So the 50 hours are up – and yes I completed 100 portraits.
Thanks to everyone who sat for me, on zoom and in person, and to everyone who sent in pictures of themselves, loved ones and beloved pets. Also to everyone who sponsored me – thank you.
You can see all the portraits here https://debdavemason.com/100-portraits-in-50-hours/
If you’d like to donate you can do so here
Here’s some of my favourites
Yes, it has begun!
My drawing marathon challenge for the Captain Tom 100 Challenge. Over the course of this weekend (Friday 30th April to Monday 3rd May) I plan to complete 100 portraits in 50 hours. That means drawing for 12 to 13 hours a day. I love drawing but that’s still a lot of work for brain and hand. I’ve bought a splint for my right hand – unfortunately brain splints are not available!
Subjects will be coming to sit in person (socially distanced) in my driveway, in person online (via zoom etc) and I will also be doing some portraits from photographs submitted by email. I’ve got more than 100 subjects lined up – just in case someone drops out at the last minute or calls off due to rain.
I’ll be posting the results on my twitter and instagram feeds @DebDaveMason (don’t worry I’ll be taking a break for the Line of Duty finale!)
Why am I doing this crazy thing (ask my dog, my mother and my sister)? It’s for a very worthwhile charity. I work for Magic Me two days a week and it’s more than a job, it’s a brilliant charity doing work that is so vital right now.
What actually is that work you ask? Magic Me specialises in intergenerational arts activity bringing younger and older people together for mutual benefit, learning and enjoyment. Based in Bethnal Green they work with people in Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest and Essex.
Through 2020/21 all through the various lockdowns, their At Home Together programme reached 350+ people and worked with 19 partners organisations. Magic Me has continued to serve vulnerable isolated individuals, and people living in sheltered housing and care homes, they have managed to keep school pupils and older people connected, through remote activities.
The pandemic has exacerbated issues which already impacted older east Londoners: social isolation, overstretched care system, racial injustice, digital poverty. The latter two of these also affect many of the school children the charity works with and they have also been impacted by isolation and loneliness when school lockdowns mean they can’t meet up with their friends.
Magic Me receives no core funding from central Government. Every penny of staff salaries, overheads like rent and utilities, online services such as zoom etc, have to be fundraised from scratch year on year. Each project is funded separately and can only go ahead when budgets are met. The pandemic has brought additional challenges not just to delivering the kind of work Magic Me does, but also to raising the funds to do it.
Please do make a donation to my fundraising page here and help Magic Me do more of its wonderful work.
If you would like to find out more about Magic Me you can:
Visit the website www.magiceme.co.uk
Sign up for the monthly newsletter
Follow on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram
If you have other ideas about how you can support the charity contact me there at deborahmason@magicme.co.uk
So… as you know I like a challenge. Especially a fundraising challenge. And I’m once again raising funds for the awesome Magic Me.
Over the weekend of 30 April to 3 May I’m going to try and complete 100 portraits in 50 hours.
I’m going to need subjects, I’m going to need sponsors. They might be the same people, they might not!
You don’t need to sponsor me to have a portrait done and you get the portrait as a thank you for helping me get to my goal of 100 portraits in 50 hours.
Sponsorship is of the activity itself (like sponsoring a marathon) – and you don’t have to have a portrait done to sponsor me – Magic Me is a brilliant charity so your money will go to a great cause.
HOW TO GET A PORTRAIT DONE – 3 DIFFERENT OPTIONS
3 ways to get a portrait done – it can be of you or a loved one (human or pet!)
In person over zoom/meet/teams
Use the form below to book a 30 minute slot – you won’t need to sit completely still but wriggly children, pets etc might be best done from a photo!
If there is more than one of you please let me know when booking and book continuous slots for each person – so for 2 people it might be 10am and 1030am, for 3 it might be 10am, 1030am, 11am – if you can’t find the right slots let me know and I can hopefully shuffle things about.
In person in my front garden in Maidenhead
Use the form below to book a 30 minute slot – you won’t need to sit completely still but wriggly children, pets etc might be best done from a photo!
If there is more than one of you please let me know when booking and book continuous slots for each person – so for 2 people it might be 10am and 1030am, for 3 it might be 10am, 1030am, 11am – if you can’t find the right slots let me know and I can hopefully shuffle things about.
My house is in Ray Park Avenue, there are usually places to park nearby on the road – I’ll send the exact address once I’ve received your booking.
Booking form for the in person options here:
Send a photo (or more than one)
You don’t need to book a slot for these, I’ll fit them into any empty slots in the timetable (or do them at unsocial hours early in the morning or late at night if necessary). Please send photos through as soon as possible and by 6pm on 2nd May 2021 at the latest.
All you have to do is send the photo to me here hashtagcollage@gmail.com
HOW TO SPONSOR
Magic Me is a brilliant intergenerational arts charity helping to combat social isolation and loneliness in one of the UK’s most deprived areas. You don’t have to sponsor me to have a portrait done but if you’d like to you can make a donation here: https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/DeborahMason7/1
WHAT DO YOU GET – WHEN DO YOU GET IT?
The image above is the style of portrait I’ll be doing – for 20-30mins anything other than pen and ink is a bit too much of a challenge. Most individual portraits will be A5 size (about the size of an exercise book), group portraits will be A4 size (about the size of a magazine).
The challenge period between 30 April and 3rd May will be pretty intense – I’ll be working 12.5 hours a day to complete the challenge. I’ll be taking quick snaps of the portraits and sharing as I go (I won’t share anyone’s name – just the number of the portrait and the image).
Once the challenge is over I’ll scan each portrait to a high quality jpeg and send this through to you. This might take a little while but I hope to have this done by the end of that week. If you like the portrait and would like the original just let me know, with a postal address, and I’ll post it out to you.
Image shows: three images next to each other left to right: a pen and ink portrait of a middle-aged woman with a pink face, glasses and hair pulled back, an old man in a blue shirt smiling, a black and white drawing of a dog’s head, the dog is wearing a poppy on her collar.
Why my pub won’t be closing its doors
On a Friday night, eight years ago, I was home drinking wine, sitting on the sofa ‘chatting’ to friends via Facebook. Someone, it might have been me, it might not, said ‘this is like a virtual pub’. This tickled my imagination and that of my friend, Liz Steer, so we set up the Sofa Arms. As a Facebook group with multiple admins people could invite their own friends down the pub and chat amongst themselves or the other regulars. It was those regulars that really made the pub work. They didn’t all know each other but many were connected by being disconnected. Isolation and social distance aren’t new. Many people become isolated at different points in their lives, parents of new babies and young children, people with long term illness or disability, or those temporarily disabled by injury or disease. One of our most ebullient regulars is an archaeologist who spends nearly every summer on digs in remote parts of Turkey, for her the Sofa Arms was a little taste of home and a place to unwind and be silly.
I’m not sure how I ended up by being landlady (how Liz got away with not) but I never thought the Sofa Arms would still be going strong. Recently we’ve been very busy. In fact we haven’t been this busy since the London Riots in 2011. This is not surprising, suddenly everyone is feeling isolated, disconnected and also in need of a bit of silliness. Our current isolation and social-distance comes with a big hint of ‘death’ and I think that is driving people to find distractions. On Friday we experimented with our first live Happy Hour via Zoom. Not without its technical glitches but patrons are keen to give it another ago and are already talking about pub quizzes and play readings, a poetry night is currently scheduled for Monday. But it is about more than social interaction.
The popularity of the pub is down to the regulars and their collective imagination and creativity. They have created the pub and all its fabulous features. They have made for themselves and for others the comfort of a perfect place – a pub-topia – where the loos are always clean and stocked with loo roll, where every kind of food and drink is available. Long running imaginative threads have woven the pub into a kind of shared reality. There are rogue camels that sometimes, ineffectively, serve behind the bar, there is a Colin Firth look-a-like waiter, a Pimms fountain, the heating for the Winter Bar is provided by mulled wine running behind the wainscoting which can be sampled from small brass taps set into the panelling. The games room is big enough for jousting and has also hosted Zumba. Mrs Thinge the cleaner has had much written about her and has emerged as a character somewhere between Mata Hari and Flash Harry.
Dropping into the Arms is about dropping into a nicer world, one that is fun and easy, away from all crises. Although it does provide a place for social connection I think it is that shared vision of a good place to be that will keep it open for the duration. I work for the charity Magic Me, our director recently wrote a blog about ‘Where we are today’ her final lines really resonate with me and I’m planning to have them painted above the door to the Ladies’ Snug:
I had for some time considered the parallels and similarities between Emily Bronte’s creation ‘Heathcliffe’ and Mary Shelley’s ‘Creature’ and how ideas of revenge drive forward the plots of both Wuthering Heights and Frankenstein. Modern interpretations of both often try and force a romantic plot line onto these works, rather than a Romantic one. In both cases an abandoned child grows up alone, any love or comfort is fleeting and often quickly taken away by fate. Each character grows embittered and determines to take revenge, unlike the Count of Monte Cristo (fairly contemporary to Wuthering Heights) who takes very specific revenge on each of the people who wrong him, these characters take revenge that although directed at one person is a revenge on the whole world – it is savage, raw, visceral.
It made me wonder about the authors, whether these characters were outlets for their own feelings of abandonment (both had mother’s who died young and father’s more concerned with philosophy and theology), the pain of their own loss of children, siblings, loved ones.
In my one off book I imagine a narrative for Frankenstein that tells the story from the Creature’s perspective and pulls out the similarities with Heathcliffe on one side and on the other is a series of visual thoughts about the relationship between Emily and Mary, between Mary and Percy and Byron and about women repressing their raw emotions and putting them into their art. The design of the book was inspired by a facsimile of a German children’s book that has cut outs through the middle of the pages and a zig-zag fold out page formation that allows you to rearrange it so you can create different through views. This seemed to me the perfect vehicle for interpreting a classic novel – one that has gathered many different viewpoints and interpretations over the years.
The book was exhibited at the Liverpool Book Art Fair in 2018. The exhibtion was themed to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein.
Taking stock as the seasons turn I’ve updated various pages on this site and added lots of pictures and media!
26 first draft
You can catch up with my Artist in Residence in My Own Street project here
Find out about my Cheer Up Love! project here
And watch this space for my 365DaysofMum project.
Posted as part of Inktober – October 2018 – part of my Pick and Choose History of Courtenay Street, Kennington and Lambeth:
Spooky Lambeth for Halloween. Featuring two of Cheryl Newey’s favourite south london ghosts – the ghost of the Kennington Loop and the ghost of the Old Vic! The ghost of the Kennington Loop is well known as a story for South Londoners, but only those who fail to get off the terminating train will have experienced it. As it goes into the loop sounds of footsteps are heard moving through the carriages opening and closing the interconnecting doors – so remember when they say ‘all change’ – get off the train! I discovered a fascinating story about the entertainer Roy Hudd – he had a recurrent dream in which he walked up to and then into the same house over and over – he could describe the place in detail, but it wasn’t until he visited some friends living in Ackerman Road in Brixton that he discovered that the house was real and had once been the home of fellow performer, music hall legend, Dan Leno. So precise had been his dreams that Roy could describe each room before he entered it. There is a Lambeth legend that if you run twelve times round the Tradescant tomb (now in the Garden Museum’s garden – once the parish churchyard) whilst Big Ben strikes midnight, a ghost will appear. Sadly I only found this out after Big Ben was silenced for maintenance. Working the occasional late shift for weddings I would have had opportunity to try this out. Ah well, just 5 years to wait! The Imperial War Museum is housed in what used to be Bedlam (the main London insane asylum) and it is said that security guards report the sounds of screams and rattling chains. The Old Vic has, appropriately, a female ghost. She is seen clutching blood stained hands to her breast – whether this is the means of her demise or just a reprise of her best performance as Lady M has yet to be determined – perhaps a job for the Most Haunted team and Dennis Acora? This is just a small selection of the many fun ghosts and hauntings of Lambeth! (I’ve even had my own poltergheist but now exorcised).
Cheryl added the following comment to the original post:
“Spooktastic!! There’s also Lilian Bayliss and Emma Conns at the Old Vic. Apparently, the aroma of frying sausages can sometimes be smelled in the auditorium during a performance, and it’s said that it’s Ms Bayliss enjoying the show and cooking her favourite supper!”
Posted as part of Inktober in October 2018 – part of my Pick and Choose History of Courtenay Street, Kennington and Lambeth
Players & Performers. There may be a second part to this! There are many players and performers from Lambeth but here are a small selection: Charlie Chaplin famously lived at many different addresses in Kennington, including the workhouse – the building is now the Cinema Museum which is threatened with closure – do please sign the petition here to help keep it open! Here
Back in 1831 American actress Ada Isaac Menken caused a storm in the production ‘Mazeppa’ dressed only in a short tunic and flesh coloured tights she was tied to a galloping horse! Daisy Dormer was a music hall artiste married into a large family of performers based in Kennington – her big hit was the song ‘After the Ball is Over’ which went on to sell 5 million sheet music copies in the 1890s! (there is a block of flats named after her in Brixton).
Raffaele Chefalo was one of the great musicians of the early 20th century and a friend of Houdini. On the 1911 census he was living with his wife and child in Loughborough Road, Brixton.
Posted for Inktober, October 2018, part of my Pick and Choose History of Courtenay Street, Kennington and Lambeth
Maypoles, mummers and Morris dancers. The longest standing maypole in London once stood in Black Prince Road opposite the Black Prince pub. It was still in use in 1795. In 1377 the Common Council of England sent 130 men to salute Richard II. They went ‘a mumming’ to Kennington Palace riding in pairs with torches, dressed in red with their faces covered with ‘vizards’ (masks). They presented gifts, drank and danced before returning to the city. Morris dancing still thrives in South London there are at least 9 Morris sides including an all women side (New Esperance) in Borough
From Inktober posts Oct 2018 – part of my Pick and Choose History of Courtenay Street, Kennington and Lambeth:
Theatre and Other Entertainments. We all know that the South Bank is full of glorious possibilities for entertainment, but I’ve lived in Kennington for 20 years and didn’t know that the first Elizabethan playhouse was sited on what is now the road junction between the Elephant & Castle shopping centre and the Strata building! In 1594 Henslowe brought the players here from the Rose (which was closed) and notes in his papers that they performed Titus, Hamlet and Taming of the Shrew. Shakespeare was almost certainly among their number (I do hope they make this into an episode of Upstart Crow!). Down by Westminster Bridge (where St Thomas’ hospital now stands) was Astley’s Amphitheatre – begun by Astley a soldier with extraordinary skill with horses it originally showed only equestrian shows but expanded (to keep up with the competition) to include other circus acts. One of their most famous performers was Pablo Fanque a black equestrian – he even gets a mention in a Beatle’s song! On a huge site between the Walworth Road and Kennington Park Road, with entrances on Penton Place and Manor Park Place was the Surrey Music Hall and Zoological gardens. A 300 ft conservatory, large boating lake and various animals – including 3 giraffes and a rhino occupied a site which is now mostly small streets, the Peacock yards and several blocks of flats – I walk across the boating lake everytime I go to Abacus Arts in Browning Street! We still have the White Bear Theatre on Kennington Park Road (recently refurbished but running since 1988) but it cannot compete in splendour with the Princess of Wales / Kennington Theatre which once stood on the corner of Kennington Park Road and Park Place – a huge edifice with luxurious bars and salons – knocked down in 1949 the site is now occupied by a block of flats.
debdavemasondotcom 