA'S DEATH

While I do not doubt the goodness of the late Nelson Mandela, I am not comfortable with adding to the plethora of posthumous plaudits currently saturating the media. Not least because I feel anything I say may appear pathetically ineloquent; merely paraphrasing the existing repetitive clichés.

Public reaction to the demise of the uniquely influential statesman, Mandela, reflect a trend first visible after the death of Diana—where the loss of a culturally prominent figure receives almost hysterical attention.

This is not to say that the grief verbalised is insincere, however orchestrated it seems. But, at the same time, while listening to the extravagant retrospective praise—virtually deifying the deceased— it may be worth considering how little thought or attention was given to the same people when they were alive.

No one wants to speak ill of the dead. Or be insensitive to the genuine feelings of those grieving. Nevertheless, I cannot help recognising the colossal exaggerations of qualities being ascribed to those for whom we, publicly, mourn. Equally, who really wants to believe—what current rituals appear to imply—that the loss of one person has such a destabilising impact on the whole planet? Or that individuals deprived of their role models will also lose their ability to function morally (through operating choice) because they lack the guidance of personified examples.