Mona Lisa revisited

 During a quest for old crockery to use at our Londonia book launch back in 2020, I discovered one of my top ten favourite charity shop finds - a Mona Lisa plate handprinted by someone who had obviously taken much time to emulate a favourite image, but, some elements were a little . . . odd, which of course made it so appealing. Said artist had also created a plate featuring the equally famous 'Arnolfini portrait' by Jan Van Eyck. Suppressing a whoop of delighted laughter I scooped them up, paid for them and the rest of the china and left to continue setting up the book launch.

After the event, I returned all the china and glasses etc to the Oxfam shop but kept the two plates, wrapping them with great care for my journey home. They then graced two kitchens and for a while a third and current kitchen until Madame Mona sadly met the tiled floor in many pieces after a nail gave way. We were both weirdly devastated, the plate being as unique as the great work itself. "No," I said, "There must be a way to save her!" Too many bits to piece back but I kept two pieces, found an old picture frame, added a load of grout when we were doing floor tiling and stuffed the bits into it. Mark shook his head at this weird grey mess and suggested the bin, but I could still imagine a future for the work of art.

More grout later, plus beads, ecclesiastical blue paint, bits of old postcards, gold paint ring/necklace etc and I think Leonardo would have been mildly impressed, or perhaps utterly horrified, or collapsed with laughter.