Rebel rebel
Colouring outside the lines and other tales of the unexpected
One of my first acts of rebellion was to throw myself on my back in the snow and make a snow angel. Took my grandmother completely by surprise: it wasn’t the sort of thing the usually cautious and well-behaved ‘me’ would do. I think I got soaked in the wet snow and maybe that’s why she was a bit cross. Personally, I didn’t see the problem: give me a story book featuring snow angels, what do you think I’ll want to do when there’s six inches of snow outside?!
When I went to live with my other grandmother in London and started school with my cousin, it was definitely Katie who was the naughty one. It was 100% her idea to hide behind the corner of the playground and not go back to class when the bell rang. Compared to her, I was a little angel. Not only was I held up as an example for how to behave nicely, but also how to speak properly (“How Now Brown Cow” and all that).
In my teenage years, I fell out of favour with that grandmother thanks to my refusal to wear anything more colourful than black. Katie and her sister were the ones held up as shining examples of saintliness because they did their own ironing, and said thank you to hairdressers. I stayed with them the summer Charles and Di got married (we watched the ceremony on the telly) and a mobile hairdresser came to the house, and chopped all my hair off. Afterwards, my cousins kept prodding me, whispering “say thank you”. Hell no! The woman had just cut my hair off, and I didn’t even want it cut!
A few years later in an attempt to persuade me out of the black, Granny even knitted me a shocking pink mohair cropped jumper. Was it contrariness that meant I refused to wear it, or assertiveness?!
As a gothy-black-and-studded teen, I never did anything naughty anyway. No sex, drugs and rock’n’roll for me (well, no sex or drugs) because I’m not stupid. I was more afraid of the life-altering consequences and knew where to draw the line after an underage pint or three. It always baffled me that my parents imagined I’d be up to far worse than I actually was. Surely, if I was “intelligent and capable and not working to my full potential” (every school report) - why assume I’d do something completely dumb of a Saturday evening?
When I announced I was going to buy a leather jacket, my Dad imagined something like this:
When in actual fact, I came home with something more like this.
It didn’t go down well. He even had the nerve to say “this isn’t you” and you can imagine how well that went down.
My baby sister found it all fascinating, and told her primary school friends that I was one of the girls in Doctor and the Medics. I didn’t know this until last summer, when I read her memoirs and spoke to her friends. Apparently they all used to be in awe of me and my leather jacket and black eyeliner. The only time I was seen as cool yet didn’t know it!
Fast forward to university years, when I joined the Christian fellowship (it was either that or join one of the drinking clubs or a posse of the ‘upturned collars and pearls’ girls from private school) he was absolutely seething and threw the very worst insult he could at me, declaring that by the age of 40 I’d be “in a headscarf and a member of the WI”.
Bless him, he must’ve been so torn. More than anything my Dad wanted me to be of independent mind, assertive, and go out into the world and do great things. Sensible shoes and a head scarf definitely didn’t fit that image, but neither (in his eyes) did black studded fringed leather and obnoxiously loud metal. My step-mum also gave conflicting vibes: when I asked her what I should do for a career, she said I could do whatever I liked - but also called me ‘contrary’ whenever I expressed an opinion that didn’t match hers (usually over clothes or food).
Somehow, I’ve managed to land somewhere in the middle: less leather, fewer studs, a lot more colour and no tweed! Now I’m a grown-up, I can be as contrary as I like. In fact, the more someone tries to put me in a box or define me in some way, the more I push back. Occasionally I’ve been accused as being ‘hard to get to know’ but only ever from the sort of people who like to put others in boxes anyway. Try to define or predict me, and I’ll do the opposite. Guaranteed.
Contradictions
Thing is, I love colour. I secretly loved my fuchsia pullover when I eventually wore it. I love pink now. I still love to turn the volume up on my music, but hate anything discordant. I like Billy Idol but also Wham! I love beads, I love embellishment, and hate grungy or gloomy.
That said, I also despise anything too ‘girly’: you’ll never see me with polished nails or fussing with my eyebrows now I don’t paint them with spiralling black ink like the good ol’ days. I like natural and simple and clean and clear - but I also like brash and bright and bold. I like neat and tidy, but I adore the unexpected and the odd, the quirky and the niche, dark humour and Nordic noir. I’m very suspicious of people with immaculate homes.
I can’t begin to describe my joy at gleefully spattering black paint over a carefully pieced and stitched piece of colourful work for my #100day sketchbook. The preceding page was just too nice, too pretty. It had to be done, I had to do the unexpected. Delicious.
There is something so exhilarating about letting rip, letting loose. It’s why I like swinging kettle bells, and running (even though I can’t go as far as I’d like right now). But I’m torn. I know if I fling paint too enthusiastically in my small studio, it’ll hit the walls and window and my books and fabrics. I definitely don’t want that, but I definitely want to do it.
Pondering this, I announced to the family that perhaps I could get myself a shed, solely to have somewhere to fling paint. Strangely they scoffed at this notion, but I think it’s a grand idea. I told them that when I’m dead and buried, they could dismantle the shed, with its paint-spattered insides and exhibit it at my retrospective. They weren’t convinced. Perhaps I’ll just get myself a tarp and take myself into the garden.
So where do I fit in?
I took myself up to the Tate the other day - both, Modern and Britain. At Tate Modern I made an impromptu visit to the Yoko Ono exhibition. Completely unexpected. I didn’t think I’d like it, despite knowing nothing about her other than the John Lennon connection. I loved it. I’d like to try some of her ideas:
After that, I made a beeline to the massive Joan Mitchell paintings that I’d actually travelled up to see. Great clods of colourful paint, used with abandon. The energy behind each mark is palpable. I think it’s that that I want to experience when I make art - even though I also find the idea of using so much thick paint and not catching the drips makes me slightly queasy.
After the Tate and the monochrome of Yoko Ono, it was time for the Gudrun Sjoden shop at Covent Garden for some colour therapy, but oddly, found when it came to it I preferred the grey clothes on me than any of the colourful ones I thought I’d love.
Next up, a whistle-stop visit to Tate Britain for the Women in Revolt exhibition. That wasn’t me, either. A lot of the big “women’s lib” demonstrations took place before my time, while I was still at primary school. The closest I got to anything was driving around the perimeter fence of Greenham Common every day on my way to a teaching practice, seeing the last remnants of the women’s camp as the base was gradually decommissioned.
I can’t identify with a lot of the rage, despite a nagging feeling that I should because I’m a woman. It just hasn’t been my experience or that of anyone I know. Women in my family and my parents’ circle of friends have always worked, including at the very highest levels of academia (there’s a university vice-chancellor in there for a start). Then again, the vice-chancellor didn’t ever have children, and it wasn’t my Dad struggling home on the rush-hour Tube with bags of hastily grabbed food from M&S, walking through the door and cooking two different dinners (us and them), supervising bathtime and bed for small people, homework and piano practice for a larger, grumpier teen, all without drawing breath. It’s just the way it was. Perhaps I am hopelessly naïve after all.
I did like this poster:
Little everyday rebellions
Years ago when I followed the Artist’s Way one of the exercises involved writing out a list of the negative adjectives that had ever been used against me.
messy
dull
contrary
stupid
overly-sensitive
nit-picky
useless
hopeless
I then fiercely wrote a list of their opposites, laminated it, and it’s still on the corner of my shelf where I see it every day.
I am:
creative
imaginative
independent
intelligent
intuitive
precise
skilled
talented
So there.
Writing this piece today, I can see clearly that a lot of my little rebellions were just a young person trying to break free of expectations and find her own voice. She’s still trying. I can also see that my parents wanted the best for me, were obviously more worldly-wise than me, and perhaps a little worried, probably quite rightly, believing me to be a little naïve and easily led. Either way, I wish we’d talked about things more, or they’d listened more, but that wasn’t how things were for my generation. Perhaps that’s where the little frissons of frustration and anger come from. And now I’m older, it just seems a bit silly to rebel for the sake of it. Or is it?
Express yourself
It’s one of the reasons I love free motion so much, it allows me to stitch fast, in a rebellious and energetic way. I can make whatever marks, wherever, and I can even say rude things in stitch, if I choose…
If you’d like to learn how (the stitch not the swearing 🤬 😇 but an interesting thought) don’t forget my comprehensive, ten-week Fabulous Free Motion course is still open to join, doors close in a week - we start April 8th.
Are you a rebel at heart?
Did you - and do you still - like to rebel and do the unexpected?
Have you ever wanted to tear up a piece of work or chuck black paint over it? Screw it up, chop it up, do something dramatic with no way back?
Who would you surprise more if you did something rebellious - other people or yourself?
What’s stopping you?!
Until next time
Links to things mentioned
I was intrigued that you thought having sex was stupid. Coming from the 70s as a teenager, everyone I knew was having a lot of sex, including me. Being stupid meant getting pregnant, or picking up nasty diseases. With aids, a lot of fun got taken out of it and I don't think it's ever come back and that's a great shame. It's definitely better than swiping right in a lonely room.
Dear Izzy, what a fabulous piece of writing, I loved it! I’m still trying to learn to rebel but I’m not very good at it. I will be 66 next month and an only child, always a good, well behaved, do as I was told child. My parents loved me dearly but were quite traditional and looking back now my only rebellion was to stop eating when I was 16. I didn’t realise then how rebellious this was and the anguish I put my parents through. It was the only thing I could control but I’m not blaming them at all. It was my choice, a bit of a cowardly rebellion I feel.
Anyway I am now very happily married (58 when I got married) to the most wonderful man who supports and encourages my creativity.
I think you are wonderful, Izzy.
Love Ju x