November 11, 2020

"I decided to befriend the crisis and give it a name — Locky Lockdown."

Said Maggi Hambling, in a May interview in the Times of London, which is popping up on my screen today because — as you can see, 2 posts down — we're talking about her sculptural tribute to Mary Wollestonecraft.  

Back then, she'd painted a self-portrait and called it "Angry" — her "lockdown self-portrait... about my rage at what’s happened, about the way every plan that I had has gone completely to pot.... We’re living under this dark threat... And yet at the same time we are aware of how good this time is; how the roads and the skies are not buggered up by cars and planes. And even as we are scared that we are going to die, we watch this lovely spring with its flowers and its leaves and its dawn chorus of birds. Life is always uncertain. But never more so than now. The uncertainty has been so concentrated, brought before our eyes in such a dramatic way. And, as a control freak, of course that at first made me furious. That’s why I painted that 'Self Portrait (Angry).'... Meanwhile, I’m still alive and time is all that I’ve got. Once I got to 60, even I who gave up arithmetic at the age of 11 had to realise that I was past the halfway mark."

And, I like this: "[I]n the 1990s a longstanding female admirer died and, much to Hambling’s surprise, bequeathed her a Suffolk cottage and its adjoining water meadows." Did anyone not a member of your family ever die and leave you anything — I mean, even $1,000? She gets a Suffolk cottage and adjoining water meadows?! 
I don't even know what "water meadows" are. Maybe it's a pain in the ass to be stuck with the responsibility for water meadow. What is it? A swamp? No. Here's Wikipedia
Water-meadows were mainly used in Europe from the 16th to the early 20th centuries... These were used for fields on slopes, and relatively little engineering skill was required to construct them. Water from a stream or spring was fed to the top of a sloping field, and gentle sloping terraces were formed along which the water could trickle in a zig-zag fashion down the field.... Former water-meadows are found along many river valleys, where the sluice gates, channels and field ridges may still be visible.... The drains in a derelict water-meadow are generally clogged and wet, and most of the carrier channels are dry, with the smaller ones on the ridge-tops often invisible.... The complex mixture of wet and drier ground often gives derelict water-meadows particularly high wetland biodiversity.

18 comments:

peacelovewoodstock said...

She should have gone the full monty and called it "Locky McLockdownface"

Lewis Wetzel said...

". . . how the roads and the skies are not buggered up by cars and planes."
I bet that she doesn't think that her trips by car & plane bugger up the roads and skies.

Howard said...

A defunkt water meadow sounds like mosquito heaven.

Wince said...

Hambling has that look like she's worked (and smoked) at the DMV for the past 35 years.

rhhardin said...

I haven't even noticed the lockdown. Same bike ride every day, just not including a grocery store, is the only difference. Amazon delivers the groceries instead every few weeks.

rehajm said...

Did anyone not a member of your family ever die and leave you anything — I mean, even $1,000? She gets a Suffolk cottage and adjoining water meadows?!

My uncle is a semi-famous duck hunter and he once inherited a stranger's hunting dog along with a healthy endowment provided said uncle took care fo the dog...

...and my in-laws tell me a story form the 1990s about an Idaho farmer who grew too old to farm, too old to drive and could me seen walking to town several days a week. One day a kind young stranger began offering him rides. Later, the farmer dies and having no heirs leaves the stranger the farmer's entire multi million dollar estate including the large farm.

mezzrow said...

Hambling seems so proud to have rejected icky math at such an early age. It's a clever defense for innumeracy, but it seems to outline a point break where people differ logically. When you work on the facts vs feelings struggle, this serves as an indicator for me. This seems to be popping up a lot in here today.

What percentage of her fans share this opinion, I wonder?

I married a math major. We're very happy together. I'm a fortunate man.

Leland said...

I've talked to quite a few people in London upset about the renewed stringent lockdown. None are happy. It is not hard to recognize that certain parts of society aren't really locked down at all.

rehajm said...

It is not hard to recognize that certain parts of society aren't really locked down at all.

...and that's the trouble with the lockdown strategy, innit? If you're gonna do lockdowns you need to isolate everyone from everyone for a couple weeks. We don't do that.

Readering said...

The covid numbers by the time Trump leaves office in January will mark his legacy beyond his election high jinx.

Joe Smith said...

"Locky McLockdownface"

This is correct.

mikee said...

Water meadows are man made. Dew ponds are natural phenomena.
Both support biodiversity in otherwise nondiverse areas.

I inherited a soup ladle that belonged to my grandma by the simple expedient of asking my mother for it, on a visit home. Red bakelight handle, steel scoop. It finally broke irreparably after about 70 years of use.

Guildofcannonballs said...

This bee otch better become POTUS*: If anybody bequeathed you something valuable then you are Donald Trump and need to become POTUS to start to begin the process of earning a little fuckin' respect.

Also, does she prefer cars and planes buggering her butthole as opposed to buggering the roads and air? Typical. Tribal.

*25 SCOTUS justices will decide who and who can't become POTUS thank you very much. Iffin' you a shitlib you win no matter your origin.

Howard said...

I gave the artist a name: Maggi Haggis

Jupiter said...

I'm not going to sign up for a free trial (who the Hell wants a trial, even if it's free?) to read the pap, but I like the photo. She looks like she's saying, "I think it's about time for a drink. What do you think?". At around four-thirty in the afternoon. Closer to five, really. Close enough, anyway. My kind of gal, when I was younger, and she was too.

But that ring. Christ. I didn't know they made bowling balls out of turquoise.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

They seem to be totally forgotten, and my online searches have never turned up anything useful, but there was a fairly big immunization drive in the late 60s that used cartoon characters for the major immunizable diseases. For lockjaw, there as "Locky Lockjaw", who, I think, had a bandage wound around his head. For polio there was "Rolly Polio" who was in a wheelchair. I think there was one for diptheria also, but I don't recall the characterization. I think for their PSAs, they would get together and plot how to keep kids from getting their immunizations..

whitney said...

Except we're not living under a dark threat. It's been 9 months. If this were the plague we've been promised we would all know dozens of dead at this point. Covid a real virus but it's not a real threat. It's just one of the viruses that we encounter all the time and for the vast majority of us, our T cells will just knock it away

BudBrown said...

The silver linings. Friends daughter on their disney visit in August when the crowd was thin got to ride Space Mountain 6 times. 6 times! In the middle of the day.