I may have been very young, but I have been endowed with a good memory. Certain events are like tattoos on the inside of my eyelids; I can close my eyes and see these events happening in front of me right now.
One of my strongest childhood memories is from 1951. We were living in Calcutta and my grandmother had gone to visit her daughter (my aunt), in Florida and she returned just before Christmas with a thrilling gift for me: it was a View-master. I’m sure many of you listeners know what a view-master is, with its exciting 3-D pictures.
One of the View-master reels my grandmother brought back for me that Christmas was the story of Rudolph the red nose reindeer. The song was written by Gene Autry and remains a staple of radio playlists for the Christmas season. There is also a television broadcast using stop-action models which tells the story with little (wooden?) figures. Every year when I see it, my View-Master reel comes flooding back into my memory-bank!
Bridget Riley is one of the British artists that came to prominence in the sixties with Pop Art & its influence spilling into the music world and our everyday environment.
She has an exhibition currently open to the public in late 2019. The quote below is from the Guardian's art critic. I think it is so eloquent:
A fourth colour appears in the next version: dull turquoise – and yet the day brightens. The painting has its own weather. This is a marvel considering all you’re looking at is an array of drab discs on white paint;
I love that sentence, The painting has its own weather.
I fell in love with her work from her early days. She is forever as much a part of my 1960’s experience as Andy Warhol was. My friends & I were eager to “grow up” & experience adult things... she was one of those things!
