The curtains were drawn but the Ektorp sofa was real.
With apologies to Spike Milligan and Ikea. And a shout out for Plumbs, who supplied the curtains.
The Curtains were Drawn
Day: December 5, 2021
Wakefield Centenary Tea Towel
Looking for a paint rag this afternoon, I picked out this relic from the Wakefield Centenary celebrations in 1988. Alan Brook was in charge of promotions at the Wakefield Express. I’d previously produced a Wakefield calendar so I stuck to the same landscape format throughout, drawing each on location around the city.
I think that Alan’s original intention was to produce a calendar too but for some reason that never happened, so he suggested the tea towel instead.
He later used the same artwork, with a few tweaks from me, for some commemorative china for the Millenium. As I’d sold the originals in an exhibition, it never occurred to me to ask for a royalty. If I’d known that the Express would have such success with the range.
Barbara was driving with her mum near Hornsea and came across the pottery where they were made. The man there said that I must be making a lot from them, as they were such a success he had to keep producing more.
If only I’d known that they’d turn out to be bestsellers, I’d have asked for a royalty!
Chimney piece
We walked across Thornes Park to B&Q before the retail park got busy with Christmas shoppers this morning and tracked down those last few essential items for my Redbox Gallery Night Before Christmas display including an LED spotlight to pick out the fire and adjustable legs for the base board.
For the final coat of paint for the fire I thought that I’d be limited to whatever tester pots of emulsion they had in stock, but the – helpful as always – B&Q assistant pointed us in the direction of the Valspar colour range.
For £3.00 they were able to mix us a 236ml test pot of matt emulsion from the Valspar range, which will be more than enough for my mock-up fireplace. Using the swatch cards, we checked out ‘Prague Purple’ and ‘Crown Jewels’ against the rough sketch on my iPhone and decided the punchier one would give the greatest contrast with the yellow flames in the fireplace.
Small S-hooks to hang the Christmas stockings from were the only items we couldn’t track down at B&Q, but we came across them in Dunelm’s, next door but one on the retail park.