A Play In Three Acts, Act I

Act I

A kitchen, in the home of an expatriate American, somewhere in Cornwall. A  Cornishman has stopped in for tea.

Cornishman, surveying the kitchen, to American: Why is your cheese grater so big? It’s preposterous!

American to Cornishman (slightly annoyed): Because Americans eat a lot of cheese, of course!

Cornishman (amused): You must eat a lot of cheese to need one that big. I can just imagine what meals must be like in your country: mum and dad and all the kiddies sitting round the table, plates heaped high with shredded cheese!

American (sarcastically): Yes, that’s exactly how it is in America. I can tell you’ve been there. Cheese is where Americans get all their vitamins. ( He pronounces “vitamins” the American way, with a long “i”).

Cornishman: Excuse me, mate, did you say “vye-tamins?” Don’t you know it’s pronounced “vih-tamins?” It’s a short “i,” as in “ih-gloo.” You wouldn’t pronounce “igloo” as “eye-glue,” would you?

American: Well, you wouldn’t pronounce “vital” as “vittle” would you? Of course not! You would say “vye-tle.” So why not “vye-tamin?” And where do you come off pronouncing “dual carriageway” as “joo-el carriageway?” “Dual” is spelled with a “d” not a “j.” It should be pronounced “doo-el!”

(Cornishman and American hotly debate the pronunciation of the words albino, zebra, and garage for several minutes, nearly coming to blows.)

American: You English are fond of baby-isms in your speech. It’s amazing to me that you would call an umbrella a “brolley,” and your boots “wellies.”

Cornishman: We have the Queen and the Beatles!

American: There you’ve got me, friend. Here, have some more clotted cream in your tea.

(American dumps a huge a pile of something into Cornishman's tea with a "plop!")

Cornishman: That’s not clotted cream, you ninny, that’s grated cheese!

American: Well, English cars are too small.

End of Act I

Link to BBC Spotlight TV Clip

Here is the link to the TV clip which shows me for 1 second, doesn't mention my name, or that I'm the one who did the painting of the girl with the laptop under her arm. I'm the one who mentions David Beckham. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-20903206

But, it's a nice clip nevertheless, and I share the spotlight with the wonderful Alison Bevan, director of Penlee House. I did not do the painting of her; that was done by Birmingham painter John Shakespeare, a fine artist passionate about representational painting.

Cheers,
Cameron  

Penlee Inspired

 

Hi there. A couple columns back I wrote about the Penlee Inspired exhibition in which I have a painting hanging next to a portrait by Elizabeth Forbes, which was the inspiration for my painting. My model, my landlady's daughter and sometime babysitter, and I were actually interviewed for local BBC tv. It was great fun. David George was the interviewer. I have not seen the clip on his show yet. We don't get tv yet. If you've seen it, let me know.
In any event, I have included the Forbes along with my own painting here, which is excruciating because I think the Forbes is so much better than my own. Nevertheless, I hope my own has some redeeming qualities, and that you enjoy looking at it for those few seconds that we look at paintings.
Cheers,
Cameron

Chapter Nine

People of Cornwall: hear me! Your home is beautiful!

Since my very first installment of this column in September, I have mentioned the beauty of Cornwall several times, albeit briefly. But let me now devote an entire column to praising the beauty of Penzance and its surroundings, particularly its skies.

First, in the four months that I have been in Penzance, I have seen more rainbows than I ever did in my forty-something years in the US. I have seen them over the stretches of farmland several times, and over St. Michael’s Mount, sometimes days in a row. On several of those occasions, my four year old daughter witnessed them with me. I was as excited as she was.

My other fetish is western Cornwall’s cloud activity. Heavenly. The variety of cloud shapes, sometimes all thrown together at once in the sky, I had always thought existed only in picture books. Even when those clouds block out the sun, their purpley-grey wooliness lends a kind of supernatural wonder to the equation, as though giant sheep were grazing upside down on the ceiling of the sky. But when the sun breaks through, that’s when the magic really happens. Occasionally riding an early train in the morning, I must first catch a pre-sunrise bus into Penzance from St. Buryan. Sitting on the top level of the bus not only offers the chance to look directly into the second storey windows of people’s homes, but it gives one a super-hedgerow vantage point to the sun along the horizon, as it cracks the sky open like a giant raw egg, splashing golds and pinks all over the place.

Maybe elsewhere I will make mention of Cornwall’s ostentatious starry night skies, which, without competition from big-city nocturnal lighting, can be glorious.

Have you written your New Year’s resolutions yet? No? Good! Here’s one you may want to put at the top of your list: less tv, more sky-watching. Happy New Year, Cornwall!

Chapter Eight.

I was warned: get to the school Christmas play early and grab a front seat.

Now to me, someone suffering from the kind of warped time sensitivity that only prolonged sleep deprivation can offer, getting to the play ten minutes before it would start seemed early enough. But to the parents who had occupied every single seat in the first few front rows, obviously long before I arrived, ten minutes beforehand was tantamount to “you may as well have come ten hours late because now you won’t get a seat where your child can see you from the stage and you obviously don’t love your child or you would have gotten here earlier.” This is the first play my daughter has been in (she is only four after all), so let’s chalk up my tardiness to inexperience.

What are the repercussions of not getting that front row seat? Well…if your child can not see you from the stage, he or she may not know you are in the audience. In fact, it is almost certain that he or she will believe you are not there. This is bad, you see, because then your child may do things like pick his or her nose and eat the product, right there in front of everyone. Again and again. Or, if the child sees you there, he or she may be less likely to ad lib his or her lines. I’m convinced my daughter did this. I did not check with her teachers afterward, but I doubt her lines truly were: “I have stage fright,” or “is my mommy here?” or “ Mommy are you there?” These last two really gutted me, because I was always sure my daughter would cry out for me and not for her mommy…excuse me…her mummy…if she were frightened. I guess there is a little vanity in every man.

And so, this was the beginning of our Christmas, our first in England.

Merry Christmas, Cornwall!

An American in Penzance, Chapter Seven

 

Here is why Penzance reigns supreme, at least for me: for all of the silly comparisons made between Penzance and her sister cities, none of them has such a beautiful place as Penlee House Museum. Or Penlee Park, for that matter.

I discovered them completely by chance heading out for a stroll with my infant son in his pushchair. A short meandering uphill, instead of down, took us to the foot of Penlee Park with its wonderful, lush playground, vivid with the sounds, colours, and kinetic frenzy of happy children. We continued uphill, past surprisingly exotic verdure, and at the top of the park we discovered Penlee House, sitting like a proud Cuban villa presiding over its plantation. And since those first few moments that I walked in and was nearly crushed by the power of the Dame Laura Knight exhibition, Penlee House has been like the beautiful girl who gives me heart palpitations and makes me want to see her again and again. Great painting will do that for one. At least for this one.

And for many others also, I’m happy to say. If you go there this December, you will see an exhibition which hangs the work of contemporary artists who have been inspired by works from the museum’s collection, side by side with those very works. Happily, the exhibition has accepted a painting by this artist, a portrait of his landlady’s daughter. Can you imagine what it must be like for us living artists, to be in such a show? In popular terms: it would be like a soccer fan…er…excuse me…football fan sharing a flat with David Beckham. For six weeks.

I’m no football fan, I confess, and would probably be irritated by David tracking his muddy sneakers…er…trainers all over the flat…and that he would constantly leave me to load the dishwasher. Happily, however, rooming with Elizabeth Stanhope Forbes for six weeks in this exhibition will leave me with no such predicaments. Victorian women are so much tidier than twenty-first century male athletes!

CHAPTER SIX: ENGLAND NEEDS THANKSGIVING

400 years ago, Native American Indians partook in a feast with English Puritans who wanted to give thanks for having survived their escape from…um… England…which they wanted to leave so badly that they risked their lives sailing to the New World rather than stay. Now, hasn’t that got “cozy English holiday” written all over it? Americans will celebrate this apocryphal feast today by gorging themselves on turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and pumpkin pie.

Okay, maybe the thought of England adopting this American holiday is insane, but consider: in America, Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season; the day after Thanksgiving is the busiest shopping day of the year. In the US, by Thanksgiving day, I usually had generated several thousand dollars in sales. I’m certain that Thanksgiving could save England’s economy. Or at least my own.

This, at least, is what I wish for as I sit at my easel at a weekly craft fair, hoping to sketch portraits for passersby. With zero business. For two weeks. Whilst regretting turning down the minimum wage job at the retirement home. The attractive, young lady next to me apparently does not need Thanksgiving to generate business; she makes sale after sale after sale with her jewelry. The other vendors, however, like me, complain of slow business. Even our director tells me he feels guilty charging me rent because I have not made any money.

I’m flummoxed. Could it be that, here in the UK, without Thanksgiving, I’ll never have a lucrative Christmas season again? Come on, England. You’ve already adopted Halloween. And my neighbors, after treating me to a wonderful Guy Fawkes night, are anxiously awaiting the Fourth of July. Which is another American holiday celebrating freedom from the rule of…uh…you guessed it. Americans celebrate this day with fireworks, hotdogs, and patriotic American music. Hasn’t that got “blatantly obvious English holiday waiting to happen” written all over it?

To be continued.