eternity is a big thing. weighed and found wanting. the art of satire: cut off man’s head leave him standing…
my cornish earthfather makes me a hammer dulcimer. more strings than bass but feel the need for high notes now
reading my future with gore vidal and tarot. they both say move to scotland
I don’t like competition. Never have. Paraphrasing Glen Gould: it’s the root of all the world’s evils. So it was with a distrustful heart that I attended BBC’s young people’s traditional music awards house at broadcasting house in London to watch a working class, Cornish, self-taught lassie, whom I’d known and loved since she was wee, shyly and brilliantly play her banjo, alongside a handful of semi finalists. Looking back at my rough cartoon, I feel I was too hard on the winner, but i i think the competition itself was fair game, because it was judging a music form that has working class roots, by middle to upper class standards. Call me a big girl’s blouse but I don’t see why we couldn’t have attended a concert that night and just enjoyed each player’s music without having to compare them, without having to to call one ‘best’ and the others ‘not good enough.’ Competitions are a loser’s game. There are always more losers than winners.
BBC Young Grassroots Musician Award
Dialogue:
Presenter: ‘And the winner of tonight’s grassroots music award received her degree from the Scottish Academy of Music, played in the BBC orchestra, had private tuition from Sir Deceased Namedrop, has a charming but not too thick Gaelic accent, wore a baggy Fair-Isle jumper, played a very expensive violin and smiled at me a lot.’
Judge 1:’ It’s not the genuine presence of the performer, but their stage performance’
Judge 2: ‘It’s not that I forget what it was like to stand up there as an unknown, but …’
Judge 3: ‘I do know better than the other two judges but I had a chance to question class and grassroots and didn’t go for it’
Scene: Where have all the grassroots gone?
Winner: Cutting grass(roots) singing ‘The green, green, grass of home.’
Accordian player: ‘I think we should write a sad ballad about lawnmowing’
I drew up the cartoon and submitted it to a grassroots music magazine. One reader’s response was very angry , but the magazine stood up for me.
i kept trying to be an artist i wasn’t
i worked dead hard on that graphic novel brief but everything was screaming this isn’t the project for you
i always knew there was something
painting heroine for lake champlain monster graphic novel: ‘i always knew there was something’
roughs for a graphic novel about the american loch ness monster ‘champ’ and his young, female discoverer
frankie, something funny came into my head, & you got to say it without saying it (duke wellington)
