5. Napkin Diary For November 2014

Sunday, 2nd November

Jazz clarinettist Acker Bilk died today.

I remember him appearing on Blue Peter a few times when I was a child. He always played Stranger On The Shore, which was the UK’s best selling single of 1962.

I always thought ‘Acker’ was his actual name, but in fact it is Somerset slang for ‘friend’.

 

New Readers:

I like to make art from stuff nobody else wants. Stuff from the bin. Stuff with a secret history.

I absolutely never cut up books which could otherwise be read, or clothes which could otherwise be worn. Nor, do I erase the blemishes left by life. I cherish life’s blemishes.

A few years back, I bought six vintage linen napkins in a charity shop, for the meagre sum of two pounds. So far, I have turned three of my napkins into sewn diaries, using fast food leaflets, old magazines and books.

Each of my napkins represents a month, with a different entry for each day. For example, the day Lynda Bellingham died, I added the Oxo box from my kitchen cupboard.

November is my fourth napkin this year, the others are June (exhibited at The Mall Galleries 14th-23rd November, 2014), May and October. Some of them can be found in my shop.