I have just submitted Tea & Sympathy In Israel, 2018 to the RA Summer Exhibition.
I have a sentimental fondness for this piece of work and have actually sold it once before… albeit in a charity auction where the purchaser was my husband who bought it for £30, having out-bid another buyer (my friend) who offered £20.
In memory of my dear Nan, almost a year to the day, I thought I would enter this piece for another exhibition, aiming slightly higher this time. If it actually sells, any profit made will be donated to either the Veteran’s society or a Dementia charity. I’ve blogged about this piece before – here’s the post again…
Tea and Sympathy in Israel, 2018, Collage, discarded packaging, cellophane, charcoal, ink and tea on corrugated card. 25 x 25cm.
The idea for Tea and Sympathy in Jerusalem, started out as a submission to a local church art group exhibition called Sanctuary, due to take place at Easter. The piece needed to be an interpretation of a verse linked to one of the Stations of the Cross, but also relate to the forthcoming the centenary of the Great War.
Selected at random, as a number between one and thirteen, I chose number eight – my favorite number, the verse relating to the eighth Station of the Cross is as follows; Luke 23: verse 27-28; A large number of people followed him, including women who mourned and wailed for him. Jesus turned and said to them, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me; weep for yourselves and for your children.
Although ‘not a card carrying Christian’ as my friend Cherry puts it, (meaning that I dont attend church) I’ve been involved with the mostly women art group for sometime and I wanted to make my contribution to the exhibition about mothers, daughters and women left behind after the loss of so many men in the Great War.
I do not like tea very much, coffee is my thing, I only drink lemon and ginger tea when I’m pretending to be healthy. Especially milky tea – it reminds me of what I call ‘titty bottle tea’, cold milky tea given to babies in bottles in the 1970s.
During the very recent loss of my dear Nan - a lover of Tea, a centenarian at 101 and born in 1917 - we drank buckets of strong tea in old fashioned tea cups, huddled together, making small talk and deciding who would make the next cup of tea.
So there you have it.
This one’s for you Nan, may the kettle always be on where ever you are, may you drink from old fashioned tea cups, in good company and may you have Tea and Sympathy in abundance whenever you need it.
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