I don’t believe there are many days when I don’t walk on the Salt Path. I went to see the film yesterday.
Two actors whose work I admire and a beloved landscape. Versus a book, that I was never quite comfortable with.
People who love the book often question why I don’t love it.
For me, many of the scenarios are implausible. The book seems to straddle between fact and fictionalised ‘fact’
I didn’t love the film either despite the landscape and the actors. Although I thought both the acting and cinematography were subtle and beautiful. The straddle of fact and fiction discombobulated me.
So one book done, one film done and I still need to be persuaded.
This photograph straddles fact and fiction on the Salt Path.
Two evening photographs taken about 5 seconds apart and with a shift to the west of about 2 degrees. Digitally stuck together as a double exposure and then tidied up.
Photography straddling fact and fictionalised fact on the Salt Path.
P.s What is to be done? Apparently I need to read the second and possibly the third book to gain enlightenment. Let’s see how that goes…
While stewarding last week I talked with Iain, another DttV artist. We talked about both having an initial reticence to get going on the Turner project. But after several months at it, we both wondered if we would ever fully give up some of the things we have learnt by using the techniques of JMW Turner. As mentioned in another blog, conversations like this are invaluable.
I didn’t expect to be back with Mr Turner quite so quickly but yesterday evening nature created a Turneresque sun in the early evening at Mountbatten.
Three quick and ‘bad’ photographs later and I have the beginning of one of my ‘ Turner ‘ images. Just some pencil sketching and a watercolour layer to add.
Sunday 8th of June, the last day of a fantastic exhibition.
The joys of stewarding with a group of artists from Drawn to the Valley. ( Other art groups are equally rewarding)
I am a big fan of Stewarding. I learned to love it in some truly iconic galleries in London, Tate Modern, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Slade School of Fine Art (UCL) , Brixton East and some of the many galleries in Spitalfields and Brick Lane. All with South London Women Artists.
Returning to the West Country finds me exhibiting with Drawn to the Valley. Stewarding with either group has been rewarding and so informative. Artists are solitary creatures. We tinker away in our studios. Doing our thing,sometimes with a flow of creativity and other times a little stuck. Maybe lost in our own thoughts. Stewarding gives us all the chance to talk to one another and talk to the public who attend our exhibitions. Really some of the most rewarding conversations that can be had between relative strangers. At Cotehele we exhibited in a gallery space that was built in 1485. Yes the floorboards creaked a bit and the shadows and shafts of light were tricksy for viewing works of art behind glass, but 1485! Henry VII was King. We the chance to show our art and natter in a room that has been used for 540 years. The art is fabulous, the location equally so and then in just one day the whole thing will be dismantled. Catch it while you can.
It seems that I am not the only person/ thing to have a vivid imagination in this house. Last night Hugo got me up for a wee and something spooked him in the top corner of our yard. It didn’t move when he gave it a good telling off. I took a picture in the gloom of midnight using the night settings and there was nothing remotely frightening to be seen.
Of course I was wide awake at this point and decided to write a newsletter and get some admin done, which thankfully had me off to sleep again in less than an hour.
For no particular reason, when I reviewed the photograph this morning,. I asked the randomised AI feature on my phone to reproduce the image. The randomised AI image trawls through my recent photographs and looks at the post-production tools I have used to edit them. It comes up with four suggestions. The hit rate of success is delightfully low for use as a stand alone editing tool but interesting results can happen and be useful in a much larger creative project.
Yesterday I was at an art exhibition, struggling to take good photos in a beautiful but awkwardly lit gallery. A subject for the next blog. All those photos of paintings gave my yard aspirations!
With the sea five minutes away I never have a fantasy of a plunge pool in my yard but clearly the yard has its own dreams and aspirations.
This blog could go one of two ways or it could just celebrate the first Passion Flower of the season. Passion flower plants were a gift from our builder last May. He gave us three leggy plants to trail over the trellis he had just installed on the top of our wall. They put on a bit of growth last summer and were repotted this Spring. A flower and later in the season edible Passion Fruits is on our wish list.
Not on our wish list was a domestic fatburg. When you buy an old house things like drains are a bit of a dark art. With no warning our kitchen drain failed spectacularly this week. The first sign was when the dishwasher suffered from reflux and bleated pathetically. We did not recognise this as an early symptom of an apocolypse. Dynarod were booked but not for several days. In a very busy week I had planned myself a day of domestica yesterday.
The blocked drain was a bit of a head scratcher. We do not have the modern luxury of an inspection cover or any means of identifying the direction of flow or indeed stasis in our case.
This being an Edwardian house I attempted an Edwardian solution. Boiling water/ Bicarbonate of Soda/ white vinegar. A lava like eruption of gunge bubbled away at the access point of the drain. Probing with a stick revealed standing water to a depth of almost 3 feet, a metre even.
Armed only with a pair of surgical gloves for human examination* and a plunger more serious intervention was required.
What I needed was veterinary gauntlets for Cow Gynaecology.
Laying on my belly I plunged my arm and plunger into the depths and achieved a very good attatchment to something. My plunger resolutely hung on to whatever unseen object I had chanced upon. One hand in the supersoft and slippy water was not enough so another hand had to go in. This is taking moments to write but it was easily two hours of time as I pondered and considered each next move.
After several awkward pulls on my plunger there was a sudden movement and a giant domestic fatburg was delivered at face level. Not a pleasant experience. Dirty water gurgled and then settled, only at a slightly lower water level. I waited a bit, hoping for a miracle but none was forthcoming. So I repeated the plunger experiment. This time things were a little easier. One more two handed pull and a second fatburg was delivered and with that the grungy water disappeared with hollow glugs and the sound of a minor victory.
Dynarod cancelled.
And so back to the Passion Flower, and there is a connection. Firstly the passion flower cheered me up on my many trips back into the house, once to receive a parcel, for a neighbour, that required photo evidence. Not a bit of me was a photo opportunity yesterday.
The colours of the fatburg were very similar to the Passion Flower. Mostly creamy with evidence of culinary adventures with turmeric, chilli, tomato, beetroot and inexplicably a blueberry colour.
Twin fatburgs and a plunger and a Passion Flower. Quite the Day.
Except in this village in a city, the pavements are littered with quotes from the Sherlock Holmes stories by Conan Doyle. This one is entirely appropriate.
P.s On one of the sites where my blog appears Meta offer an analysis. A case of Metapondering perhaps?
How do you know when it’s time to unplug? What do you do to make it happen?
Interesting that this prompt uses an electrical metaphor for a state of mind. In the 14th or 15th century, when this set of buildings was built the humans who lived and worked here would also have needed to unplug from their busy lives. They would have used a different metaphor.
An over-busy head is not a 21st Century phenomenon.
I originally skimmed past this blog prompt as being a bit superficial, but I recently took a quiet 10 minute refuge in this spot on the Cotehele estate in Cornwall. It is not even a very quiet spot. But at the time it was just the place to have a reset. Absolutely a minor one but how lovely to do this in a place that almost invites you to sit down and take a few minutes,and that has done so for 500 years, and barring an apocalypse will probably do so for another 500 years.
To answer the question. I know that I need to unplug many times a day. My pondering head and my real-life head are always far too busy. Just like a cranky or highly sophisticated electrical device, I just need to switch off, unplug and reset, luckily I can usually disconnect anywhere. Sometimes it is automatic and sometimes deliberate. Cold water swimming is a good trick, but that takes a little planning. But seeking out a quiet corner also always works.
Quiet corners can be found anywhere, I just have to find them. Sometimes they are in the nooks and crannies of my own imagination
I do remember life before the internet. If I were to live to age 80 my life would be roughly 50/50 pre and post domestic internet use. Because the change is within my adult lived experience I feel comfortable with and understand the differences. Information and services as a commodity are delivered to me without having to leave my bed. In the pre internet era I would have needed to move a bit to turn on a radio or television. Before that I would have needed, at the very least to go to the door and pick up a newspaper that had been delivered to my door.
I have always been a nerdy person with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and information, not in a focused kind of way. Random knowledge of no particular use is one of my specialist subjects.
I used to spend a lot of time in Reference Libraries, looking things up and following trails of information that may or may not have been of any practical use to me. Not something I could do every day. I was an early ‘ Rabbit Holer’ before rabbit holing became a thing. I don’t recall the last time I went into a reference library outside of University studies.
For most things I believe I could easily manage back in an analogue world, but quenching a random need to know more about something, quickly, would be something I would really miss. Back to the Reference Library for me, but maybe I am so hooked on rabbit holes now I would be in there every day.
Once a month a craft and food market sets up on the route of our morning dog walk. In good weather on a large grassy square and in bad weather in disused buildings. Either location gives the market a buzzy lively feel. Yesterday was market day and we set off on our usual dog walk with the added quest for Fig and Fennel Sourdough. Both were achieved alongside a bit of nattering to neighbours and fellow dog walkers. Our afternoon dog walk took in a quick visit to the JMW Turner exhibition that I am involved in.
Also quite a buzzy feel and plenty of people to chat to, just no hunt for an obscure flavour of sourdough.
A good Sunday,I think. Even if my mind is popping with all the images and nattering.
Good morning June. You are most welcome, but oh how I love May. I never want May to finish but since that is inevitable it is exceedingly good that after just a simple night’s sleep I have transitioned into June.
In other news I have gained access to both my Pinterest and Flickr accounts. Both set up decades ago when digital photography was young and I was uncertain where to store my work and keen to learn how other people used the new technology. But I can be nostalgic on another day.
Here is an earworm for the first day of June.
And while that worm is a squirmin’ here are the lyrics.
June Is Bustin’ Out All Over
Lyrics By Oscar Hammerstein II Music By Richard Rodgers
Nettie Fowler prepares for the clambake while restless fisherman and hungry New Englanders anticipate a hearty summer feast just across the bay. As the weather warms, everyone’s feeling a bit frisky.
“June Is Bustin’ Out All Over” Lyrics
Nettie: March went out like a lion, A-whippin’ up the water in the bay. Then April cried And stepped aside, And along come pretty little May! May was full of promises, But she didn’t keep ’em quick enough fer some, And a crowd of Doubtin’ Thomases Was predictin’ that the summer’d never come.
Men: But it’s comin’, by gum! Y’ken feel it come, Y’ken feel it in yer heart, Y’ken see it in the ground!
Girls: Y’ken hear it in the trees, Y’ken smell it in the breeze—
All: Look around, look around, look around!
Nettie: June is bustin’ out all over! All over the meadow and the hill, Buds’re bustin’ outa bushes, And the rompin’ river pushes Ev’ry little wheel that wheels beside a mill.
All: June is bustin’ out all over!
Nettie: The feelin’ is gettin’ so intense That the young Virginia creepers Hev been huggin’ the bejeepers Outa all the mornin’-glories on the fence.
Because it’s June!
Men: June—June—June—
All: Jest because it’s June—June—June!
Nettie: Fresh and alive and gay and young, June is a love song, sweetly sung.
All: June is bustin’ out all over!
1st Man: The saplin’s are bustin’ out with sap!
1st Girl: Love he’s found my brother, Junior!
2nd Man: And my sister’s even lunier!
2nd Girl: And my ma is gettin’ kittenish with Pap!
All: June is bustin’ out all over!
Nettie: To ladies the men are payin’ court. Lotsa ships are kept at anchor Jest because the captains hanker Fer a comfort they ken only get in port!
All: Because it’s June! June—June—June— Jest because it’s June—June—June!
Nettie: June makes the bay look bright and new, Sails gleamin’ white on sunlit blue.
Carrie: June is bustin’ out all over! The ocean is full of Jacks and Jills. With her little tail a-swishin’ Ev’ry lady fish is wishin’ That a male would come and grab her by the gills!
All: June is bustin’ out all over!
Nettie: The sheep aren’t sleepin’ any more. All the rams that chase the ewe sheep Are determined there’ll be new sheep, And the ewe sheep aren’t even keepin’ score!
All: On accounta it’s June! June—June—June— Jest because it’s June—June—June!
Nettie: June is bustin’ out all over, The beaches are crowded ev’ry night. From Penobscot to Augusty All the boys are feelin’ lusty, And the girls ain’t even puttin’ up a fight.
All: Because it’s June! June—June—June— Jest because it’s June—June—June!
Nettie: June is bustin’ out all over!
All: The flowers are bustin’ from their seed!
Nettie: And the pleasant life of Riley That is spoken of so highly Is the life that ev’rybody wants to lead!
All: Because it’s June! June—June—June— Jest because it’s June—June—June!
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