Author: theoldmortuary.design

theoldmortuary has been a blog for about five years. It has evolved into an almost daily event. Pondering on the things that are inspired by my daily life. Often mundane, sometimes repetitive I swerve from hyperlocal activity to big and small thoughts without blinking an eye. I am an artist and writer. My hometown is Plymouth in South West England, part of me will always be connected to London and another part loves to travel.

#937 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn PaintingsLeave a comment

Monday of the first week of June and possibly the dullest subject possible for a blog reveals itself. Painting white walls white and then, just to own the cliche, waiting for the paint to dry.

After the excitement of having the slatted trellis extension to the yard wall fitted, we skittered about repotting plants and finding them their happy places in the yard. Skittered is rather a bright word for the backbreaking effort of some of our repotting , but skittered is how I like to think of the process.

This weekend should have been a consolidation phase with simple tinkering but a ‘back of the mind’ irritation had formed last week, and a large pot of white paint was purchased for future white wall painting.

It is, however, impossible to sit in an imperfect white yard when there is a pot of paint winking at me in the corner

I had an hour to spare and a small corner that could be completed. 

Now I have started the job I’ve made a pledge with myself to get the job done by the end of June… Let’s see how that goes.

I once pledged to write a daily blog for 3 months . 4 years later I am still at it, no end in sight. To bring some colour to this endeavour I am going to use the new digital tweak that my camera phone offers.  Simply put  the tweak knows the sort of digital edits that I routinely use and the images that I then save. Yesterday the surface of my white pot of paint was transformed into one of my colour block paintings.

Watching paint dry for the whole of June. You have been warned!

#936 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn pondering1 Comment

I love a complicated image, first thing in the morning. Coffee and a complicated image, which is what this was, is even better.

On reflection, I fear I may have been a bit harsh with May. All my moaning on, about rain and dull days. I blame my genes. I was reading about the wettest and dryest cities in England yesterday. If you were to draw a triangle with each corner being a top 3 driest city. Cambridge, London, Chelmsford. All in the East of England. 75% of my gene pool comes from that geographical area, making me wet-intolerant. The other 25% comes from Wales and Norway. If I was a plant nobody would set my roots in the 3rd wettest city in England , Plymouth, and expect me to thrive. But that is exactly what I have done to myself. So if I am a little droopy in the long, wet, autumn/winter/spring months I have only myself to blame.

On a positive note the roses of Plymouth are just fabulous this year. Our local municipal park has an informal memorial rose garden and after a few days of proper good weather the fragrance and colours are vivid in the late afternoon. I am hoping for a similar transition myself.

I may even do a whole blog about roses, particularly those with their roots in cremated remains.

I am not usually a fan of formal rose gardens but the randomness and slightly scruffy haphazardness of this particular one intrigues me enough to go back.

Somewhere in a cupboard I have a cremated cat called Jasper,I wonder if he fancies going in a pot with rose roots , he might make a wonderful show.

P.s  My parents cremated remains are buried in a dry old spot in the East of England, their choice.

Not for them the gaudy,giddiness of a mish-mash of blowsy multicoloured roses. They have a quiet country churchyard and were dug up by moles. I think I prefer gaudy giddiness as a memorial.

#935 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity, YardeningLeave a comment

A milky sunset to say farewell to May. Where did that month go. Normally my favourite month, this year May has felt shorter and less productive than usual. I think my dissatisfaction is just weather-related. First World problems!

The hard graft in our yard is done . Everything is back in place and just tomatoes and courgettes to be planted into their summer positions.

There is an element of both fantasy and fact with our back yard.

Very firmly rooted on the Devon coast, we have learned over three years that Mediterranean planting is the way to be successful in the yard.

The fantasy.

Open fencing/ trellis on the walls has given us the height for climbers. In the week since the work was finished stray climbing plants have found their way into our garden from friends and a new Wisteria has been bought. My finger hovers over a Bougainvillea on a nursery website. To be honest my finger hovers over a lot of things. A great big bucket of exterior white paint might actually be the most sensible starting point. Or I could take the fantasy to a whole new level and lose some of the walls.

Which would be a waste of good trellis. So for June, a bucket or two of white paint it is. Welcome June.

#934 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Serendipity5 Comments

I don’t paint people much, which is strange as I find people fascinating.  I don’t think I have any more planned exhibitions for 2024, so I could set myself a summer project. The few people I can pull out of the digital or even real-world portfolio are all thinking about something.

Maybe that is my thing, I hadn’t realised. Even a pair of dancers are not truly engaged with one another or the viewer. Lost in their individual worlds despite being physically dependent on one another.

Even my recent cold water swimmer is lost within the tiles of the shower.

The more I look the more pensive people I find. Storm Agnes, raging but full of thought.

There is even a portrait of me in our hallway , pondering.

©Peter Orock

Seems that pondering is a creative theme. I had no idea!

P s In the interests of research I went in search of a painting that has been stored here for many years.

My first portrait from my Foundation degree, hiding in lofts, attics and barns for 25 years or so.

In one of life’s uncanny twists, I discovered recently that my DNA is 10% Viking. But that is not particularly important to this ponder. I seem to have always liked people in my paintings to be deep in thought. A point worth pondering I think

#933 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Cornwall, Devon1 Comment

A compressed week is a funny thing. An art exhibition over a long weekend, with an extra day to help take it down, has pushed all my normal domestic admin into two days this week. By Friday I should be all caught up but yesterday a funny thing happened. Chores, errands etc were somehow completed with an hour to spare. So I took the dogs to a favourite garden and just took in the view while we waited for the appointment time for their annual vet check.

A few years ago I spent just over a month living in this house and garden with an old labrador while her parents were taking a long break in Europe. I had an outdoor studio to paint in with a view to make a trainspotter weak.

At the time I was preparing for an exhibition that required abstracts so the location was immaterial. Which seems like a crime now. But just looking at the view is only half the story.  The sounds of this valley are the thing. As trains approach the viaduct they are coming out of a tunnel, so there is a feel of a train approaching, then the sounds. These are both fascinating sensations, no matter how often they are experienced. There is also a powerful sense of wanderlust, knowing that this train is a link to the rest of the world. In less than five minutes the train will cross the Tamar on the Albert  Bridge, designed by Brunel. Taking people away from Cornwall and on to wider horizons.

When the train emerges onto the viaduct it is almost an anti-climax. With my smartphone in hand, and photos and sketches of this viaduct taken or drawn over many years. I had a happy hour or so, digitally tinkering. Stitching photos and sketches together to try to express the energy felt as a train emerges from the tunnel and starts to run across this tiny valley. 

©theoldmortuary WIP

#932 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Devils Point3 Comments
Tidal Pool, Devils Point, Stonehouse.

I had a weird dream last night, a dream of no consequence but it left me with a puzzle. What do you call a place that you end up that was not your planned destination?

“I set off for X but ended up in Y instead.

When X = Destination what does Y =?

In my dream the answer  ‘Somewhere else’ didn’t work and neither did giving either place an actual name. The key to getting out of whatever pickle I was in, was a one word answer.  I never found one. Waking up turned out to be the only way out of that particular nightmare.

Tidal Pool, Devils Point, Stonehouse.

My camera phone has updated one piece of photo editing software. The erasing tool is now much more accurate but the other new feature took a simple image  somewhere very interesting. Not my intended destination at all. Somewhere else completely. If only I had a one word answer.

The funny thing is that following the recent art exhibition I was wondering quite where to take my art practice.

Cold Water swimmer projected to a massive size at Devonport Market Hall.

An exhibition always feels like a bit of an endpoint. Maybe that is what the dream was always about perhaps all this pondering on a non-existent word will help. Who could possibly guess where I will be off to next.

Coldwater Swimmer at the Tidal Pool.

#931 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bank Holidays1 Comment

Ta da, normal blogging service resumes. What else has been happening during the four days of an art exhibition. Well, quite a lot of real world talking to new-to-me people. Still a little bit of giddiness at seeing my own art on such a large scale.

Some yardening.

Some tinkering with a new photo editing feature on my phone.

And an al fresco lunch that was sent indoors by rain.

In many respects an entirely normal British Bank Holiday.

#930 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Art for sale, Drawn to the Valley, SerendipityLeave a comment
©Jay Harper

Last day of the exhibition. 4 days  of visitors and memories.

Just enough time to share a few final pictures, before the unsold works are bundled up in bubble wrap and returned to the artists.

©Gay Kent
©Mary Tune
©Stu Anderson
©Ian Penrose
©Sylvia Hofflund
©Lynn Saunders
©Lucy Griffiths
©
©Daphne Leeworthy

Onward now to the next exhibitions of 2024.

#929 theoldmortuary

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Art for sale, Drawn to the Valley, Serendipity1 Comment
© Rosie Allan- Perdikeas

All that glistens will lead us through the second to last live blog of the Spring exhibition. Although it may not be obvious in my photos, all these works have a little bit of twinkle about them.

©Jane Lee

Today is the last day of the exhibition at The Market Hall, Devonport. An exhibition worth driving the extra mile for. Free parking, great architecture, and a cafe to natter in.

©Alan Dax

The visitors so far, have loved our new choice of venue and for many it is their first time at a Drawn to the Valley event.

©Jillian Morris

The 360 degree, Dome projection room was buzzing during the Private View.

©Kathy Lovell

Sometimes a shaft of sunlight catches someones work and the twinkle becomes fascinating.

©Stuart Morrissey

From the Industrial to the delicate.

©Alison Freshney

And for some final twinkle.

©Anne Payne

#928 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Art for sale, Drawn to the Valley, Serendipity2 Comments
©Nuala Taylor

Following a trail of white to a Private View. Drawn To The Valley held their 20th Anniversary Private View, last night at the Devonport Market Hall.

Art featuring white will lead us to the event.

©Maggie Lintell
©John Dixon

The sun was shining all day before the Private View, Devonport felt almost Mediterranean.

©Sarah Grace

Daytime guests slipped away and snacks unpacked for the evening event.

©Judy Harrington

Huge congratulations must go to the organising team of this fabulous exhibition, the building team, the committee and the artists who are participating.

20 years of supporting and encouraging artists and makers in the Tamar Valley has built a diverse and talented organisation. Ready to move into the next 20 years.