 First Post in quite a few months.
They have been very strange months. This was actually drawn a while ago having just visited a major exhibition where I assume that the label heights were intended to be accessible for all? Or something? But ended up so low down almost everyone took a hunched position of some kind, and then crabbed their way along the packed lines. Even if you could peep at an object between people, good luck trying to see any written interpretation about it...  Huge respect to the various arts and crafts events organisers making the most of making things without much to start off with.
 When I read about this, I instantly had a flashback to a similar an instance with a teacher and a full class of 30 kids, which I may now be tempted to render in cartoon....
 This is absolutely, utterly, not a dig at the many thousands of volunteers without whom so many venues and services wouldn't be able to remain open and functioning.
This is a conglomerate of the tales I have been told where volunteer staffing has increased, and the existing paid staff have suffered with mismanaged hand overs, miscommunication and outright false promises. Paid staff with years of expertise, experience, stores of knowledge, thousands of pounds of education, seeing their positions packaged into chunks and those chunks handed over to volunteers (some of whom also posses all those qualities, yet can't get paid work) until they are left staffing tills, cleaning, and providing security detail. Paid staff reassuringly told that "we won't be replacing you, you will still have a job!" and slowly finding that their role now only features the tasks that managers can't attract volunteers to. Yes, many venues need the voluntary help, but it has to be properly, honestly, decently managed.  www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/picture-of-month/displaypicture.aspx?id=108
So, there is a great story behind this painting: "The painting is believed to be the result of a challenge between father, William Nicholson, and son. Nicholson senior, whilst looking at one of his son's works showing a single jug, commented, 'but why one jug?' to which his son, Ben, replied 'well, why don't you paint a hundred?' Here we see the result - Nicholson's still-life 'tour de force'." Why did he have this many jugs? In part, because of his still life paintings. "The jugs, mainly English pottery and some china ones, were an important part of Nicholson's life. They adorned the surroundings in which he lived. His son, Ben, later admitted, 'But of course I owe a lot to my father - especially his poetic ideal and his still-life theme. That didn't come from Cubism as some people think, but from my father - not only from what he did as a painter, but from the beautiful striped and spotted jugs and mugs and goblets…. which he collected. Having those things throughout the house was an unforgettable early experience for me'. (Sunday Times, 26th April 1963)." |
Webcomic and occasional blog about the heritage sector.
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March 2020
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