#280: The Workers at the Gates

The statues of an agricultural worker carrying newly harvested wheat and a sickle and a blacksmith holding a hammer and scroll that face the gates of Buckingham Palace.

#279: The Shop Triptych: Shop Window / Shop Floor / Out the back

An installation in three parts that together form a full size replica of a retail unit.  The viewer enters at one end, and is free to roam through the whole installation before leaving at the far end.  

The first part is the shop window.  In it are the highlights of you - all the best things that you would like others to know about you - the things that you think would make people want to get to know you.  

You could position a person or stand outside with the purpose of distributing leaflets to summarise yourself and entice people inside (whether straight away or later).

Inside is the shop floor.  This is similar to the shop window but goes into more depth and shows more about everything that makes up you.  Divided into different areas, or departments, the shelves are filled with items that represent different elements of you whether that be hobbies, interests, personality traits, career and so on.

There are no tills but you could still have a front desk or information point where you could position yourself to answer enquiries, or have a box in which questions could be posted for you to answer later (or a tablet on which questions can be submitted).

The third and final part is everything "out the back".  This consists of the storeroom, office and staff room.  The storeroom and staff room are reached by a corridor that runs from the shop floor to the back door.  

The storeroom is where you keep everything that you would like to stay hidden.  Above the storeroom is an office, from which the viewer can secretly look out at the shop floor and beyond the storeroom, along a corridor.  The office and staff room are designed for you to hide in while either working or resting.  They can be left locked or kept open.

Once they have finished looking around, visitors exit through the back door.

#278: Follow The Doubter’s Path

A picture of a stone path with grass on either side.  On the path are painted the following two phrases: 

Take Care and Thought when making Choices

Always Question until you have found the Right Path

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His Dark Materials: Season 3, Episode 3: The Intention Craft (2022) BBC, Released: 18th December 2023. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0dgc88r/his-dark-materials-series-3-3-the-intention-craft.

#277: It is always New Year

Oil on canvas.  A view from behind of a naked person walking towards an open door (one of several in a wall).  Through these doors can be seen further doors and more beyond them.

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Hessel, Katy (@thegreatwomenartists) (2024b) “As 2025 approaches, I'm thinking about Dorothea Tanning, and in particular her painting "Birthday" (1942 – image 1)...” [Instagram] Available at: https://www.instagram.com/p/DECl8YnILOU/?img_index=1 (Accessed: 26th December 2024).

Tanning, Dorothea (1942) Birthday [Oil on canvas]. Philadelphia Museum of Art. See: https://philamuseum.org/collection/object/93232

#276: Art to Aid Meditation

Imagine a piece of art that would be perfect to have in front of you when meditating.

#275: Another Christmas Scene

The scene we have been brought up to avoid and not think about: the discomfort, pain and mess of giving birth in a stable.  

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Hessel, Katy (2024) The great women's art bulletin: There’s nothing meek or mild about childbirth: why have male artists sanitised the Virgin Mary? Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/dec/20/virgin-mary-sanitised-paula-rego-esther-strauss (Accessed: 20th December 2024).

#274: A Christmas Scene

Create a Christmas scene in your mind: your favourite of all time, perhaps, or a fantasy, or future, you would like to see, a landscape, a city scene, an activity, a food still life, anything or everything you consider to be Christmas, or Christmassy.