I Want Candyfloss

 

I remember having candyfloss for the first time at a fair that visited once a year. It was exciting when the Blocksages Football Club car park started to fill up with trucks bringing the speedway, dodgems, waltzer and big wheel. We lived nearby over a double-fronted shop my mum ran and you knew the fair had arrived when slightly-scary rough dudes appeared in the shop for sandwiches and cigarettes. I remember one of the grizzly men throwing a lit cigar off the roaring speedway, running over to it and having a suck. It's surprising the treacly gob of spit didn't make me sick never mind the acrid taste. But the fair dude had looked so cool.

 

Ironically it was an American dentist called William Morrison who is best known for developing the candyfloss machine (he called it Fairy Floss.) It can’t be wholesome - about 99% is sugar and the remaining 1% is colouring and flavouring. Sugar is heated up so it liquefies then iis spun through tiny holes. It turns solid in minute strands and is mostly air. I can't think of having a candy floss at anywhere else than a fair or carnival. 

 

This painting is based on a small photograph I cut out of a newspaper (see photo.) I used it as a bookmark for months and when I finished the book I thought I’d better have a go at the painting, or something similar anyway. Here iis. The colours are too vivid for my liking (never been keen on garish colours.) It all came together quite quickly (reflected in the quality). I’m afraid the serving woman looks like a trans-gender man who had yet to lose his nuts to the axe. This painting will join the others in the attic.