A level exam piece

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Two lino prints, each has three layers of pinks or greens. The image has a pierrot on stage with a dining table, framed by a grape vine and some honesty next to a wine glass.

I found this exam piece from 1980. Was there a specific theme on the exam paper? There were discussions with art teachers about what ‘advanced’ level really meant. One art teacher assumed I was being critical of his teaching style, or another person’s work. I wanted to know the difference between ‘ordinary’ and ‘advanced’ level printmaking. One of the art teachers was keen on outlines, which is why the wine glass has a dark line around it rather than having a darker table (or floor?) next to its lighter side.

There’s too much cutting here to have fitted into the 15 hours allowed for the exam, so it deserved the D grade. “It’s the time factor, y’see?” was often said to us in passing. It would have taken less time without all the cross hatching. I wasn’t pleased with the composition but felt too overwhelmed by the whole process to think about using a better sketch at the time.

A few years later the art college principal’s secretary queried my Art & Craft A level. It was allegedly unsuitable for a Fine Art establishment, but hadn’t been mentioned until I had been studying there for a year. That sent me back to the midst of this linocut, feeling inadequate and unable to speak clearly about my creative abilities.

Multitasking

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Knitting on five needles lying on a watercolour cloud

There are many tasks to do today but I knitted instead. The project will become too big for three needles so I’ve added more. They’re slightly bent from being stuck under a heavy item for too long. They still function well.

Decreasing

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Slip two knitwise, insert left needle into the front and knit them together.
Hat pattern decreases

Sometimes people ask how I made the pattern on the crown of the hat. It’s made (accidentally) by decreasing the number of stitches. Most written patterns say K2tog, knit two stitches together. That gives the hat the ridges as the circle becomes smaller towards the top of the head.

There are other methods. SKPO (slip one stitch onto the right hand needle, knit one then pass the slipped stitch over the knitted one) gives a ridge leaning the opposite way to k2tog. In theory, slipping two stitches knitwise then knitting them together as in the photo above will give a tidier result.

Climate

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Exhibition poster with sun and fog among the words

Art & Poetry won’t change anything. There again, the opportunity to look at everything from a different perspective might affect future behaviour.

Pembrokeshire Green Party is reviving slowly. West Wales has many people who are doing their best to not cause harm to their surroundings. Joining a political movement doesn’t appeal to most of us. It’s good to know there are others who would never support right wing policies. Hopefully this short exhibition will inspire someone to clean a river, stop building houses with leaky roofs, maybe remove all the obstacles to living well.

Pembrokeshire is also home to some narrow minded bigots. They will say climate change isn’t real. There can’t be any pollution here and the sun shines constantly. It does, it’s shining right now, behind some clouds. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but they are also entitled to look outside occasionally and observe the world. The planet evolves, the temperature changes. Arguing about whether humans have damaged the environment is less important than thinking about how to live without making everything worse.