The Mythic Muse

This poem by me and accompanying picture by Amy concerns Greek mythology.

The Mythic Muse by LJ Finnigan

 

Psyche opens a door for you

Echo reflects your surprise

Guinevere offers you her hand

Venus gazes into your eyes

 

Boreas calls and Ophelia falls

Helen awaits her destiny

Miranda creates a terrible storm

The Daeniads sob with futility

A fairy tale beauty softly sleeps

On Circe’s island we feast on dreams

Penelope faces reality

A doomed lady drifts downstream

Pandora lifts the lid on mischief

The water nymphs ebb and flow

The mermaid combs her luxurious hair

Persephone leads you below

Saint Mary's Art Exhibition

 

I took part in the St Mary's Church Art Exhibition on Saturday 12th July. I was really happy with the display of eleven of my pictures that they had created for me.

 

  

I have been contributing my arts and crafts to St Mary's Summer and Christmas fetes since 2010. This year I contributed the above three paintings and in previous years I have contributed the pictures below. Recently one of my pictures was sold and the money donated to the church.

  

 

 

 

Charity Coffee Morning at Northwood Hills URC

 

I took my craft stall to the charity coffee morning at the United Reformed Church in Northwood Hills on Saturday 5th July. There was a good crowd and a nice display from the Northwood Live at Home people and a lady who made cards. People were generously interested in 'ALF Creations @ the Star Heart Cafe'. One lady bought three of my books; Amy's story book, our poetry book and my song book. I also sold cards and lavender scenters. A little girl bought a mauve and gold gadget pouch, which she was very pleased with, which was very sweet. Mum and I had a nice time. I am aiming to rethink several items on my stall before I do more craft events.

 

   

Another Day, Another Place

I originally wrote my play 'Another Day, Another Place' when I was eighteen after experiencing a 'holiday of a lifetime'; a three week coach tour of central and southern Europe. I have updated and condensed the play into a seven minute video, which includes more countries in north, west and eastern Europe, that I visited in my late teens and early twenties. The play was really about self-discovery and the friendships, loves and break-ups experienced by the young people on the tour bus, rather than a great appreciation of the places we were visiting. The accompanying music is made up of two songs written by me when I was seventeen and eighteen 'I can see you' and 'Waiting for me'.

Through the Seasons

'Through the seasons' began as an early computer project involving Paintbrush, Publisher and PowerPoint.

In 2012 I remoulded my words into four seasonal haiku which I included in an ALF Creations poetry book along with accompanying pictures by Amy.

 There is also another version of 'Through the seasons' on my YouTube page, which uses one of my songs 'For what I am' and one of Amy's illustrated poems 'What do people do'.

Northwood Craft Market

At short notice I took part in the Northwood Craft Market on the 7th June. It started off a very wet day and the market was quite slow and quiet, however there was some positive interest in my craftwork and I did sell a few dolls and cards. On the plus side it does mean that I still have a lot of stock left for my next craft morning on the 5th July at the United Reform Church in Northwood Hills.

 

The Garden and The Forest

These two illustrated poems are inspired by the fairy tales 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'Little Red Riding Hood'. In particular the more adult versions of these tales as retold by Angela Carter in stories such as 'The Courtship of Mr Lyon' and 'The Company of Wolves'. Gardens and forests seem to me to represent the extremes of the green world, the tameness of a well-cultivated garden and the wildness of an unruly forest. In my garden I have one small border which I try to keep looking reasonably neat and pretty and also a wild patch at the back, which I struggle to keep in its place. I feel Belle and Scarlet are two sides of the same coin and are doing their best to stay calm and remain true to themselves when faced with the overwhelming desires of an intimidating beast or a ravenous wolf.

Lorna on Pinterest

I have joined Pinterest and started putting pictures of my dolls, illustrated poems and other artwork on various mood boards. I now have about a hundred pictures on there, spread over eight different mood boards.

Aspects of tea
Star Heart Dolls
Illustrated poems
Digital collage
Paintings
Craftwork
Sketches
Drama & Stories

I have found it a fun, enjoyable endeavour, please stop by and take a look at http://www.pinterest.com/lornafinnigan/

Richard's Things

'Richard's Things' was inspired by the title of a book by Frederic Raphael. I have an old ex-library copy of the book, but find it quite a difficult read. I really enjoyed drawing the sketches for my accompanying video. They were mostly produced in one day, a day off from work spent indoors waiting for the gas man.

Wise Women's Words

In one of my stories, Deja Vu, the main character, Sara, joins the Wise Women's Words reading group. This is a selection of weird tales, stories and poems the group discuss throughout the story.

 

Mr Jones by Edith Wharton

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

The Last Séance by Agatha Christie

The Blue Lenses by Daphne Du Maurier

Man size in marble by E. Nesbit

Death and Co. by Sylvia Plath

Daughters of the late colonel by Katherine Mansfield

Goblin Market by Christina Rosetti

The old nurse's story by Elizabeth Gaskell

 

This is a selection of treasured books I have by some of the chosen authors. The illustrated edition of 'Classics of the Macabre' by Daphne du Maurier is my favourite. It includes 'Don't look now' and 'The Birds' as well as my favourite story 'The Blue lenses'. I have often thought how wonderful an illustrated edition of Angela Carter's 'The Bloody Chamber' would be.

A Time for Dolls

I had intended to produce a doll making video accompanied by one of my songs. I couldn't quite get to grips with this idea, so I have instead gone for a video presentation of my 'Book of Dolls'. The short film features 'The Making of the Virtues' in the middle of it and is set to my song 'Like Minds'.

The Excuse

Over the years I have enjoyed a number of exercise activities; swimming, which I still enjoy on Saturdays, all kinds of dancing, yoga and walking, which, not having a car, is also a necessity. However, at school PE was my least favourite subject, an attitude I shared with my best friend. This is an excuse letter I wrote to get her out of one particular games lesson. Unfortunately it was not taken seriously and she had to do the class anyway. The accompanying picture is by Amy.

 

Dear P.E. Staff,

Could you please excuse Alison from her P.E. Lesson as resorcinol and crystalline organic compounds have diffused and demolished her anti-bodies leaving her with a panachronism and making her myopic. She also has a thallium in her central nervous system which has devastated her libido and she is now waiting for 'good old' lobotomy which will hopefully cure her of her schizophrenia and xenophobia. At the moment she is undergoing treatment for her chronic social disorders and we are transferring her to another psychiatrist as the previous one went mad and is now dwelling in a lunatic asylum south of Watford. Despite her leanings towards anarchy and her militant tendencies which cause her to go impuris naturalis, she is strictly and strategically opposed to the filthy capitalist bourgeois pigs and the mediocrity that surrounds the succession of imperialists in pre-revolutionary Prussia. She is willing to disregard her objectives and maintain an elevated degree of over righteous sanity and stability for the good of the welfare state. Alison is a very sensitive five foot five demented gnome, would-be-hippi, who is a member of a samarium, occasional druid and her increasing interest in the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks have led to the acknowledgement of the nuclear fallout shelter in the back garden. She is mentally deficient at the sanest of times and has occasional lapses of intensity which is only too common in manic depressives and delinquents. Alison has an inbuilt inferiority complex which led me to the conclusion that her grey matter is not as green as I once suspected. I have always found her very pleasant when she is not around. She has an atrocious claudication in the ninety degree, neither acute nor obtuse, wooden means of support and she is suffering with convoluted nervous tissue in her skull which has left her with exhaustion and brain fag. We hope that her allegiance with Satan and the fact that she is a hypochondriac and psychopath will not detain her for an abnormal length of time at the sanatorium. I hope you will understand as she still has gruelling primal therapy sessions to overcome.

Yours metaphysically,

The hunched backed antichrist with green teeth and a degree in melodramatic hair-dos with a tendency to hypocrisy

(AKA Alison's mother)

The Puzzle

A few years ago Amy produced a number of pictures on a 'Girls in a swirl' theme. Labyrinth is one of the most complex and popular of these pictures.

 I took the picture to Snappy Snaps and they made it into a jigsaw for me.

I thought the jigsaw pieces went well with a prose poem I wrote called 'The Puzzle'.

 

LornaJHart on YouTube

Before I became AmiloFinn I was LornaJHart. The LornaJHart Channel on YouTube has been going since 2008. The first two videos I uploaded were Ballet Class (2008) and Halloween Party (2009). I now have a playlist of ten ALF Pictures, animations and movies I have produced with Amy, and also a favourites list which includes other people's animations that I have loved since I was a child; The Selfish Giant and A Christmas Carol from 1971.

Knitted Gadget Pouches

 

My knitted gadget pouches were a surprise success at the December Craft morning in Northwood.

I learnt how to knit when I was in infant school and hadn't picked up a pair of knitting needles since then. However in 2009 I came across Kirstie's Homemade Home on Channel 4OD and was fascinated by all the crafts Kirstie Allsopp was exploring. When I watched the episode featuring knitting I remembered the earlier lessons I'd had with my mum and fancied having another go.

I began by knitting a scarf, then a blanket and then cushion covers, but these were very time consuming projects. Now I knit small things like the gadget pouches and things for my dolls.

I keep my phone, my ishuffle and my digital camera in my knitted gadget pouches. I use garter stitch, stocking stitch, ribbons and cross stitch to produce them and I find making them to be a short and satisfying project.

 

Dave the Cave

My poem 'Dave was a Caveman' came second in the Hounslow Poetry Competition and was also featured in my college magazine. I wrote it when I was fifteen about the teenage boys I was encountering at home and at school.

Dave was a Caveman by Lorna Wadge

Dave was a caveman in disguise
He wore dark glasses to hide his eyes
He was such a poor, pathetic sight
That people would ask 'Are you all right?'

Dave felt he was a slave to everyday matters,
With his hair uncombed and greasy
And his clothes in fading tatters,
Dave lit his cigarette and took a drag,
He sighed a sigh of deep depression
Which gave the impression
That he had brain-fag

Dave thought he could be a politician,
An artist, a poet or a rock musician
Dave thought he could act, he thought he could sing
But Dave you can't do anything

Dave thought he was important,
All knowing and all seeing
His mother said, 'Hey Dave,
Act more like a human being.
The neighbours will think there's something wrong.'
Of course they would have been right,
There was something wrong with everyone,
Dave had seen the light.

Dave was a cavemen, Dave was deep,
Dave was only happy when he was asleep,
He lived at the bottom of a dead end street,
Dave was a cavemen, Dave was a creep

Dave coud be defiant
When he was so incliend,
He fierecly made bold statements,
He stood up for his kind,
For forgotten adolescents
The world had left behind,
He spoke with fire and passion
And then he changed his mind.

Some people think he's civilised
Which cames as a surprise,
Considering that Dave
Was a caveman in disguise

Me and my Piano Diploma

This is a story of slow education.

I started learning the piano in 1975. Mum and I were never in a rush for me to get my grades and so, with various breaks for O'levels, A'levels, a degree, various jobs, travelling abroad, buying a house and marriage, I finally passed my Grade 8 in 1998.

After another break of 10 years, while I was busy as a working mum with a small child, and spurred on by my daughter's young friends wishing to learn the piano, I decided to return to piano education and try for a DipABRSM in piano teaching. It took me another year to get the prerequisite Grade 6 Music Theory and in February 2010 I started studying for the diploma. I didn't know it was going to take me four years to do it, but I am quite a busy working mum so I think it's quite understandable.

The first year was spent reading books, making notes and working on my Written Submission. Years two to three were spent working on the Grade 6 pieces I needed to teach, collecting relevant tutor books, working on answers to possible questions and producing a set of hand-out notes for each of the grades.

The day of the exam was a very strange day as I felt very far out of my comfort zone. The Viva Voce was one of the hardest exams I've done, I thought it would be like an interview, but I now know that it is far more objective than that. I received my first set of results in February 2013 and was pleased with my Written Submission result, they'd given me a distinction, relieved I'd got through the Viva Voce and not too disappointed that I'd failed the Quick Study, as, looking back, I hadn't really given this part of the exam enough time or thought.

I decided not to retake the Quick Study straight away but spend a lot of 2013 improving my piano playing with the help of my music teacher and working out what was required in the Quick Study. I had a good day, the day of the Quick Study retake, although I didn't like the piece they'd given me to play. I had a feeling I'd done enough to pass, but they are very strict when it comes to the DipABRSM so I wasn't sure.

I was really happy, February 2014, when I received the big white envelope with my DipABRSM certificate inside it and the letter saying I was now entitled to append the letters DipABRSM to my name.

The best thing about playing the piano is playing the piano, regardless of what exams you manage to pass. It has been a source of comfort and joy to me in my life and I'm glad I could pass that enjoyment on to a few of my daughter's friends. For the record, my daughter is not into the piano, she likes singing.

Audrey & Sylvia

I made these two dolls for my mum and my aunt who are identical twins. Sadly my aunt died last year which has been a great loss and caused much sadness for my family. The thirteenth of February is their birthday.

On The Ice

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyvF4RnpFgM

'On the ice' is an ALF animation featuring pictures based on a set of Amy's drawings inspired by the 'Dancing on Ice' TV show as well as a few precarious experiences with ice skating in real life. The backgrounds are based on photographs of the Northern Lights. The animation is set to one of my songs called 'Alive at Last'. The song came to me on one singers night at the Cabbage Patch, Twickenham and was once used at a friend's baptism service.

Cafe Pictures

 

 

Over the years Amy and I have produced many pictures inspired by café culture; people in cafes, menus, café food and a variety of tea and coffee related paraphernalia. I looked through our café collection and chose five of my favourite pictures to feature on my blog banner. The first picture is from a drawing by Amy and the others are a pencil drawing, a painting, a digital collage and a more abstract design by me.