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| Level 1 achievement! |
Funny old time isn’t it? Well not funny at all for many.
We have, in New Zealand, managed to lockdown, quarantine and
in the famous words of Sir Edmund Hillary ‘knocked the bastard off’ and are now
enjoying a life in Level 1 with few restrictions other than the border closures
to the rest of the world. I have no doubt that as soon as we open up again,
COVID-19 will reappear, but hopefully we have some semblance of awareness over
how we deal with it. Of course there has been the sadly inevitable business closures
and unemployment that follows a country shutting down for 2 months. My own work
in my portfolio career has been cancelled for the year, and as I have been the
sole breadwinner in the house for the last 15 months, that leaves room for concern.
However, our government has been helpful with subsidies, and
in lockdown we had nothing to spend money on except food and the basic living
expenses, that didn’t include takeout coffees, going to the cinema or bars or
shopping. Over the 50 days, I walked, baked and in the evenings drew my
thoughts about life in the times of COVID-19 in a sketchbook. I was vaguely
concerned that I wasn’t doing enough creative work and I really could have thrashed
out an entire novel. The time slid past peacefully and at the end of it, I found
that I had indeed written a book of sorts.
My Sketchmind Diary has secured a publishing
contract with The Cuba Press and help from Creative New Zealand to produce it. I'm so happy about this!
Watch this space as they say, for a link on where to pre-order.
If we sell all 400 copies, we will not lose money and we can circulate it back
into the system on the great money go round that is the economy. I’ll do it
mostly with Pinot Gris…
Life and my creative career will go on, I always find a way
not to have to commute to an office in the darkest of times. I have, in my fantasies imagined me on a pedestal
(put up there by myself) and lauded for my tenacity in the arts. But you need
to be careful who you put up on plinths and why.
The recent demise of Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol, had people asking, ‘any relation?’ I can tell you now
that the slave trader never married or had children. Of course, he might
have had ‘issue’, but none recognised. So Colston’s Girl’s School were fairly safe
in their offer of 50% off school fees if you could prove an ancestral link,
when we sent our daughter there in the 2 years we lived in Bristol.
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| Colston presiding over his success, talk about a guilded lily. |
I always thought that it was poor taste to have a public monument
to a slave trader, however philanthropic he was, erected in the city. He funded
institutions that benefitted a great many white people, all off the backs of black
slaves. It is worthwhile noting that he died in 1721, The Abolition of Slavery Act
was passed in 1833 and that statue was put up in 1895. This is what is called, 'a dick move'. There’s a good article here about Britain’s view of its own history. Well worth a read.
So, now, people seem to be either in the ‘tear down all statues’ or ‘leave
them there, what’s past is past’ camp. I’m in the ‘let's look and learn
something here’ camp.
Edward was torn down as a response to #BlackLivesMatter. But
also nobody much liked that posturing bronze with his fancy shoes anyway. It’s
always been a slap in the face and after so many slaps, well, you just turn
around and say ‘enough’ and slap back. I cheered seeing him thrown off the Arnolfini
Bridge into the none too clean water of the Bristol Harbour.
He's been fished out now, and is safely tucked away, graffitied
and with a hole in his bum, along with the placards from the protest- and suprising find of an 1881 newspaper tucked into his cavity. This will be included in an exhibition of our current history; Edward Colston, the profiteer
of misery, overthrown because people had had enough. This is how we learn and
hopefully become more human.
World leaders should bear that in mind.
