{"id":628,"date":"2020-01-10T09:38:42","date_gmt":"2020-01-10T09:38:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/?p=628"},"modified":"2020-01-10T18:48:41","modified_gmt":"2020-01-10T18:48:41","slug":"not-just-a-pretty-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/?p=628","title":{"rendered":"Not just a pretty face"},"content":{"rendered":"

I left my hairdresser recently; other women of a certain age will sympathise. Undeniably talented hairdresser that he was, Bob was somehow just not seeing me anymore. I\u2019m not sure when I went from paying customer with individuality into the big box marked \u2018nice ladies of a certain age\u2019 but, just like in Toy Story, there I was. Left on the side of the style road waiting for the nursing home truck. The nail in the coffin came when I said that I didn\u2019t wish to look like a lady who spent her days colour matching towels in John Lewis and he replied that I \u2018had the face for it\u2019. He was right of course; I have the pleasant face of the stranger who\u2019ll mind your bags while you nip to the loo. Doesn\u2019t mean I care to pay to be reminded of it. Now I go to Emily, covered in a riot of tattoos, who is far more interested in my trips to Japan and my prints and far less in pigeon-holing me into a one cut suits all.<\/p>\n

The sad fact is that I am as guilty as Bob. I once taught a very elderly woman who was struggling a bit in class. I spent a bit more time than usual one to one with her and sorted out what she needed to understand. Then I stupidly said that being in class could be a bit overwhelming and not to worry. I didn\u2019t actually say \u2018for a woman of your age\u2019, but I might as well have done.<\/p>\n

She smiled kindly and said that she thought the problem was too much time in class, not too little. Handing in the final papers of her doctorate had clashed with my workshop, so she was feeling a little tired. I\u2019m grateful for that humiliating lesson in teaching me that people are very seldom who you think they are. Can I put in a word here for a similar re-education programme for mobile phone sellers? I\u2019m tired of having my ignorance interpreted as stupidity and I\u2019m sure many feel the same. I\u2019m ignorant about phones because I can\u2019t be ars*d to be interested, not because I lack the intelligence to learn.<\/p>\n

Appearances can be deceptive. We all know that and we all forget it. This week on the Ask and Artist podcast<\/a> we\u2019re discussing social media, the most misleading light ever provided to shine on our personal and professional lives. Surely social media is the greatest villain for misinterpretation the world has ever seen. Or is it?<\/p>\n

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All the towels in my studio are coordinated to match with equally inky filth<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For me as an artist it is the exact opposite and I hope that\u2019s true for most creatives. It\u2019s a platform for my reality. A world away from predictable \u2018niceness\u2019 of my age, face and clothes, where I share just who I am and what I can do. I\u2019m good with social media and I believe this is mostly down to authenticity and honestly. That the audience like my output is fantastic, but that I have a place to put the output is even better. Look on social media and you\u2019ll see the truth: in my world, towels are ripped into squares and dunked in ink and spirits, not politely matched to the colour of the downstairs loo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I left my hairdresser recently; other women of a certain age will sympathise. Undeniably talented hairdresser that he was, Bob was somehow just not seeing me anymore. I\u2019m not sure when I went from paying customer with individuality into the big box marked \u2018nice ladies of a certain age\u2019 but, just like in Toy Story, … Continue reading “Not just a pretty face”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[61,62,25,64,31,50,63,65],"class_list":["post-628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-art-advice","tag-ask-an-artist","tag-linocut","tag-middle-age","tag-printmaker","tag-printmaking","tag-social-media","tag-women-artist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=628"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":651,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions\/651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lauraboswell.co.uk\/studiodiary\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}