Sunday Scribblings - Good

My actual Sunday Scribblings Post starts after these first four paragraphs about artwork. I have taken Long Necked Lady, as she has come to be known and done my version of her, in fact I did two, I got so carried away and excited by it all [inner child loves to colour]. This is the first time in over a week, due to my mother's situation that I have sat in my artroom for an extended period of time and found my concentration, in fact, I felt blissfully energised yet relaxed at the same time, when I left the room. This plus my lovely Sunday lie-in and my Sunday treats has prepared me for the coming week.

I have uploaded my favourite Long Necked Lady first, I have called her Daughter of Nature, the reasons for which are obvious in the artwork. The Long Necked Lady I did first, set me off laughing, she just turned out like this I didn't mean her to look like this, she just took off. I call her The Flapper, but really she looks like a demented Sally Bowles and I wouldn't be surprised if she burst into 'Cabaret' any minute.

Alternatively, she reminds me of a character in a story my daughter used to scare herself with about a girl who always wore a red ribbon round her neck, even when she got married and her husband asked her to remove the ribbon she told him, she couldn't and he must not ask why or mention it again. Naturally as in all these tales curiousity got the better of him and one night when she was deep asleep he gently untied the ribbon and as he removed it from her neck her head fell off! That could happen to my Flapper because of her long neck.

When I have finished posting I am going to whizz round the sites of the GPS and see how many have posted Violette's Long Necked Lady. We must do more little projects like this they are such fun to do, plus it is so interesting to see everyone else's take on the idea. Doing this has inspired me, as it has given me the basis of some cards I wanted to make for friends and people dear to me, cards, for birthdays, thank yous and just for sending with little surprise gifts. After messing around with this face I can now see the way forward to making these greetings cards as a combination of drawing and collage.



Now time for my Sunday Scribblings, this week, I missed it last week due to unexpected events, and re reading this week's see I have gone off on a fine old ramble. Hope it makes sense to someone.

Sunday Scribblings - Good

Good is a word I don’t feel very favourable towards, I tend to treat it with distain. It always sounds such a priggish word. Perhaps, its because I have never aspired to being described as a ‘good’ girl, not that I was a naughty girl, I always meant well and did my best most of the time. In my past I have been called a ’wild child’ which I could live with and now people might say ’she’s a bit of an old hippy’ or ’she’s rather individual’. I would rather be called a caring friend than a good friend.

Look up the word ’good’ in dictionary and what is the definition:-
Noun: good - Benefit, Moral excellence or admirableness
Goodness - that which is pleasing, valuable or useful
Adjective: good - desirable or positive qualities eg. ‘good news’

It is possible some of the difficulty I have with the word good is that what springs to mind is the term ‘Goodwife’ or ‘Goody’. Now this is a courtesy title of married women, used much as Mrs, or Missus would be used today. The male term is Goodman. The name Goodwife and Goodman were very popular in Puritan England and New England. I see a Goodwife as a sour faced Puritan who would always be conferring with her cronies, never gossiping, god forbid, mulling over details of the misdemeanours of more light hearted ladies. I have this idea firmly ensconced in my mind that it was through these miserable god fearing women that many prettier younger women or eccentric older woman were put to trial as witches. Move one inch outside the ideal Puritan ethics and the Goodies would pounce on you. Perhaps, I have come across them in a past life but they have given me difficulties with the word good.

The other way good is used that has turned me against it is the term Goody Two shoes. This comes from a moralistic children’s tale which was published in 1765 by John Newbery, an early London publisher of children’s stories. Basically this is about a child that went round whining for a pair of shoes, apparently she only had one. When she was given a pair she was so ecstatic that she went round pointing them out to everyone and saying ‘Two shoes’. Of course, Goody Two Shoes now refers to a smug self-righteous person, that never dares to take a risk in case they get into trouble. I would be insulted to be called one.

It seems there are a lot of horrendous snooty English phrases with ‘good’ in them such as ‘Oh good show old son’, ‘goody gum drops’ or ‘goodness me!’, an exclamation of surprise. Good is also such a lazy word, there are so many other words that you can substitute for it, it’s as lazy a word as nice is.

Therefore, for all the above reasons good is a simpering self-satisfied word.

If that is how I feel about the word ‘good’ I must now look at the opposite and think about the word ‘bad’. Yes, ‘bad’ is a bad word in the lazy sense of not looking for a better word, but there is a sort of growl to this word, as if it would jump up and sink its teeth in you as soon as look at you. There is a sort of temptation in it as in ‘keep away he’s a bad boy’ and most of us have been through a time when we had a mad crush or got involved with a bad boy, regardless of warnings, and probably ended up heartbroken.

I can’t spend too long on some of the hidden delights of bad because my prompt, after all was the word ‘good’. Suffice to say that ‘good’ seems to lie down to be walked all over by ‘bad’. Just remember that by bad I don’t mean ‘wicked’ and ‘bad’ doesn’t seem to have the hypocrisy of the word ‘good’. To say ‘bad dog’ doesn’t mean evil dog, just misguided doing something it shouldn’t be doing, just like the word ‘bad’.

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