t-0 (-8): latent National Socialism and projects to pass the time

Back in 1999, I was on a bit of a Roman kick. We'd visited some ruins in the countryside and seen some mosaics in the British Museum. I bought a book on Roman mosaics and started on a painstaking complex mosaic coffee table. I'd seen the table-top tiling project done on tv and it was completed, in an afternoon, by two people. I chose a more intricate pattern, smaller tiles and there was only me - but I figured I could complete it in a couple of weeks of mosaicking and tv watching in the evenings. This project occupied a central space in our living area - after I all I wanted it to be convenient. It turned out to be pretty painstaking and tedious. Months and months later, the Vol-in-Law threatened me: Complete the project or he would start randomly gluing large white bathroom tiles to the table top to finish it himself.

I knew he was a bit fed up, but I did not believe that he would interfere with my art. I did not think that he would dare. I awaited inspiration to finish the work.

Beneath my horrified gaze, he glued down the first tile and I took a whole new tack with the table and it was completed by the weekend. It wasn't exactly a Roman design anymore - in fact, it's Roman in the central motif - and abstract Gaudi-esque moving outwards, until you get to the edges, where large white plain bathroom tiles prevail. I would show you a picture, but the table is now covered with a wine rack and the paperwork detritus of our lives.

My next project was a needlepoint design based on a Roman mosaic pattern found in an ancient Romano-British villa. I painstakingly copied out and slightly altered a design I thought I could do in two colors in needlepoint. I was trying to be a bit less ambitious - and needlepoint can be put away in a bag.

It was only when I stepped back a bit, that I realised that the design was full of swastikas. Crap. Well, I'd already started. Plus, swastikas are used as a perfectly normal and nice design element of symbol in loads of cultures (Hopi, Hindu and Roman).

Somewhere along the way, I decided to stitch in the year of completion - 1999. The Vol-in-Law warned me against doing that. He said that I'd be setting myself up for failure (particularly given my extensive track record of 90% completion of art projects before giving up - it wasn't just the table). Rubbish - I said. Thanks for your vote of confidence - I said.

It's 2007, and I pulled out everything in our junk closet to find my roughly 50% completed needework with a big mocking 1999 stiched into the design. I needed a project to pass the time. I needed something to occupy my time while I waited for the baby, propped up my swollen feet and watched old Columbos and Sally Jesse Rafael in syndication.

Well, I finished it. And then some. I added a design surround and stitched in a motto.

Agere et pati Romanum est

To do and to endure (suffer) is Roman. Apparently, the ViL's mother used to say this to him when he was complaining. I changed it slightly to Agere et pati Vol-Abroadium est when I was feeling a bit down about my lot. Which I am now. Perhaps I should have made it Exspecto et pati Vol-Abroadium est - To wait for and to endure.




I've also stitched in 2007, too.

I'm still awaiting and enduring, but now I'm out of needlepoint.

8 days of baby Cletus lateness