A little over a year ago I crossed this bridge physically and metaphorically. After a 42 year career in the NHS I left to embark on an artistic and creative phase of my life. Straight ahead, in this picture, is St Paul’s Cathedral and behind that BartsHeartCentre. This bridge was part of my route home after a days work or an on call shift at Barts. The views from this bridge are wonderful, restorative and uplifting. Sometimes they needed to be.
One year on is a good time to reflect. Leaving a career I had nurtured for 42 years was a hard decision, but it had become an uncomfortable fit that I was no longer prepared to compromise my creative drive for. I had painted and created as relaxation since leaving school and even with limited time had had some success exhibiting and selling work. I studied part-time for a degree in Fine Art, fitting in five years of study with raising a family and building a career.
Having crossed the bridge forever, deliberately giving up my professional registration, the way forward was art rather than arteries and creativity rather than cardiac arrests.
The first thing I noticed was the incredible amount of headspace that appears when you no longer work 40 hour weeks. It took a little longer to feel fitter and younger. What surprised me was that limitless time to be creative doesn’t actually make for super creativity . It doesn’t actually get any easier to render an image onto a canvas , there is more time to make mistakes and prevaricate and definitely more time to tidy the studio or buy materials. Mistakes are the big thing, I love them now, previously they were mind numbing irritants, coming between me and my next great composition . Paint on canvas might not, in the past, have occurred again for weeks but now that’s not the case. So mistakes are my new big thing, new materials, quirky pairings ( Concrete and silk is my current vibe) Realising I couldn’t just flit about making extravagant mistakes I built some pressures into life. I’ve been learning the writing style to create useful art/cultural event reviews, 600 words, for publication. I’ve also learnt to utilise social media to publicise gallery and other art related events.
In many ways this brings my year of crossing the bridge to a conclusion. Unexpectedly a small piece of my work was included in a TateLates exhibition. Ironically it was a piece created when the pressures of my previous life on the north bank of the Thames were very great. Who knows where the mistakes, headspace and time will lead me.
Jackie has written a great article out of a lovely afternoon natter about our two year redevelopment of the old cottage and the adjoining mortuary. What is only touched on briefly, but is the absolute core of this build, is the amazing quality of work of the tradesmen we used. Both creative people, we knew how we wanted the cottage to look but not how it could be achieved.
Jason and Dave, Wayne, Pete and Justin listened to our ideas, many of them mad, and used their skill to achieve what we wanted where possible and found great alternatives when things weren’t possible. We had concrete wall desires that would have cost us a fortune if we’d used the same techniques as Tate Modern. Together we worked out how to get the same finish at a fraction of the cost. 
Wayne was tasked with painting the main room of the house in a dark granite grey. ( Farrow and Ball Railings) . I think he had doubts but then came up with the brainwave of painting the banisters white with a black handrail. It looks epic.
Pete put up our eclectic taste in light fittings including the legendary neon and Justin had the unenviable task of putting up tiles in a herringbone pattern. All these lovely men came to us via http://www.superfit.uk.com/
I popped out, during a rain shower, to get a picture of a Cardoon dripping from the onslaught of a Cornish Summer. It was upstaged by this comedy shot of Buddha apparently wearing a bobble- hat.
We went in search of a burger last night.
My reading for this weekend if the sunshine and the views don’t distract me is:-
Oh dear, yesterday, we popped into Stax Reclamation to buy a door to turn into a garden table. Barely 5 seconds in, we were seduced by this old water tank with printing on the side. Only there for a few minutes we could have bought loads of things. I particularly liked the old dentist chair with clamps to hold the patients head still. We didn’t buy the door though, a fine excuse to browse again.
All a bit Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
Saltash Regatta weekend.
These weighty oars have the delicacy of ballerinas feet as they rest peaceably together on the green. In a few hours they will be battling for prime position, one on one contact is not unheard of.
I love the laced-on leather handgrips, resting here, they have an erotic quality, suggesting laces on corsets passively waiting to be undone. In reality, the leather provides grip but the combination of endeavour, leather and salty water is punishing to the flesh. Soft palms and finger tips can be shredded to bloody remnants of their former selves.
Gigs, resting neatly in the water, delivered overnight from all over the West Country await their teams to give them energy and purpose.
Their skeletal insides waiting for race-ready muscles to give them power.
Blades, polished to cleave the water whilst the rowers cleave together, rhythm and energy effectively brought together.
Flashboats announcing every rowers hoped-for outcome. Just a few hours peace before the rowing begins.
The Old Mortuary is in many ways an accidental project. The old Co-op mortuary had housed nothing more exciting than headstones for many years. Rarely visited by Co Op staff it was in a decaying and damp state of repair . The ingress of water through its leaking roof had caused Hannah an immense amount of damp problems in her adjoining cottage. Vast amounts of money were spent trying to remedy the situation from within the cottage . Communication with the Co-op Undertakers Department asking them to fix their building was difficult and always fruitless because buildings were the responsibility of the Co-op Headquarters in Manchester. Locally negotiations were thwarted by what seemed like constant boundary reorganisation moving the responsibility for Saltash around various bigger branches in the area.
This monoprint has been knocking around in my head for ages. It’s taken a while to pull together the various strains of thought and to find the products that would give me the feel I wanted.
theoldmortuary.design 