This is a picture of very happy artists. Only in 2020 could this be quite so exciting. Drawn to the Valley, Art Group have managed the almost impossible feat of arranging two exhibitions in the last two months.
Following on from the fabulously successful Butchers Hall Exhibition in Tavistock this happy group of artists set up the exhibition at Harbour House Kingsbridge this weekend.
Here is a sneak preview of the exhibition.
Looking like a great reason to visit Kingsbridge.
The essential blog of December. The day the decorations started going up.
Life and blogging doesn’t always go to plan and putting up the decorations was not on plan yesterday . Happy Sunday blog readers.
Pondering passages.
December and the run up to Christmas is a very appropriate time to fill in a huge gap in my local knowledge.
One of the bodies of water I regularly walk along used to be known as Crimble Passage. That’s just as exciting as working near Grotto Passage!
That’s it I’m done for the day.
Crimble has in time changed to Cremyl. The tides and currents of The Crimble or Cremyl are complex and dangerous and give the land around which they swirl the name Devils Point. Conversely the beach close by where @theoldmortuary swim safely is called Tranquility Bay.
My first day back at The Box after Lockdown 2, and my first day in a new- to-me gallery.
I could give you the official description of Port of Plymouth 1 but yesterday for an hour or so I had a unique experience. The gallery was almost empty and I had the chance to explore it unencumbered with any responsibility for the well being of visitors.
The portrait above is of an anonymous fisherman, he is the human face of the character of this gallery. The gallery yesterday represented to me the biography of the city. Port of Plymouth 1 tells the story, the basis almost, of every other gallery in the museum. The sort of thing that might be written on the back of a funeral service booklet to give an over view of the deceaseds life. Of course Plymouth has not died and under current circumstances enjoys relatively good health.
I deliberately chose a man’s photograph because the gallery has a woman’s voice. Dawn French narrates two audio visual presentations within Port 1 and while you are in the space you are never very far away from her voice. This is a brilliant piece of gender balance because inevitably Port 1 is for the most part a man’s world. Not because women played no part in the history of Plymouth but because history has traditionally sidelined women’s contribution. It is only really the 20 th Century exhibits that begin to truly reflect the importance of women to the city.
As you enter Port of Plymouth 1 there is a massive 3D screen showing a film presentation of the developmental history of Plymouth. The film is one of the exhibits narrated by Dawn French. Currently with Covid-19 restrictions only about twelve people can view it at any one time, with so few people it is hard to gauge the impact but later in my morning a whole school group of about 40 watched it together and the impact on them as a large group was remarkable, when the museum can open as normal this will be a memorable group activity.
@theoldmortuary we are in the process of moving home. It was a little bit strange to view our proposed new location as history evolved over it and in the WW2 era bombs landed very close.
Ambient Lighting in Port of Plymouth 1 is subdued but the lighting of each exhibit is so beautifully done that even when it is full of people ( a future aspiration) it is really easy to concentrate and understand the significance of each exhibit.
One historic artifact was simple but poignant.
The Falklands Conflict left a big mark on the recentish memory of Plymouth
This is the point that pondering has to stop, just like the Dockyard Gate photo above, the visitors started to arrive. There is loads more to talk about but visitor safety and smiling took over my time.
The first Christmas card of the season arrived yesterday. Thanks to our lovely friends ‘ The Hobbits of Cheam’
It features a robin and the toe of a lovely red wellie.
Wellies are a bit of a topic @theoldmortuary just recently. The wellies that took us from muddy park walks to commuting to work in London, on occasions, had a simultaneous death pact during 2020. Three pairs have hit the recycling bin in the last month. Two with leaky seams that worked OK in summer mud and were serviceable until faced with proper winter Cornish rain. The last pair, an incognito wellie masquerading as a Chelsea boot, developed an awkward fault. One of the soles started to take in water and mud . The fault was unnoticeable in fields or other grassy areas but the minute I strayed onto tarmac or any hard surface it made squishy noises and loud farty sounds . My feet were never affected and remained dry but sometimes the curious sounds startled passers-by. The sounds were not a good enough reason to recycle them but as the weather has got colder and we’ve needed some heating they have started exuding a range of smells as they rest in the hallway. Some smells are not so bad in a house in winter, warm earth or even mild vegetation smell and sound almost like a deliberately chosen room fragrance. But you don’t always know what is in the mud you’ve walked through. and sometimes the smell was more rugged. Clinical even, like a sigmoidoscopy room after a busy day or Accident and Emergency on a Friday night when a fighting drunk loses control of their bowels and creates a toxic cocktail of smells. The Chelsea boots had to go!
This wouldn’t really be a story but 2020 twists everything. Once the decision was made to ‘ let the Chelsea Boots go’ a fairly quick replacement was necessary. You would think replacing wellies would be pretty simple, but apparently during the run up to the storm that is ‘ Black Friday’ everyone had needed short wellies in a size 6 ( I need short wellies because my calves are a well rounded and substantial pair of muscles)
The only pair I could find that would fit the bill were a pair of ‘rugged’ ones from Kurt Geiger! Rugged or Chunky boots are this season’s big fashion news and if you are buying boots from Kurt Geiger they are going to have a stylistic edge. They look like the love child of a polyamourous coupling between a tractor tyre, Chelsea boot and builders safety boot conceived during Pride Weekend.
They neither leak nor smell and that is wonderful.
My thanks to the lovely ‘Hobbits of Cheam’ who sent us the first Christmas card of the season. They also very kindly wrote that these blogs are ” Keeping them going in 2020″ That is awfully big boots to fill and really lovely feedback. Hobbits you inspired this blog, I also can’t wait to see you on the other side and I hid your names in one of the paragraphs x.
December sunbeams.
Yesterday was a glitzy sunshine glazed day. It was my mother-in-law’s 90th birthday, which sadly, no one could share with her. Luckily I have a photo of her bathed in sunshine enjoying an afternoon tea a little while ago
Afternoon tea will be a fine way to celebrate when we can all socialise again. Perhaps for once she can celebrate her birthday in the summer.
My day was spent mostly on dull tasks but the bright sunshine forced me to have a bit of a tramp around a National Trust Property in the morning.
As so often happens a lovely empty bench forced me to catch a photo of it basking empty in the sun. The luxury of sitting on a bench and nattering to people is something I will treasure hugely when we get the freedom to do it again.
There were little hints that the festive season is getting closer.
Sunlight and shadows on mistletoe.
Candles, smoky fire and a wreath on the door.
Everything looks sparkly in a sunbeam
So long, November.
A November like no other slipped quietly into December. Last night five of our informal swimming group ‘ Bobbers’ took to the sea at Firestone Bay to swim for the last time in November. For most of us it was the first time the end of November was marked in such a way. The positive aspects of Covid-19 can be difficult to appreciate but sea swimming and increased fitness is a definite @theoldmortuary.
The tail end of November was bright and beautiful, our exercise outings were either spent in the water or walking beside it. Fistral is a beach in North Cornwall where ‘ Bobbers’ would not get an effective swim.
Surfers though have a wonderful time.
Good morning December 2020 let’s see what surprises you have up your wintery sleeves.
Harvesting Vitamin D
The last weekend of November and Lockdown 2 was spent taking our exercise on two different parts of the South West Coastal path. Plymouth was looking tropical .
While Fistral looked a lot like California.
Spring-like on the walk out it was a different tale on our return.
Either way we are fully charged with Vitamin D
A funny thing happened overnight on Thursday.
The picture above was taken at sunset. My Thursday evening started well, witnessing these amazing skies, but then took a more arduous turn when I joined in with a Zoom AGM. The meeting took serpiginous routes through regular business and decision making and lasted three hours. Not many important decisions were made and, as can happen at these things, some folk got on some high horses and rode the poor things into the ground. Thankfully I am not a chairman , I fear my finger may have inadvertantly grazed the mute button on more than one occasion.
Safe to say three hours prepped me very well for sleep. Not the restful sort though. I woke myself up reciting a poem, almost word perfect, that I had no idea was still stored in my brain.
Who could guess why such a volatile poem hijacked my sleep . Maybe that dramatic sky or maybe an AGM where raging and raving were bobbing just under the surface.
Do not go gentle into the night.
By Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning theyDo not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
After all that nocturnal culture it was good to wake up to a calm morning.
A commission went off to its new home a little over a week ago. It was a birthday gift so I can only reveal it now. It is the first big painting with washes of colour and a figurative element. Something I’ve been dabbling with since the beginning of the pandemic. If anything the abstract landscape element is simplified in all these pandemic works and the figurative element is symbolic rather than a perfect rendition of an object or person. This was a commission with some guidelines and thoughts from the customer. In an uncertain world many of us like a little certainty. In this picture the certainty is provided by Smeatons Tower and by the words hidden in the rocks.
In other Pandemically created works the certainty is provided by the human form.
I wanted the human to be as serene as a Budha and sexually ambiguous.
One of the things I love about commissions is that they come with a set of conditions that I would not give myself and consequently force me a little beyond my own boundaries. I’ve learnt from bitter and expensive experience not to stray too far from my boundaries to satisfy a customer at the cost of my integrity. All commission’s are a risk but I’ve learned to manage that risk now.
The two pictures seem quite far apart but they are part of my current need to inject something solid and certain into colourful abstracts and they are both an explorative part of future paintings.
For now I’ve just created an apocalyptic high tide.
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