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.
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.
Live blogging/pondering from an art exhibition with a theme of turquoise, inspired by the plaque on Devonport Market Hall. So many artists love turquose this is not a difficult task.
But an artist, Anne Blackwell Fox , wearing turquoise,was in the building when I took this picture, entitled Emergence
Anne Blackwell-Fox
The last two turquoises are significantly different to one another, but they both feature missing triangular chunks. Perhaps the bigger significance is that they almost mark the top and bottom of the Drawn to the Valley geographical boundary
Yesterday wasn’t all about orange art. There was a huge amount of talking about art and, for half an hour, nipple tassels.
The morning started with a wonky moment.
I had read on instagram that the panorama setting on a camera phone could be used in an up and down motion rather than from side to side. As I arrived at the exhibition venue the perfect subject,a clock tower, was adjacent to the car park.
Now I think I may need to read a little bit more about this technique.
I watched a run through of the 360 degree projection of our art work. It is genuinely thrilling to see a small piece of my art projected as an immersive experience. These next two photos are a bit rubbish but I was lost in the moment. I will get better ones today.
Stonehouse Fruits ( Fig and blackberry) projected on a massive, 12-foot by 12-foot, scale.
My Cold Water swimmer was even bigger. Caught at the exact moment the projection beam was between her knees.
Normally the dome is filled with bean bags for comfort, but this was only a run through so this is how we did it.
Another wonky moment, as laying flat on the foor in varifocal glasses with 360-degree film projection is less than ideal. Below is a tiny video. There is a soundtrack of birdsong and tinkling water.
Drawn to the Valley, Artist and Makers Group has become very plugged-in to the Arts and Making culture of Plymouth, in recent years. The current Spring Exhibition opened this morning in a new-to-us venue. The Market Hall Devonport.
I will be here a few times so I thought choosing a colour theme would keep things spicy and interesting. My apologies to artists whose Orange moments have not been captured. The reflections in this magnificent exhibition space are quite tricksy. Hopefully you will get your colour moment in a different hue.
For once I was completely ready . No last-minute tweaking for me. Which was just as well as a friend of mine had her own disaster. An escaped Peridot.
Her Peridot escaped as she was finishing a necklace. Not in the normal run of things a big problem but she was tweaking the night before she was due to deliver her work to me and then fly off to Greece.
She arranged a Peridot delivery to my house and gave me easy to follow instructions to follow for me to tweak on her behalf.
My tweazers had quite the day. Not for them the normal chore, the pulling of a stray chin hair. Oh no, they became artisanal tweezers, craftsperson tweezers. Tweezers of importance. Tweezers in the spotlight.
And for just a moment I experienced the joy of being a jeweller.
Sometimes it is a surprise, even to me, what goes on in the studio.
Thursday already. It has been a busy week @theoldmortuary. Two days of a man with power tools building a trellis wall extension for us and prepping for an exhibition.
Bags lined up ready to go.
Hugo has been doing a lot of soulful eye work as there has not often been time for a lap to sit on. Also not much time to ponder on ponders and ponderables.
One thing that came and was largely unremarked upon, was the curious 12 hours on Saturday and Sunday when we were suddenly without a signal or any wi-fi. We were camping near Looe and communication was lost locally, nobody could use their phones. There was no problem at all for us, but it is odd how guilty I felt at being inexplicably unreachable without warning.
Something entirely normal only a few years ago.
Clearing and sorting 4 years worth of emails, over the last few days, has also highlighted how much communication we all have with one another now, compared to even our recent past. A nicely sorted and deleted email account is curiously liberating. Spring cleaning of my electronic soul.
A midweek pondering at midnight that has become all about communicating both ancient and modern. Dogs have looked at humans, in the same way that Hugo is looking at me in the first picture, throughout history. Stone Age humans and their dogs, and every other age since would understand what was going on in that picture.
Just as everyone reading this blog understands the joy that the last picture brings me.
But the doleful dog eyes will go on as long as there are humans and dogs. Emails will, soon enough,be consigned to history. Just as parchment scrolls and quills have been. That is quite the ponder.
Late blog, I am so flaky if I miss my early morning slot. Here we are mid -afternoon and what to ponder?
I can celebrate that I have cleared a backlog of 27,000 emails. Woo Hoo! Now to do this accurately has taken me two days. How do people clearing emails for naughty reasons, for instance Governments or big business, do it so quickly?
Our yard now has a fabulous trellis extension ready to accommodate climbing plants and deter our neighbours cats, chickens and other unwanted creatures, from using the wall as a super highway. Pictures will follow when I have moved all our plants back into their growing positions.
I could be all giddy and excited and start it now but I have paintings to sort out and pack up for delivery to an exhibition tomorrow.
Stonehouse Fruits
The exhibition space has a 360 degree film projection dome. Our paintings will be projected on a massive scale , which is very exciting. This little painting will be about 12 feet square. That is going to be surreal!
A milky sunset after a giddy day in new glasses. As a lifelong glasses wearer, I am used to the day when trusted old glasses are replaced by a new prescription and new frames. I never quite trust that I have made a good decision on the frames until they have been on my face for a few hours. Yesterday there was the added jeopardy of me deciding to change the ratio of my varifocal lenses and a much bigger prescription change than I have had for a long time. I was very happy with all things spectacle until my crisply restored vision alighted on these new beauties.
Ray Ban Smart Sunglasses
Smart glasses! Glasses that can be like a smart phone, taking photos and making calls!!!
Oh My Goodness. @theoldmortuary becomes a 21st Century blogger. Photos and a dictated blog with just a subtle nod of the head and some talking out loud to myself.
Madness x Awe.
Meanwhile a traditionally gathered milky sunset ends a giddy day of adjusting to new lenses and the thoughts of Smart Sunglasses. Maybe next time.
Four Devon Bobbers and one Cornish Bobber went bobbing at Talland Bay in Cornwall this weekend. I will admit this image is full of digital trickery but memories are a bit like this. The imagination and reality merged in a slightly twinklier version of real life.
Here is the real life.
I just chopped it up a bit, played with scale and enhanced some colour. Which is exactly what most humans do with an anecdote.
There is something a little tingly about being confident cold water swimmers. It turns us into Nyad Ninja’s.
We know that holidaymakers look on at a group of over-fifties women, arriving on the beach, and wonder what we are about. Especially when we slip out of our normal lives and stride confidently into the sea. No timorous squeals when the cold hits. We hear the comments of ‘Mad, brave, bonkers’ and push on.
We were plunged into digital silence yesterday. The O2 mast serving the Talland Bay area provided no service for nearly 12 hours. I thought this Foxglove was much more pretty than a useless signal mast. It is also a reminder that we are heading towards the Chelsea Flower Show Season. When we dream big in our gardening/yardening world. In our yard world, next week sees the arrival of a wall height trellis extension. In our city home our neighbours have cats and chickens who see our yard as an extension of their own. After nearly three years of escalating visits, we have to do something. So trellis and climbing plants are the new deterrents.
So , very soon the yard will be a whole new world. Hopefully a chicken and cat free zone. And hopefully as beautifully styled as a Show Garden.
theoldmortuary.design 