Tricky Tricks

Posted on February 20, 2025 by SallyK

Yesterday experienced a bit of nostalgia … for when the world wasn’t quite so bonkers, and when you could actually go and visit a publisher with an idea and some pictures after talking to them on the phone. The publisher said come round but you must demonstrate how at least two of these tricks work.  My list  included Tangle Torture, Stuck to the Floor and Unexpected Goose.  I did the demo but one of the tricks went badly wrong (the publisher was  … briefly incapacitated), so I expected the worst.  Tricky Tricks was commissioned the following week.

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The Queen in my suitcase

Posted on February 9, 2025 by SallyK

‘Aha!’ said a member of Glasgow airport’s security staff as a small Royal person was revealed lurking at the bottom of my suitcase.  Ten years ago this summer, whilst returning from the Outer Hebrides, my luggage set off a shrill alarm.

For two weeks that August I’d been running workshops in seven schools dotted round the coast of the Isle of Lewis, showing children my books, and encouraging them to write and draw stories, often in comic strip form.  And doing a bit of exploration.

The first school I visited, on the west coast of Lewis, was at Bernara, where all seven children had colds. We made a Book of Germs from their drawings, which cheered them up. The second workshop was at Uig. Recently I found notes and drawings from my visit:

Afterwards I nip into a nearby Pictish jelly-baby house. Named after its interior shape, not ancient diet. Later take a brief walk on Uig beach, where the tiny twelfth century Lewis chessmen, carved from walrus tusk and whale tooth, were discovered two hundred years ago.

Locals thought they were elves.  No one knows for sure where they were from, but probably from Norway?  ’Where exactly were they found?’ I asked at the little shop, but locals won’t say.  They don’t want visiting treasure hunters digging on their beach.  The beach is beautiful, miles of white sand. ‘It’s very crowded today,’ a new friend observed.  There were five people on the beach.

Nobody’s exactly sure how many original chess pieces were found, possibly more than those now in museums.  Secret sales probably took place. Some of the originals are in the British Museum, some in the Museum of Scotland.  I’m impressed by the berserkers, so called because they’re biting their shields, presumably working themselves up to a battle fury.

One theory about their origin is that they were carved by an Icelandic woman, Margret the Adroit, wife of a noble priest, but who knows?  And the Queen in my suitcase? I wasn’t smuggling a precious artefact out of the Isle of Lewis.  She’s a metal-bottomed replica given as a parting gift from the arts centre who invited me to the island.  The Queen has settled in my small London home now, but is her disconcerting stare a longing for the sea and the far islands?

Background for the Isle of Lewis Queen photo is a detail from a print by Emerald Mosley

 

 

 

 

 

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Travelling to Mars by boat

Posted on January 27, 2025 by SallyK

As a pre-Christmas treat last year I visited Mars, travelling by boat. After all I’ve worked as a travel writer,and was always interested in space.  But it’s an uneasy interest now, after intentions for space colonialism were made by a US president’s billionaire buddy and CEO of SpaceX, vehemently voicing his plans for Mars amongst other things. My feelings about sending humans into space have changed drastically since I was younger and had astronautical ambitions.  I stick to my robot collection these days, which includes a few clockwork space explorers.

My riverine journey to Mars was a gentle affair, sailing down the wintry and slightly choppy Thames … the tide was on the move … on an Uber boat to the elegance of Greenwich’s Painted Hall, where artist Luke Jerram‘s glowing replica of the planet Mars was suspended, shuddering slightly.

The Painted Hall itself is part of the old Royal Naval College, where once pensioned off sailors took their meals.  Paintings of historical and mythological characters celebrating power, including Mars the god of war, adorn its ceiling and walls.  It’s the work of 18th century artist Sir James Thornhill.  He was paid £3 for each square yard, and seems to have painted every surface he could find, spending nearly twenty years doing so. Here he is posing with his brushes and palette …

An enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide, met by chance, related how during restoration of this wall, where naval officers dined at the raised end of the Hall, traces of gravy were removed from its painted surfaces. Thrown by boisterous officers after an over-indulgent meal perhaps.

Lying on the floor to get a better view of the ceiling, I spotted the portrait of the only pensioned off sailor included amongst the celebrities, an old bearded seadog called John Worley, here posing as Winter. Tucked into another corner was 16th century Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe.  Years ago I was commissioned by London’s Evening Standard to visit and write about Ven, Tycho’s island home and site of his magical observatories. Years later Tycho was included in The Comic Strip History of Space, I ran school workshops around his life and achievements and more recently revisited the island for more exploration.

It was dark by the time I set off upriver to Embankment Pier, the Thames lit up by reflections of riverside buildings. Sadly no sign of Mars or any other planets in the cloudy sky that night.

Luke Jerram’s Helios is at the Painted Hall in Greenwich from 25th January until 25th March 2025

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Sally Kindberg and Smithfield Market

Posted on January 8, 2025 by SallyK

Recently I took a short cut through Smithfield Market. The gates’ colour scheme reflect the Victorian’s invention of super bright colours, especially green and purple.  The meat market has been here for over 800 years, and is currently under threat of closure.  In the 18th and 19th century it was the site of an annual ‘wife sale‘.  I was once told by a cheeky 21st century worker ‘That’s the only reason I got a job here’.

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Sally Kindberg and exercises

Posted on December 11, 2024 by SallyK

Cold/stormy/apocalyptic weather conditions mean you may have to give up on your usual exercise regime. If you have a home, chair exercises can be rather exhausting, especially if the chair is heavy to lift off the ground.  I’m now developing a system which you can easily follow even when listening to disturbing news on your wind-up radio.  More soon …

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House of Dreams workshop with Sally Kindberg at Swedenborg House

Posted on November 1, 2024 by SallyK

The painted wooden summer house where eighteenth century polymath Emanuel Swedenborg sometimes wrote his mysterious books,  thought of inventions, planned his garden or played music on his organ, is now in Skansen, Sweden.  I visited here when I was three years old.  Can I really remember the house? Or was its image imprinted on my mind years later?  Intrigued and inspired by Swedenborg’s wooden house, I designed a paper version.

At this week’s workshop at Swedenborg House, participants were encouraged to fill theirs with images and ideas – maybe their memories, dreams for the future or an invention or two.  Afterwards they cut out and folded their house to take home.  Their houses included cat pilots, ornate garden designs, waterfalls, a landing strip for visiting aliens and the music of Debussy.

Participants included ten year old triplets, a partially sighted older person (‘I’ve made new friends!’ she told me as she showed me her paper house), a Chinese calligrapher and many others of all ages. I’d suggested an age range of six to one hundred.

Gentle eighteenth century organ music accompanied us, apart from when I played a few notes very briefly on my Triola, and shared my experience of seeing colour in sound and vice versa.  ‘I do too!’ someone cried.

With thanks to Jacob Cartwright for two photos above

 

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Sally Kindberg at the Artworkers Guild Table Top Museum

Posted on October 16, 2024 by SallyK

On October 12th I joined thirty other collectors of the obscure and intriguing and showed a collection of objects again at the Artworkers Guild . This time a selection of relics, votives and a shrine dedicated to Dandy comic’s Desperate Dan.  The title was ‘Do objects have power by association?’ The answer for me is: definitely. Desperate Dan was part of my childhood.

He appeared in the Dandy comic and was initially drawn by artist Dudley D. Watkins who also drew Lord Snooty and his pals in the Beano.  I was a very late reader, but avidly followed the action in comics.  Dudley was a prolific cartoonist, and died at his drawing desk holding a pen in 1969.  He went to Art College in Nottingham, which is where I grew up, although born in Devon.  The 2D chin samples are taken from a 1950s Dandy annual, the 3D samples are re-imaginings of cloning attempts.  Would Desperate Dan’s Aunt Aggie have approved? Probably not.

Other objects on my table included a pink heart made by my daughter when she was a child, a plastic doll’s arm found in the middle of a deserted path when I was walking in the Alpujarras, and hair from a judge’s wig – more about that on another post.

 

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Sally Kindberg and National Poetry Day at the seaside.

Posted on October 7, 2024 by SallyK

The sun shone on National Poetry Day, and I was lured to the seaside to add a contribution to a Poetathon held at Kollectiv Arts Centre in Folkestone.  En route to the coast via High Speed train, I wrote a poem about adopting a sloth.  I like sloths. Three live in London Zoo (where I ran a workshop with zookeeper and scientists earlier this year). Marilyn, the matriarch, has featured in several of my children’s books.  The adoption is a bit emotionally disappointing: it involves the zoo sending you a fridge magnet.  I read my brief poem appropriately slowly, listened to some other poets then headed for a walk by the sea in brilliant sunshine, with France clearly visible on the horizon.

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Sally Kindberg meets Mr Doodle (briefly)

Posted on October 7, 2024 by SallyK

Meeting  and chatting with Mr Doodle today on Primrose Hill bridge, where he was doodling away – part of London Mural Festival – reminded me of one of my Draw It! series, the Doodle a Day book.

 

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Sally Kindberg and a Michaelmas comic strip

Posted on September 28, 2024 by SallyK

As Michaelmas approaches, here’s one of my comic strip stories from the Kindberg archive

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