Country Cottage Arts

Saturday 17 September 2011


My decorative painting classes are slowly regaining momentum as the fasting is over and the reason I have not posted any  painted pieces  is simply because most of the paintings are the same .  As painting is but a hobby, most of my ' student ladies  ' are often bogged down with  office work and/or housework and thus  often times are unable to continue on a regular basis. I think  this is a common phenomenon in most, if not all hobby/craft circles.  

Also heard that students have become teachers in a short span of time and that further complicates the situation , I suppose. In light of the many comments and  opinions that I have been privy to and also having browsed through countless number of blogs,  I have made the following observations.  Note please, that these are my personal observations and thoughts only as I do not like to pass  judgment . Neither  can  anyone else ! 

  I would thus now separate the decorative painting enthusiasts in 3 categories.

The First group being those  who became teachers after years of painting  because of their commitment, dedication and passion for Folk & Decorative Painting .

The Second group being those artists who  paint for the love of painting and their paintings are an extension and expression of their feelings . They  don't mind painting  and working on a single piece of work for a considerable length of time and would not want to part with some of their work. They don't want to be tied down teaching the craft but do take  on commissions when requested and time permits.

The Third group  who take up painting because they like it but within a short span of time render themselves as Decorative Art teachers .  Their lack of experience and confidence is often obvious to both their  students and  other artists soon after  and that's when comparisons start to be made. Their limited exposure and skills, despite their basic  understanding  of decorative painting,  are often  comically  ( albeit disastrously)  portrayed  as a collective   benchmark  for all decorative art teachers.   They are in a hurry to recover their ' investments'  and see painting as a form of money-making venture .   Enough said.



 We are free to make our own  choices.. that's all I can say.


On a lighter note, the article below is an interesting one which I received via email. Thought I would share it with my readers....


 The Green Thing
 

In the line at the store, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren't good for the environment.  

The woman apologized to him and explained, "We didn't have the green thing back in my day."

The clerk responded, "That's our problem today.  Your generation did not care enough to save our environment."

He was right -- our generation didn't have the green thing in its day. Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over.  So they really were recycled. 
 
But we didn't have the green thing back in our day. 

We walked up stairs, because we didn't have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn't climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water.

We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull. 

But we didn't have the green thing back then. 

Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. 

 

We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances.  And we didn't need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint. 

But isn't it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn't have the green thing back then?

 

 

Please forward this on to another selfish old person who needs a lesson in conservation from a smartass young person.

 Please do !


Happy reading and painting


Lakshmi