art uprisings

A YouTube video sent to me on facebook reminded me of one of Mark's wheezes for earning money. We thought it was an excellent idea to get paid for doing nothing, i.e. sitting in the Ruskin School of Art with our clothes off and not moving for 3 hours. Or trying not to move...The idea was that you arrive at the Ruskin and disrobe behind a screen, then head out to the coldish room and sit or stand more or less as still as a statue for 1 ¼ hours before a break and then another 1 ¼ hours. Good money and, it being Oxford, who worried who knew the naked truth about us? You could meditate, sort out your problems, even sleep, provided you did not move, although some movements were involuntary.
Among the serious art students, there was one who caused more than her fair share of problems. She was a beautiful slim blond artist student who would sit at the front in a short skirt and wooly tights (if cold). She liked to sit on the floor with her legs spread wide, possibly for balance. She spent hours licking her lips or her pencil and then holding it up, apparently to get some idea of size/shape, etc.
She was doing it deliberately, we decided, as we compared notes on what would work best to control the inevitable response - usually the most effective were in-depth meditation about visting the dentist, imagining facing a polar bear naked on the North Pole ice, etc. (we were too young for tax returns). We had nothing to hide behind, and many curious eyes studying us. We never saw the resulting sketches.

Dances with forest

In Thailand (1983?), one trip included a jungle trek from Chang Rai. We hiked up forest-clothed mountain flanks, sleeping in small villages. Porters carried up warm cokes and beers by another route, to sell to us each night at progressively higher prices. Sleeping was in huts, eating the spicy food each traditional village provided. I don’t think any of it was dog, although our guide pointed out one or two long-haired dogs with chunks cut out of their haunches, then tied up to heal. The handover for our party from one village to another could mean passing a couple of fierce-looking local Rambo types, sporting huge machine guns and watchful eyes at a river crossing as lines of women passed with produce or poppies. One well-guarded valley and hillsides belonged to the Kuomintang, where they made pineapple liqueur (lao sapalot?) which was red and tasted like delicious cough liquid. We had 2 energetic and hairy New Zealanders with us and after all had indulged in the herbs freely sold in large bags in back alleys, and fortified ourselves with pineapples, we would overtake the traditional dancing displays put on for our benefit, with displays of kiwi dances, Pole Cat strut or other rockabilly. The day after the Kuomintang, our guide was far behind as we moved on, clutching treetrunks with one hand and his head with the other, the sun far too bright suddenly. We’d walk to the next hilltop and wait for him to catch up. The biggest machine guns were near the Burmese border, in the heart of the Golden Triangle, where Mark and me climbed up and over the ridge into what we were told was Burma, sitting and smoking a bit while contemplating the endless sea of forested mountains ahead. We wondered what lives were being won or lost in those forbidden valleys, but not what lives we could expect.

Painting Houses

Many holidays were spent painting houses for family or friends, some with Mark. The ideal painting job was the family cottage in Norfolk, near the coast. We'd arrive, sometimes by hitchhiking, and then paint day in or out, sunshine streaming through the windows, and Radio 1 blaring out. Conversations could easily continue all day, punctuated by long visits to the pub or the trek down to the sea where the waves waited at the end of a very wide, shingly beach. Once in the pub were darts games, against two apparently experienced players. The more we drank, the more the darts seemed to glide exactly where we wanted them. We were as astonished at our amazing victory as were our opponents, it took two or three days of amazement before we gave up trying to understand our brief moment of darts brilliance.