Taste and Class

 Last Thursday's Context of Practice lecture on "taste, value and judgement" brought up the issue of class, which always makes me squirm a bit.  

 Some of the squirming probably comes from being brought up by parents who thought of themselves as middle class, in quite a snobbish way.  We had a sitting room and a drawing room,  not a lounge.  And I recall being told that Jaguar cars were for shopkeepers who wanted to show off their wealth.

Some of their snobbishness rubbed off on me.  I can't help privately sneering at people showing off their wealth with macho cars,  designer labels,  expensive watches.   

But maybe the term "middle class" is a bit out of date nowadays.  "Professional" might be a better way of distinguishing between classes - not that I want to!  In fact, it really irks me that, for instance, you have to get a "professional" to witness applications for passports.  

Anyhow, the lecture finally gave me an excuse to write something about Grayson Perry.  

I say "finally" because I wanted to write something about his Reith Lectures, which I listened to and really enjoyed.  

Since then I've been trawling through Grayson stuff on the Internet trying to find a way of "adding value" to his lectures in a post on this blog. 

My trawl included watching "In the Best Possible Taste" -  three TV programmes where Grayson goes on a "safari of the taste tribes" of England and then produces 6 tapestries to record his experiences.

I really liked the programmes.  I also like the tapestries, which go under the collective title of "The Vanity of Small Differences" - so much so that I've just ordered the book of the same name so I can take a longer look at them.  I must go and see them in real life at some stage.

Here's a link to the Pinterest page on The Vanity of Small Differences:

http://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=vanity%20of%20small%20differences&rs=rs