With an age range of 1-81, about twenty members of my family gathered for our annual model boat race in Sheringham last week. As usual, my brother (the 81 year old) won all three races!
I made a painting a few years ago about this ritual entitled IF THE BOATS COME IN, musing whether everyone would make it this time.
This year, only the families from America and Australia were unable to attend.
You can see my painting and this years race on my Instagram and Facebook posts
We've just got back from our annual holiday in Sheringham - this time with 25 members of the family.
I made a painting called '30 DAYS' (you can see it on my latest Instagram and Facebook posts) of our holiday in Sheringham in 1983, using a jigsaw piece image for each day we were there. The central one marks the moment when Hazel dislocated her kneecap and had to use crutches for the rest of the trip.
Happily, there were no such dramatic moments this time but I did slip on the steps going down to the beach. I must throw those old plimsolls away!
I have changed the title of my next painting from ' Travellers Tales' to 'Old Wives Tales' so as to reflect the superstition lurking in the minds of my grandmother and her sisters rather than any truth in what they imagined. (more on that another time)
I've been making more drawings for this project and the results can be seen on my latest Facebook and Instagram posts.
My nephew visited Blackpool recently and sent a photo of a plaque he had seen which he thought would interest me.
It recorded the spot on the pier where Harry Corbett bought a glove puppet in 1948 which would later be called Sooty.
I used Sooty and his friends to represent various members of my family in two paintings in the 1990s
'Duet', painted in 1991 was about my parents going to live near my eldest brother, who had recently divorced.
In 1997 I again used Sooty and friends in 'Offrenda' - a work recording my mother turning 80 (although I would later use it to remember her by, in the tradition of Mexican 'Day of the Dead')
You can see these images on my latest Instagram and Facebook posts.
