It’s not every day one of these drops into your hands.

On Mar 6, 2020Mar 6, 2020 By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

I could have had a glove stretcher, a warming plate, a penny lick. What I actually got was the cheeky Coca de Mer.

Yesterday I was at an event hosted by The Box, the soon to be open contemporary cultural space in Plymouth.
https://www.theboxplymouth.com/

I was handed a mystery object to talk about.

The Coco De Mer , a giant seed pod from the Seychelles was not unknown to me, there is one growing a tree at the Eden Project and there is a shop of the same name just North of Covent Garden
https://www.edenproject.com/
https://www.coco-de-mer.com/

The seed is known for its erotic appearance, something that has hastened the trees demise in its native Seychelles.

It’s name means Coconut of the Sea, a name given erroneously because floating seeds were found in the seas of the Indian Ocean and were believed to come from underwater palm trees. In fact they had dropped into the sea and sunk because of their immense weight , only floating to the surface when the decay process made gasses and gave them bouyancy.

The Box specimen is blackened and has a glossy finish with a hole drilled into it. It was very tactile, not particularly heavy. It has obvious visual female charms but the surprise was how calming it was resting on my lap. The curves just nicely fill your hands and the smooth surface of the Plymouth specimen encourages fingers to make journeys around its form.

The tree is endangered because it’s seeds are the way they are and surrounded by erotic folklore. They are protected by law in the Seychelles, but can be sold in a more controlled way to tourists and institutions. Historically gathered examples are sold for massive prices.

Since meeting the Plymouth Coco de Mer, yesterday, I’ve read a bit more about it on another blog site, a good read if you are interested.
https://seychild.wordpress.com/2016/11/08/coco-de-mer-symbol-of-seychelles-mystery-of-the-garden-of-eden-explained/amp/

This is why Instagram matters to Artists and Makers

On Mar 5, 2020Apr 24, 2020 By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Serendipity, Social MediaLeave a comment

Yesterday was an interesting day. A coffee meet up with a friend serendipitously introduced me to an artist and jeweller . Then an unexpected printing hiccough gave me some water colour scraps to create a new image.For interest I though I would use the Instagram Grids of the three people I met to illustrate this blog.

Coffee was with tessajanedesigns at Ocean Studios. We were just having a social catch up after teaching a Social Media workshop earlier in the week.http://www.tessajane.co.uk/

Mark Wiggin saw us nattering and came to join us.

https://www.markwigginart.com/

Then we popped upstairs to see Val Muddyman. Her current work recreates the tiny details of the beauty of a beach really close to her workshop at Devils Point.

https://www.valmuddyman.co.uk/shop-1

Hugo loved her workshop.

For completeness here is my Instagram grid.

I met all these people in just one hour, the images I found of their work on Instagram is such a simple illustration of why Instagram is a great piece of Social Media for Artists and Makers.

The image above is a future palimpsest but for now it’s a collage.

Leap Year

On Feb 29, 2020Apr 24, 2020 By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity1 Comment

What to do with the extra day in 2020.

©Hong Kong Ballet

Obviously after just one Barré lesson we are fizzing to leap around on Leap Day, but this young man does it so much better .

February always needs more red.

Leap Year attracts flimsiness and fun, see my efforts above, or read Guardian flimsiness.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/feb/29/leap-year-day-how-you-could-and-should-celebrate-29-february

But it exists to keep us all ticking along nicely in time. Introduced by Julius Caesar over 2000 years ago.

Leap day recalibrates and corrects time keeping because every year is actually 365 days and 6 hours long (one complete earth orbit of the sun) so once every four years those extra 6 hours are gathered together to make an extra day.

29 pictures in red to fill your extra day.

Gipsy Hill Brewery at The Lord High Admiral , Plymouth

Dodging the spray, Niagara Falls, Canada

In the Pink, the morning commute and other stories.

On Feb 24, 2020Apr 24, 2020 By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

theoldmortuary team has spent the weekend fixing fences ravaged by Storms Ciara, Dennis and Eileen. As garden party guests go these three are banned. In consequence we are a little jaded and completely over February weather. As inspiring, luck would have it, the Artists of the Tamar Valley Instagram prompt for today was #mondaymotivation. It seems Pink is a thing for me on Monday mornings. A simple search for Monday’s in my picture library bought up this 12 year old painting.

Battersea Power station was always my motivation on my journey into central London to produce radiographic images. Neatly demonstrated in pink by this piece of lightbox art in Hong Kong.

Making x-ray images used to involve dark rooms. One Monday I produced this image to demonstrate dark room illumination. It was a freak image but very pink.

For a while I produced the social media for an exhibition at Tate Modern, this also appeared in the Monday file.

Not all art images are hugely positive, the next image is a piece of commissioned work that was personalised with the addition of Slovakian poetry. Niche,for certain but the commissioning person ultimately refused to buy it.

A fabulous, pink, Monday image is the wildflowers in early spring that cling to the walls of Trematon Castle. Also sometimes a commuting journey.

Flowers fill the Monday Photo File. These Tulips were captured last February, caught in a sharp ray of sunshine.

2020 take note. Sunshine is permitted in February.

Less in-your-face pink is this February roses. I’m not sure I want to think about the air miles.

Finally to shine a little more pink light into the February gloom. Lightbulbs.

Hoping these pinks have perked up a February Monday, especially in the Northern Hemisphere. Pink is so much better as a #mondaymotivation than black fences and quick drying cement.

Buds/Justice, the usefulness of an abstract image.

On Feb 20, 2020Feb 20, 2020 By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity

I took this photo yesterday, not expecting to use it today. But the prompt word for the Instagram account I’m managing, this week, has led me down such a rabbit warren of thoughts and philosophies I’m quite exhausted.

#justice such a big word, so deep, so complex, so personal.

I’ve read some amazing quotes and read some fascinating stuff but is my theoldmortuary pondering mind right to share anything on an arts group Instagram page that is beyond the simple image of the scales of justice.

The simple answer is ” of course not”

What I have comfortably shared is this photograph of Daffodil bulbs, because it makes me think; and for me, today, it illustrates my hopes for justice if not always the lived experience of the word.

Dozing with a good book Gangnam Style

On Feb 19, 2020Feb 22, 2020 By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity

My favourite place to read is at home in the World’s Most Comfortable Chair. It is not always the most effective place to read.

My particular ‘World’s Most Comfortable Chair’ was bought on eBay from Penryn . It was in a sorry state but was an original from the 1960’s, the deep chocolate brown velvet was faded to an unattractive lilac . Reupholstered and recovered it lives in theoldmortuary with other bits of mid- century modern furniture.

The chair is the problem. It makes any book soporific. Not for me sleeping on hard surfaces with a book.
This preamble is a shameless lead-in to share two of my favourite book related images. I captured them within the same few hours in Seoul, South Korea. The first was a wall mural in Bongeunsa Temple, Gangnam-gu.

I imagine this photo would have rested undisturbed in my Seoul photo archive had it not been reconstructed in a contemporary way just a mile or so away at the Kyobo book store. I love the peace expressed by the relaxed hands in both images.

I had completely forgotten these two book related dozes were captured in Gangnam district, so more shameless image sharing and with it, hopefully, an earworm. Seriously, you’re welcome no problem at all.

Party Night at theoldmortuary

On Feb 18, 2020Feb 18, 2020 By theoldmortuary.designIn Home Towns, Serendipity

https://www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk/the-basic-facts-2/

Last night, unknown to the humans at theoldmortuary, was party night. Our resident hedgehog got up early . I’m not even sure he’s been asleep all that long . All the signs were there during the day, both dogs doing excessive tracking in the garden , following tiny complicated tracks obsessively suggesting hedgehog activity the previous night. Quite how the actual wake up party is announced I don’t know, maybe Hedgehog annoints himself in a particular smell for party night. Toad and slug body spray is entirely likely in this garden. By midnight the party was in full swing, Hugo and Lola paid 6 different visits to the the garden. Despite their excitement they just like to look at hedgehog as he does his thing. I’m pretty sure the canapé provision in our garden is deplorable in February so we provided cold snacks of cat food once the wake up was official. The probable reason for the early wake up, storms Ciara and Dennis,was marked by the guest appearance of Hedgehog Stormzy an old friend from their South London days.

This morning it is quite a different story.

Lola back in her own Hibernacula

Sputnik,cheese curds and me + a little art.

On Feb 17, 2020Feb 17, 2020 By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Food ( but this is not a food blog), Serendipity

I was known as Sputnik during my childhood , conceived and delivered in the same year as the first artificial earth satellite named Sputnik.Things could have turned out so very differently. Had my parents lived in Quebec, I could have been called Poutine.

Considered one of Canada’s greatest inventions, it was created in the same year.

It evolved in rural Quebec when a customer regularly asked a chef to add cheese curds to a plate of chips, gravy was added later to keep the whole dish warm.

The chef involved declared “Ça va faire une maudite poutine!” (“It will make a damn mess!”)

It has become the perfect comfort food. Crispy chips, rich meaty gravy and squeaky curd cheese. Textural, gustatory ecstasy for mouths and minds.

I discovered Poutine in Toronto, at a bar overlooking AGO, the Art Gallery of Ontario.

https://ago.ca/

It was a day of great discoveries. AGO was full of wonderful but unheard-of, to me, artists, none of them ever mentioned during a British Fine Art degree. There was something really thrilling about discovering new-to-me contemporary 20th Century Western Art. It was refreshing not to have the opinions of art historians,critics or lecturers already seeded into my head before viewing the works.

There were so many that I loved but this vivid work is the first to come to mind. Beyond the colours it is the certainty of mark making that gives it such impact.

This work is by Rita Letendre one of Canada’s best known living artists, she is 91 as I write this. Known for her bold visceral style, her images are created using many techniques, printing, painting, scraping, bare hands, knives.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rita_Letendre

This one is called The Joy of Living.

I’m not sure I get ‘Joy’ from this image. Energy, powerful passion or excoriating pain are my immediate responses.The work has creative exuberance and I love it but I think I feel joy more calmly. Maybe it was the carb overload at the time of viewing!

After researching her many works I realise that one of my earlier synesthesia images painted to a piece of Jeff Beck music has some of the qualities of a Letendre . ( Who do think I am! )

I will add an image of my painting to this blog at a later date once I’ve contacted the current owner.

So much pleasure and knowledge gained in one day. A good amount of calories too.

Tate Modern is Twenty

On Feb 15, 2020Feb 15, 2020 By theoldmortuary.designIn art, Serendipity

Anya Gallaccio had an installation at her recent exhibition at Tate Modern called Impermanence. A massive pile of oranges were left in the gallery . Viewers were invited to eat an orange, those not eaten would inevitably rot. It makes you think.

Tate Modern has been stimulating the artistic taste buds and making people think for twenty years.
It has become one of Britain’s most visited institutions.
When I did a Fine Art Degree as a mature student, Tate Modern became my 3D immersive text book. So much so that my nine year old daughter spun round the Turbine Hall declaring it was her favourite place in the world. There are some amazing works of art there.

My current favourite installation.
By Yinka Shonibare

The British Library

I’ve pondered a lot, on this blog about Tate Modern. Some of them will appear below.

In the kitchen sink.

On Feb 11, 2020Feb 10, 2020 By theoldmortuary.designIn Serendipity

Yesterday my painting life was mostly about doing Prep. Preparing and indeed finishing canvas with Black Gesso. A Matt black paint used to coat canvases to create a good surface for other paints to cling to. My Instagram feed for the day expressed my attitude to the days work.My Gesso pot is at the end of it’s useful life and requires unsticking for every use . I turn it upside down in a bowl and pour boiling water around the lid. This warms the paint making it easier to twist the lid off. On this occasion a minor incident occured as the lid was entirely held on by goop and not the thread, as I lifted the pot out of the water Gesso poured freely into the bowl. Gesso is like blood it spreads widely and creates micro splatter. I won’t bore anyone with the clear up story but the following image is a lovely, temporary, serendipitous mix of Gesso, Water and the residue of clearing up from breakfast.The painting below is the one that needed finishing, the cause of my disaster.

	beth on #1377 theoldmortuary ponders
	beth on #1374 theoldmortuary ponders.
	beth on #1373 theoldmortuary ponders
	beth on #1370 theoldmortuary ponders
	beth on #1369 theoldmortuary ponders