Monday 15 August 2016

Jocasta Innes - eat out an organ


Ok, I admit it. I am a clever fucker.

This marble plinth thing is made from two pieces. The bit on the top with the moulding is real, Italian grey-veined marble, and the plain base on the bottom is real, pure white marble, artificially tinted up by me with oil paint, to avoid a shocking contrast.

It is a shocking waste of the much more expensive pure white marble, so you can either agree with me that I am a clever fucker, or you can admonish me for vandalism.

Either way, I am a bit sorry that potential clients do not look at this blog, and I am also sorry that I am not allowed to use photos like this to advertise my wares. My clients will also not be aware of the deception either, unless someone tells them, so there is no glory in this job.

My light is permanently under a bushel, I fear. It's not the glory I seek, it's the money.

17 comments:

  1. Tom, realizing how talented, amusing, clever and unpredictable you are were amongst the characteristics I recognized in your comments on the posts of other folks. Those were the bread crumbs that I followed over here to your own place.

    Your fool the eye marble is very well done...I wish a larger, close up view was available, and that I new folks who could be potential clients.

    Inspired by Ms. Innes long ago, I created a rosy, peachy sunset cloud effect on an apartment bathroom ceiling. I liked the results much more than my dear landlord when he saw it after I moved back to New York. But with a few coats of white paint on that ceiling, he forgave me.

    Your posts frequently take me down memory lanes.

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    1. I had a friend who worked for J. Innes once. He said that her lunchtimes mainly consisted of consuming large quantities of cider, making the afternoon shift a bit of a challenge. She was right on the zeitgeist with the paint finishes, though. Just at a time when all the newly created middle classes were buying up their own little houses, she got them rag-rolling and pretty much created the concept of shabby-chic. All the old painters and decorators who had been doing this stuff all their lives were dying out - everyone thought that they could use a paint brush, not realising the difference between a good decorator and a self-taught one. Now I am going down memory lane. Maybe I will buy a cottage on Memory Lane and do it up?

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    2. P.S. you can blow up the photo by clicking on it - or 'embiggening' it as another blogger used to say.

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    3. I should have remembered to try the click on the picture bit. Thank you for reminding me; seeing the closer-up view was a treat.

      I know what you mean about observing and drawing. I try to keep drawing in order to keep some hand and eye coordination. My handwriting is proof that I need more of that coordination practice.

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    4. I should have remembered to try the click on the picture bit. Thank you for reminding me; seeing the closer-up view was a treat.

      I know what you mean about observing and drawing. I try to keep drawing in order to keep some hand and eye coordination. My handwriting is proof that I need more of that coordination practice.

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    5. Ah, but I bet you write everything out in duplicate.

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  2. Replies
    1. In my case, it's 'needs must'. I have to be able to do some things which the masons cannot, to keep my position. They all went to masonry college, I went to art college.

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    2. Oh, and the other thing is that it is not 'art' - just observation with the subject matter right next to it. A bit like drawing can be, when it's not trying to be art.

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  3. Always edifying, this blog. II can't imagine why I'd never heard of Jocasta Innes especially since she was promoting her interior vision at the time that I was trying to make two houses liveble - first in Somerset and then outside of Philadelphia. How taste has changed! Contrast her pictures of Scandinavian furniture and interiors with those of today's multitudinous Nordic design blogs.

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    1. True - we have whole shops here which are camouflaged in Swedish blue and white.

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  4. Without wishing to insult you Tom...honestly..it occured to me that were you so inclined you have all the attributes of someone who could get up to all kinds of nefarious activity...talent, ability, intelligence, creativity etc., and I do wonder what your stance on art forgery is? ...and please don't tell me to fuck off...I don't mean to be rude at all...I'm genuinely curious.

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    1. All I know about art forgery is there is a lot about. Most museums' collections contain about 15% forgery, at a conservative estimate. If they admitted it, they would lose millions overnight, so they don't. How do I feel about it? If the forger gets away with it, then he is exposing certain 'experts' for what they really are. I have been asked to forge antiques, but have refused on the grounds of liking my liberty too much. What I do is sympathetic restoration...

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  5. My Grandfather was a decorator/painter and lived and worked in Tottenham after the War. Their front pillared porch was decorated to look like marble and I always thought it very clever of him to get the effect with paint. Not as clever as you of course!

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    1. I am sure he was much more clever. I am a jack-of-all-trades and, as such, master of none. I bet he could do a good French Polishing job too.

      I have always thought, 'I could do that', and the only time I couldn't was when I tried to weld lead...

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