The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things

[bunn]

Because I have not posted for a while, and this is potentially DISASTROUS as I rarely remember things if I don't write them down.

- Yesterday I took 8 large paintings, four small paintings and 5 paintings in mounts and envelopes for the 'browser' (which is one of those y-shaped floor stand things where you flick through a bit pile of art) to Tavistock, for the Tavistock Group of Artists annual exhibition.

I helped put up the screens on which the Art will be displayed. (And was amused by the elderly gentlemen who rushed to take the heavy screens from me, a Mere Woman, and then found them heavier than expected.  I don't know why they think their precious Y chromasome trumps the fact that I'm 10-20 years younger, but I suppose that's chivalry for you.)

I had to get most of the pictures into frames (I paint mostly on standard A3 artboard, which has the advantage that you can buy standard sized frames and mounts) get D-rings and strings onto them, and sticker up the backs with labels and prices.  It's a faff, this dealing with actual objects.  But they do look better all framed up and mounted. (Apart from the box canvasses, which don't need frames, you can just paint the edges.)

- on Saturday, we watched the Chernobyl HBO/Sky miniseries.

Wow.  I had no idea that the Chernobyl disaster was not a pure unforseen accident rather than what appears to have been a cocktail of really terrible management, secrecy, and ambition combined with a near-insane lack of caution.

Apparently the writer who came up with the idea said : "The lesson of Chernobyl isn't that modern nuclear power is dangerous. The lesson is that lying, arrogance, and suppression of criticism are dangerous".  And it very definitely got that idea across, although I for one also took away that 'modern nuclear power is dangerous'. It was beautifully made and very upsetting.  Particularly the scene on the bridge with the people watching the fire blazing at the reactor, and the children playing among the falling ash.

It was also an interesting exercise in the power of context.  There were the usual ad breaks with ads for holidays, mouthwash, insurance instead, and they all took on a bleakly nightmarish horror when viewed between episodes of nuclear disaster that I am fairly sure the advertisers did not intend.

It also created an interesting link with another superb miniseries we watched recently, Good Omens, which begins with this statement:

“It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.”

Which provides a nearly complete explanation of Chernobyl, really.  Fortunately neither miniseries ended with the threatened Apocalypse, though Chernobyl was 99% more depressing than Good Omens. 

I can see many fun re-watches of G.O. ahead, but I shall probably never rewatch Chernobyl, though I thought it was brilliant, and I am very glad I saw it.

Also on Saturday, we got rid of a couple of chairs that have been lurking in the diningroom by advertising them on Facebook as free (because the cats had had a go at them and they were quite severely scratched) A lot of people wanted our scratched chairs, but it proved oddly difficult to get someone to actually come and take them: the first person dropped out, so I contacted the other people who had left messages, but ALL 6 of them had already sourced other chairs!  So I advertised again, and second time lucky.  But clearly free things move fast on Facebook, and now I have space for some shelves for art supplies, which is welcome because at the moment they are not so much stored as strewn.

What else has happened?  Oh, Fankil continues to improve and become less scaredy.  He often hangs out in the livingroom in the evenings, and also you can now rub his ears and his tummy and he purrs!

Took Rosie up to the hill-fort yesterday, and she hared about looking for rabbits, then well, OK, she didn't exactly come back, but she did stand still and let me put the lead back on, which, in a large empty space far from roads, will do.

Oh, and because I had some spare Perspex, I decided to try a design that could be painted on Perspex to be mounted in a window.  Glass/Perspex paint really shows every blob or hesitation, so I drew this out several times before deciding on this design:

Of course, putting it on the Perspex meant a few changes, and I'm not sure the dog works. I might rub that bit out and do it again. But I like the trees.

Comments

[dhampyresa]

I love the trees! I think the dog in the drawing has thinner frontlegs than window!dog, if that hekps.

Chernobyl

[diejacobsleiter]

"lying, arrogance, and suppression of criticism are dangerous"

The Soviet Union was a top expert in all these things, and that was the very spirit of soviet life. However, the series avoided direct accusations and showed the soviet system much better than it was in reality. If the authors were interested in "anti-soviet" or at least more realistic line, they would definitely showed one of the most criminal stories. I mean, the 1st of May, when all the celebrations and demonstrations in all big cities weren't canceled and went on normally. Because the leaders were afraid to admit the disaster. And 100000s of people spent the whole day on the streets of Kiev and other cities. The series didn't even mention this.

So, surprisingly, the authors took a non-blaming line: "it could happen anywhere, because all these evil things are human". I think, that's true, TODAY such a disaster could happen anywhere, especially in big corporations, which are nothing but small private totalitarian "soviet unions" all over the world.

But still, that Chernobyl in 1986 was a purely soviet event. THAT Chernobyl could happen only there.

[bunn]

Yes, I think I'm going to rub out the dog and see if I can do something different there. Either redraw the dog, or flowers or something... fortunately, this kind of glass paint is rubbery and you can just peel it off, but having light actually coming through a painting is brutal in terms of how it highlights the brushstrokes. Every small detail is revealed!

Re: Chernobyl

[bunn]

Blimey. That does add another layer of horror.

I feel there may be two things here:
- the initial suppression of information that led to the design flaw not being dealt with, and the people who were desperate for promotion and appallingly bad managers, which seems all too likely.

- the refusal to believe that the disaster had actually happened, the whole thing of sending people to look and then not believing them, and the attempt to hide the unhideable.

The first one I could believe in as universal and human, the fact that the second was even possible and that people thought they might get away with it, is just mindboggling and really does shed a light on the soviet system that I did not have before.

I mean, I knew about Stalinism, of course, and the KGB has a name that is only marginally less sinister than the SS, but I don't think that I had registered that people were likely to be shot or sent to labor camps in the 1980s. And that anyone could think it feasible to suppress news so BIG really illustrates how much else was likely to be suppressed...

*That* horror is not, I think generically human. Though someone over on the LJ copy of this post was living in Mexico, and felt that aspect of it was also familiar.

Re: Chernobyl

[diejacobsleiter]

Soviet project was based on a great deal of bluff, especially in 70-80s, when it became to collapse. Soviet military power, economy level, almost all statistics were being faked. The project worked until 1960s (thanks to the fruits of educative and science reforms from the monarchy times) and then lost its breath. So the thing the rulers were afraid most of all was the truth about soviet life. Especially they were afraid to show their weakness to the West. Plus: spy-mania. Hence that paranoid secrecy.

Chernobyl was a major "weakness", so the reaction was automatic: to hide. This was the main reason: "nobody should see our weakness, especially our enemies" (= almost the entire world).

But that was also the year of changes. Gorbachev was a relatively human and honest man (for a politician), he was starting his campaign of the truth and openness; but his power was very much limited then by the "old guard" etc. Without him, this event could go much harder, much more secretly and painfully for the locals... (I think, Gorbachev in the series was quite realistic, while that Boris, the boss of all the rescue works, was very much idealized.)

What about 1980s, yes, these were vegetarian times, people weren't killed by KGB massively, but what mattered was that Fear, still lasting from Stalin's time. It was deep, and people felt it almost physically, just couldn't control it.

[ningloreth.livejournal.com]

Are you going to post some pictures of your exhibition? I hope it goes well. The Perspex panel is a lovely idea. You've made the dog's hind quarters a bit heavier, but she still looks like Rosie!

I have Chernobyl recorded on my Sky box but I haven't plucked up the courage to watch it yet. There's a dog running on the trailer and I have a sinking feeling that he's running into danger...

The quote from Good Omens is basically Tolstoy's theory of History, too!

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

I started watching Chernobyl and was impressed with the quality of the production, writing, and actors. But, I couldn't finish it yet. I needed a break. I was feeling a little down the day I started and it was a bridge too far! I definitely will finish it soon. (I remember the horror at the time when the information about it began to leak bit by bit. We were terrified in living in Mexico--where, at the time--probably still--stupidity, arrogance, bureaucracy, and callousness were the hallmarks of its government and nobody trusted them with their wellbeing. It felt too close to home in the sense that life felt cheap with natural and manmade disasters always compounded by mismanagement and cynicism.)

OMG! I love the trees and the use of colors--absolutely stunning! I have to admit that this is not your best dog. He doesn't convey the sense of lithe elegance that usually characterizes your dogs. This might not be the medium for such a dynamic creature.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I'm doing two stints as a steward at the exhibition: one on Thurs and one on Sat, so I hope to have time to take a few photos then. We went to the Preview evening last night, and I think they look OK hung.

And look at everyone else's stuff too, of course! Mine is the only Tolkien art, unsurprisingly :-D But there were other sighthound paintings, landscapes and one artist paints lovely landscapes and populates them with caracatures of the royal family, which I think probably counts as fantasy. :-D

I am afraid that the dogs do not end well, though the horror is very much focussed on the people, so I found it possible to watch, unlike fiction where the dog dies for a cheap emotional moment. But yes, definitely harrowing. I'm told by someone who was living in Russia at the time that if anything, it is a kinder version of the story to officialdom and the soviet system which is... yikes.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

It is not the thing to watch when feeling a bit down, that's for sure! Good TV, but very sobering.

Yes, I think I shall have to re-paint the dog now I've looked at it for a bit. Fortunately, this paint just peels off, so it shouldn't be too hard to keep the good bit and try again.

[howlin-wolf-66.livejournal.com]

Glad Fankil will now accept pets and rubbins! <3

[topum.livejournal.com]

I like the perspex dog (except maybe that the back legs seem a bit heavy but I just assumed that you went for that fashionable Kim Kardashian look). And Chernobyl is awesome. I will visit it in August or September. Also, I am not sure what is more shocking, the elderly gentlemen's sexism or your ageism / ableism. I guess I am just much more woke than all of you and therefore you all seem equally terrible to me.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I am so pleased, it's ridiculous. We'd more or less decided that he would never be able to be a snuggly cat and we'd probably have to just admire him from a distance most of the time, and as long as he didnt' actually run away, that would be a win.

It's such a joy to see him roll on his back to have his tummy tickled and purr. He really likes us! :-D

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Yes, the dog is a bit dumpy. I rubbed her out and re-drew her in the end.

Wow. Chernobyl! I hear it's quite a wildlife refuge now. I hope you will post your impressions, I do find the place fascinating.

Hah, well, we all know you are the wokest of us all, I can only dream of aspiring to your level of woke :-p

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Yay Fankil! I'm glad he finally figured out how awesome the pettins are!