Tag: Cornwall

Pandemic Ponderings #6

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Food ( but this is not a food blog), SerendipityLeave a comment

Life really does have a way of taking you in unusual directions in these rapidly changing times. Earache or not I had to go out today, observing social distance and cleanliness at all stages.

For some time now doughnuts have loomed large in my imagination, not just any doughnut, nothing fancy, a fresh ring doughnut or indeed a perfectly simple jam doughnut.

It has been a back burner kind of fantasy, perhaps a little enhanced or made more presient by the current restrictions on life. It was those very restrictions that enabled doughnuts to feature @theoldmortuary today. Parking in our local High Street (We are in Cornwall so it’s called Fore Street) is normally impossible but less people around gave me the Golden Ticket of parking spaces. Right outside Rowe’s Cornish Bakery.

Not somewhere I usually go for no other reason than the parking is tricksy.

Their doughnuts were perfect and the staff had been fully trained in no touch techniques and tonging. It was impressive.
https://www.rowesbakers.co.uk/

But it didn’t stop at Doughnuts…

Long ago in a large NHS hospital on- call and long shifts were sometimes fuelled by a Gregg’s Bacon Tasty, truly the comfort food of Health Professionals who know a lot about diet and Cardiac health.

It’s been 12yrs since I was close to a bacon tasty. Rowe’s call it a ‘Bacon Bite’ for complete accuracy. London Hospitals of my aquaintance did not offer such things. More worldy offerings certainly, equally bad for the general health but not Bacon Tasties.

The picture tells the story. The very best thing for a virus that induces earache is a Bacon Tasty. Served by someone well versed in the art of tonging.

Followed by the perfect doughnut. Also delightfully tonged.

I won’t bore you with the lovely fresh vegetables I sourced today, or the fish or other healthy comestibles.

What’s the point, this is Bakery Porn. You were warned that I had no idea where this restricted lifestyle would take us.

By complete coincidence a gift of bakery was also delivered to @theoldmortuary.

A man, unknown to us but connected made us a loaf to help out with the earache.

We are feeling plumptious and unrepentant.

Pandemic Ponderings #1

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home TownsLeave a comment

Ponderings at theoldmortuary are just that. Something that comes into mind or sight that can be the kernel of a blog.

Pandemic Ponderings will not be particularly virus related, but they will be shaped by a newly restricted life.

I’ve started them today because I had to make concrete changes to life yesterday because of new restrictions in the UK.

Hand washing and the prevention of spread of infection were for so long part of my previous occupation that societal increases in protective behaviours has made no significant impact on me, it has been second nature for all of my working life and switching to the same gear in private has barely registered

Now I’m responsible, with others, for putting on an Art exhibition. I’m hugely aware of the creative work, costs and administration that has got us to within two weeks of opening. But it is in everyone’s interest that we do not hold an exhibition now or for the foreseeable future. It also seems sensible to mothball the whole Artist Collaborative that has plans for many exhibitions before the end of the year. Mothballing allows us to not have face to face Commitee meetings or working groups, so vital to the running of most organisations.

Random(eyes)

On By theoldmortuary.designIn SerendipityLeave a comment

For reasons that are unknown to me my smartphone selected a group of photos of eyes this afternoon. I assume I had inadvertantly selected a voice control search when discussing someone with shifty eyes. I suppose it could have been worse.

Not one of the following eye pictures, apart from perhaps the first, is remotely shifty.

I’m going to share them in the order they appeared and try to remember the location and event they represent.

Above is me on a New Years Eve looking shifty.

The next is Hugo and Hannah with almost perfectly matched profiles.

A dragon at Chinese New Year in Hong Kong.

Graffiti near Waterloo Bridge London.

Lola in February 2016.

Che Guevara, graffiti just outside Havana.

Three cows at the Royal Cornwall Show 2012.

A judge at The Royal Cornwall Show 2012.

Two more cows , as above.

Two @theoldmortuary paintings.

And finally a barely-there eye from the Lambeth Country Fair at Brockwell Park.

Now none of these seem to me to be remotely shifty but since I had inadvertantly confused my phone I thought I would look up ‘ Shifty eyes’

https://www.collinsdictionary.com
shifty-eyed in British English (ˌʃɪftɪˈaɪd) adjective. informal. having the appearance of being dishonest, esp as signified by a lack of eye contact. He seemed evasive, shifty-eyed and vague.

Apart from words it seems the internet is not too clear on exactly what a shifty eye looks like. Beyond cartoons shifty eye seems to be intangible so maybe my phone can be forgiven for giving me pretty normal eyes. However I never did ask it to search for eyes of any sort so that action still remains a mystery.

One clean finger and a camera phone.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn art1 Comment

Artists and makers tend to be isolationists. Not, perhaps, deliberately but almost certainly circumstantial.

In order to create original work a space is required. Those spaces become a unique location where the artist or maker has the tools and ingredients of their production alongside reference materials and importantly the space to think.

Even in the most delicious communal art spaces ,artists quickly set about erecting boards and barriers to mark their own individual territory.

Shared areas, the loo or kitchen have an almost international grubbiness to them . Marked with indelible signs of the artists that have passed that way. Artists ,Mark-Making on communal areas like a tomcat with territory acquisition and the balls to do it. Just like tomcats artists communal spaces have a distinctive odour.

As an aside I believe the art world has missed a trick. Imagine an exhibition of Butler’s sinks, or local type, brought together from around the world’s greatest artists studios. All displayed in a huge white space. With their original fittings and adjacent work surfaces. Imagine the smells!

Social Media allows artists to maintain their isolationism and yet join with like minded people without the effort of putting on their arty clothes and washing their faces. Social media just needs one clean finger and a camera phone.

Last night we had a real-time gathering of artists from the Tamar Valley to share and expand their knowledge and use of Social Media . Everyone arrived with at least a clean finger and a camera phone. Everyone left with fresh knowledge, a few more followers and probably some new friends.


https://drawntothevalley.co.uk/

Leap Year

On 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.

Red car Plymouth Hoe
Miss VV
Tywardreath rail crossing
Crystal Palace Rail Station
VV and Mum talk Rothko
Posters Devonport Playhouse
Redcurrants Butler’s Cottage
Red vase @theoldmortuary
Poppies @theoldmortuary
Jewel Salad @theoldmortuary
100 Homes Project, Plymouth
Chinese New Year , Hong Kong
Bowls South Korea
Hugo and Lola hit the Red Carpet
Gipsy Hill Brewery at The Lord High Admiral , Plymouth
Nasturtiums
Detail of painting
Street Art Haggerston
Chilli lights and cook books
Welsh Guards
Autumn Leaf Dulwich Picture Gallery
Beach plastic, Portwrinkle
Croxted Road, Dulwich
Detail from painting
Street Art, New York
Dodging the spray, Niagara Falls, Canada
Post Box, Barnes
Brixton Market
Hoi An

Bright shaft of sunlight.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Drawn To The Valley Artists, Home TownsLeave a comment

This morning the sunshine demanded to be noticed @theoldmortuary.

It highlights.

1. Tissues, we have been bogged down with a shocking virus this weekend. Not the headline grabbing sort just one that saps the strength and deadens the creative soul.

2. Hidden books, I have no idea how they get there.

3. Shadows, we have cast metal fish in our windows . In spring as soon as the sun comes out the fish shadows swim all over the ground floor.

4. Phalluses

Today is Ash Wednesday, an important date in the Christian calendar and #ash is the prompt for the social media account of Drawn to the Valley an artist collective I am involved with.( I used David Bowie’s Ashes to Ashes lyrics to fulfil the prompt) I mention this only in passing to illustrate that although I am not an active Christian I do have a good grip living opposite a church and being culturally shaped by Christianity, the gentle moves of the Christian calendar and it’s feasts and rituals are integral to the shape of our daily lives. Weddings, funerals and baptisms shape the way we park if nothing else. Paganism too plays it’s part in todays blog about Bright Shafts of Sunlight. There is almost an eponymous characteristic to those words. #4 explained

Our garden traps confetti, even after a winter of harsh storms and few weddings, today’s ‘ bright shaft of sunlight’ has its own special meaning @theoldmortuary as the garden twinkles with golden phalluses.

In the Pink, the morning commute and other stories.

On 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.

©Ovolo Hotel Southside 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.