GLIMPSE OF CRUST

It's one month to go until my Bath show opens, and for the last few weeks some of my work has been on display in the window of 76 Walcot Street in Bath, (the old Sewing Machine Repair shop which is going to be renovated by my friend Alan Day). 
But I'm still working on a pair of paintings for the show ... I was going to call them Palimpsest 1 and 2, but I thought that was too poncy, so instead I might call them Crust.
The point is that I wanted to replicate what really happens with maritime surfaces: they get overpainted, clogged up, chipped away, hastily mended, patched, primed and steadily eroded.  I started these two pieces months ago and laid layer and layer of paint and filler on top of each other - at one point I used ripped strips of cardboard as generators of the basic architecture.  This piece has been primed with 'red lead', then it was successively bright blue, purple and green - just as if the owners had changed and branded it with their own colour scheme.  Each time I put on a new colour, it increased the depth of the archaeology.  I guess if somebody buys these pieces, I want them to chip the colours away in a kind of restoration process: much cheaper and much more worthwhile that trying to preserve a real ship.

Here's a preview of a small fragment of one of the pieces: it's unfinished of course - I need to add the algae, salt and weeping rust - but I think you can see the crustiness taking shape.

On a different subject, a colleague recently told me I looked like a farmer, with my checked shirt and flat cap.  I don't think she was trying to be complimentary.  So I've rummaged in the cupboard, and emerged an altogether smarter and more convincing person, I hope you'll agree from the image below.

... this is all very appropriate, as last night I made my first visit (and hopefully first of many visits) to the Bathampton Morris Men.  I found it much more challenging than expected, but it looks like being very rewarding.  Photos (if not embarrassing) might follow.