Tag Archives: Landscape

Memories are Made of This.

This week I have been making test pieces; some for commissions but others using clays which people have brought me to experiment with.  The results have been mixed but some have been really lovely and I am excited about the promise which they hold.

 

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Test pieces lined up on the window sill.

Of particular note is a piece using material from the hole which was dug last winter outside my family home of 50 years by the men who were replacing the gas main.   They were digging it round when I thought it should have been square!  and they looked at me as if I had lost my marbles when I asked them to let me have some of the material from the bottom of it but I think I might be going to get the last laugh!

 

It is really important to me that this material can be worked into a thing of beauty.  The hole from which it came was directly outside the front gate to the home that my parents bought when I was ten years old.  My siblings and I spent our formative years living here; I got married from this house; both my children were baptised from this house.  Copious tears and shrieks of laughter have been shed around the kitchen table here and now it is being sold.

In fact, indirectly, the hole is involved in the sale of our home.  If it had not been for the gas men digging it, Dad would have had no trouble parking his car and the con men who came to his aid, and then abused his trust by subjecting him to a dreadful scam, would not have upset his equilibrium to such an extent that he was no longer able to stay there surrounded by happy memories.

So this material is for a commission of sorts:  Its for me!  The finished piece will take pride of place somewhere in my home.  I think I might even build a special shelf for it.  I don’t exactly want a shrine for my childhood.  It was good, but not that good!  I just feel pleased at the idea of having something so closely related to so many happy memories in full view.

Busman’s Holiday

Ah, I love Cornwall!  I love the coasts and villages; I love the people; I love the rugged beauty of the moors and the intimacy of the narrow lanes, which are currently looking particular spectacular fringed as they are with drifts of cow parsley, foxgloves and red campion.

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The hedgerows and road verges are so colourful at the moment.

 

It has been such a treat to travel around with no time pressure visiting artists in their lairs and chatting to them about life, art and Cornwall. Not being able to get into my own studio and knowing that this is a time for just lapping up the atmosphere has been so relaxing.  Who could ask for more?

I began close to home on the Roseland where, much to my surprise, I discovered only one artist was taking part in Cornwall Open Studios. Carol O’Toole and I happily whiled away the time in her  studio in Tregony.  What a lovely lady!  She made me feel so good about my decision to move to Cornwall.  I showed her my work, which happened to be in the car, and she showed me hers.

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Carol O’Toole: a fabulous mix of print and paint.
I love the fact that she, like me, does not stick to the rules.  In her case this results in delicious combinations of print and paint which work brilliantly together.

Later in the week I prowled further afield, crossing the ferry and trekking into the wilds of Feock and Mylor Bridge to gaze with admiration at Lucy Spink’s jewellery – Just as well she does not have any kind of facility for taking credit cards or I might have parted with a fair bit of money – and the print makers Jenny and Sarah Seddon.  Despite having committed a dreadful error here and failed to read the booklet properly, the Seddons were not officially open on the day I went, the welcome I received was as warm as any and the work was enthralling.  I would not have minded staying with the Seddons all day!

Of course I had to drop in on Paula Downing whose work I had seen at Truro Museum and who I really wanted to meet.  She could not have been more friendly and, despite the fact that she was actually trying to run a workshop at the time, was happy to chat about the ceramics scene in Cornwall and sounded genuinely interested to meet a fellow manipulator of clay.  Paula’s light and airy studio felt like a tree house.  You look out of the large windows across the valley of the River Fal and see nothing but a canopy of deciduous woodland.  How she gets any work done is a mystery to me – I would spend all day gazing at the wildlife!

My overall impression of the Cornwall Open Studios is that, whereas in Wimbledon we get around 4000 visitors in 4 days, life is hectic and the opportunities come to us, the artists in Cornwall get nothing like those numbers in 10 days.  Here the visitors have to make quite an effort to seek out the studios (I got lost more than once) and the artists have to make a massive effort too.  Tea, cake and hospitality were on hand wherever I went and

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Some of the settings were simply glorious.

some of the settings were simply glorious.  Most importantly, those who had grouped together with more than one artist in a building seemed to have a real advantage and were clearly receiving a disproportionately higher number of visitors.