Where I Am At

I like to learn and one of the things I have learned is that I really don’t like being taught. There’s been a few notable exceptions but generally being “taught” is not my cup of tea and brings out the worst in me.

So – rather at cross grain – I enrolled in a short online Creativity course. It helped that it was to be led to two former colleagues – wonderful teachers – Laurie Roth and Emmett Smith at Stamp and Rave. At the very least it would be fun to be with them and see what they are up to these days. It’s been fourteen years since we worked together.

But of course, I would also have to participate – be present – but I figured I could manage that. Just about. 

First learning invitation – respond with something visual to Where are you at? First level response – a quick snap of my desk space followed by the image above.

Yes – this is me. A teenage rather solemn, sullen? and probably sad me. School uniform removed and on the shoulders of Madeleine – the Special Operations Executive code name for Noor-un-Nissa Inayat Khan. 

Growing up, I loved all those books about those impossible courageous women who trained as spies and were parachuted into enemy occupied France to work with the resistance and fight fascism. 

I considered myself as living a rather underground existence psychologically and identified mightily with their exploits, daring deeds and brazen deception. They also had a purpose and a dedication to ideals. And those appealed too. 

Noor Khan was captured, tortured and murdered in Dachau. The memorial bust is in Gordon Square, London near to where she had lived as a child between Moscow and Paris. and close to where she was trained as a radio operator/ spy. 

I gave her the decoration of a Warren campaign badge. 

The lower background shows the spare and undulating landscape of the Wiltshire Downs. It’s a pre-war open road across a landscape we know is dotted with ancient pathways and monuments – hill forts, barrows, Bronze age burial mounds and stone circles big and small. Ye ancient Brits were very active in these parts. 

And what’s with the addition of the little red van? Like a Dinky toy placed on the canvas that apparently Ravilious added as an afterthought. A homely touch in an otherwise rather bleak outlook. 

It brings to mind cycling on a long empty road between Swindon and Marlborough. Against a headwind of course. You can hear the wind in those wires as they stretch out across the endless sweep of the land. The clouds seem rather threatening but the road ahead is lined with silver. 

The Pot of Geraniums (Odilon Redon 1910) is not intended to signify substance use (pothead) but rather a potential flowering of artistic aspiration that reaches into simple horizons. Like an exercise in strategic planning it asks: Where are you? Where have you come from? and Where do you want to go?