Collect Art Publication July 2023

Banana Skins for Mo Jupp:

Sometimes life is funny

The wholeness of an orange

Before peeling it, the unpierced skin, the layer of pith, the segments enclosed, all perfect.

But it’s unbroken, so how do I know it’s perfect?

Because when I’ve peeled it previously that’s what I’ve found.

I was looking at edges today.

The way edges are made, the way I have chosen to represent edges.

Selvedges, the edge of a weaving, the edge of a newspaper,

not straight cut like the Pudsey Times

but pierced with a small pin made hole and crimped.

Once Mo Jupp said to me that a skirt on a woman was an edge,

dividing the legs from the body.

When I paint an edge it’s about separating the paper, the support from the layer of paint.

Mo was from the old school. Old school potter. I went to meet him in my best charity shop dress.

And felt like I was in his category of woman.

Being young and agog.

Not yet ready to think, not yet ready to have an opinion, a question.

In my painting I like to paint in layers, like an archaeologist, keeping a small strip of each layer

Visible, all the better to see the journey through time, through learning, through experiences.

Mo’s repertoire also a journey is pre-digital as many a post war artist was, is available in 1960’s and 70’s copies of crafts magazines and Ceramics Review.

His journey is out of control. In the public domain, he can’t change it or take it back.

Evidence of previous layers like icons of the past with their rough scratched unkempt edges, beautiful in their gold leafed disorder.

I’ve seen it now. It can’t be unseen.

Like looking into a foggy day, uncertainty, is it light or dark? Its light and dark and both.