Swap the question round. I don’t exist, do I? Look close. I’m just a pixelated patchwork of harlequin clobber, gloves, a mask and a mad mad hat at the top, aren‘t I. But the top of what? Look closer. Nobody there. Yikes!!!
But if I’m not there then nobody can own me, can they? Not even me? I mean, I don’t even own the clothes I stand up in. How can I when I’m not there to stand up in them? So, who made my clothes? And who gave them to me? Were they stitched together in a sweatshop somewhere far away and brought cheap to the high street? Were they handed down through the family? And who designed them?
Conundrum inside an enigma inside a riddle inside a needle and thread flying stitches across a piece of cotton, mysteries and magic inside felt tips, charcoals and pencils tracing lines and outlines and sketches and ideas across a page…
So respect most definitely is due to the skills and ingenuity and energy and invention of the story tellers, illustrators and animators -artists and tricksters all!- who made you -just for a moment- believe that I -who isn’t even here- was real.
Art!!! I don’t understand it but aint it grand? Here’s two chords. Now start a band.
And speaking, as we wuz of mad mad hats and costume and such like before I so rudely interrupted my non existent self a couple of paragraphs back, BITE hasn’t just got a Mad Hatter’s Argentine Tango Ball/Milonga in the evening at the Tithe Barn. There’s an all day Mad Hatter’d Tea Party as well, down at the Methodist Hall. Brought to you by the University of Cumbria’s Foundation Art & Design course. Join the party and decorate tablecloths, plates, cakes and cups.
There’s even -thanks to a group of volunteers amongst the Methodists- real tea and cakes as wel.
Tell me, aren’t you just a bit curious? Tell me aren’t you a bit curiouser? Tell me aren’t you a bit curiouser and curiouser?
