Look at that! I’ve jumped seamlessly from Kick-About #28 to Kick-About #36 without a single kick!
I was busy there for a while. By putting just about every other thing to one side, I have finished my picture book project for Allen and Unwin, and I’m very excited that I will have an advance copy of When You’re Older in my hands in late November this year. So Hip hip hoorah! But more on that another day. This rather hasty post will be about surrealism and the language of dreams.
The theme is Sheila Legge, seen above in costume in 1936 as a ‘Surrealist Phantom’ in Trafalgar Square to promote the opening of the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition … Should I call it a costume? Because she is a living work of art, the living embodiment of a Salvador Dali painting Printemps nécrophilique.
I’m sure I’m not the only one to be having vivid dreams and nightmares at the moment. Melbourne is currently still in lock-down while we wait for enough people to be vaccinated against Covid-19 to allow us to step out without swamping hospitals and losing many more lives. Unlike so many others around the world who are facing real danger and hardship, I am here, at home, living in a kind of paradise with a partner in full time work, a roof over my head, a vista of green outside my windows and the company of my family. For all this I am truly grateful. Nevertheless the night time world of my dreams is a wild one – a Rousseau Paradise, rather than a Fragonard. This was even before I started re-reading short stories by Angela Carter and Leonora Carrington… Ahem.
So there’s a coincidence! Just when I was reading the short stories of Leonora Carrington, who met Max Ernst and became involved with the surrealists in 1937 at the age of 20, the Kick-About veered into the very same territory with Sheila Legge.
All I have to offer the Kick-About today is the beginnings of a… something… featuring some bird-headed, flower-headed women. They will possibly eat one another. I may add colour if there’s anything left of them by tomorrow. (growls softly)
endpapers 
Judy!!! Hurrah! & congratulations on finishing your new book! X
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you so much!
LikeLike
Oooh ….shudder! these are quite menacing yet utterly beautiful and exquisite, (bringing back to mind my first reaction to the picture of the covid virus which I used to think looked quite cute!!) Beware the beauty of the unknown…
We are lucky, like you, living in our own little paradise, but news from the outside world still takes it toll, I’ve been hopelessly uncreative this last year, no paintings as such just drawing and sketching, so I’m in thrall that you’ve managed to carry on and finish your book! Well done! xx
LikeLike
Thanks Lizzie. Yes, the news from the outside world. I didn’t mention the word Afghanistan in my blog post but it looms in the mind. I’ve been keeping up with the news more than I did for a few years but every now and then I have to switch off, literally, for a few days or a week to give my mind a bit of breathing space. And finishing the book has been a challenge. I’ve been quite fierce in my focus. Many hours in the studio, but also listening to the entire Harry Potter series on audio book to distract my mind from worry, and I’ve been marvellously supported by a wonderful team at Allen and Unwin. As to you, I thought you’d had an exhibition! Thanks for commenting. Xx
LikeLike
Yes I thought so too, ( luckily) it was cancelled a month before so I hadn’t framed up what little I’d done, and it saved me scouring around to pad it out which is what I would have had to do, not a satisfactory approach to an exhibition!!
Love Harry Potter! What a good idea to have the audio, and sigh yes we’ve all become far more aware of politics these last few years with so many Bimbos rising to power….xx
LikeLike
So great to see you pop up again on this weeks kick about Judy! congrats on the book too! :)
LikeLike
Thanks Graeme! It’s really great to be back. I love the blog world. It’s slower and more considered than the Insta world. (‘Insta’ says it all really) And Phil’s ‘challenge’ is the best. So broad, such a great mix of artists, and no pressure or negativity. Huzzah!
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’ve really captured the blogging world and the kick about in its essence and why I love it so much too!
LikeLiked by 1 person