Tag: Tamar Valley

#926 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Drawn to the Valley1 Comment

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.

https://videopress.com/v/oWeQR31h?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true

That was a lot of excitement for one day.

#910 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Mount Edgecumbe, Serendipity2 Comments
Doggy friends in Dulwich Park.

My dog walking habits started in the streets and parks of South London 11 years ago. The parks and streets of South London are a riot of colour in May as urban trees and bushes  burst with fresh green leaves and blossom in the tightly packed, built environment. A couple of days ago I was a little home-sick for my London meanderings so did the best I could,in an area of outstanding natural beauty to recreate an urban city walk. I wanted grungy and beautiful all in the same walk.

Home sickness turned out to be the theme of the walk.  The city bit of the walk was easy enough to achieve . I wanted to throw in some specific graffiti that I had heard of in an old fuel store on the Cornish side of the Tamar. With my trusty O.S map I found my way over the river by ferry to Camp Bedrock.

I had no idea I was heading to a camp site. I approached using a footpath running along the river.  To me I was a lone adventurer with two canine friends finding a rural anomaly. Good Street Art in the countryside. So set was I on the graffiti that I barely photographed the outside.

Mt Edgecumbe Old Fuel Depot.

The inside after an autumn, winter and spring of near constant rain was a riot of colour and reflections.

Rural Graffiti
The roof.

The accoustics of the building are amazing . I couldn’t actually get too far in. Not only was the floor a bible-black puddle. It was also a quagmire of  bovine excressences.  More than my feet could endure., A deeply fragrant gallery, deep in the countryside. It was the smell of cow poo that gave me another jolt of home sickness. Suddenly I was engulfed in the fragrances of the Dairy farms of my childhood

The old fuel store had been used to overwinter some cows. The farmyard smell was rich and clean and earthy, not at all the sort of smell that the word manure conjures up. It really was quite intoxicating. Not many art galleries would be brave enough to replicate this as an installation. It was only as I left the fuel dump that I found a small Camp Bedrock sign. Dr Google showed me  the error of my ways. Not a rural secret at all. A camp site!

Enough of cow poo my next fragrance high point was the Wisteria Pergola in the Formal Gardens of Mount Edgecumbe House

Two hours and a few miles of walking had rewarded me with some fabulous sights and smells. All done in the early morning when my sense of smell is at its most reliable and no one else is about.

One last treat of the day , a different ferry back. This time to the Royal William Yard. I was the only passenger. I felt like a Queen*on a Royal Barge.

* It still feels a little odd to say ‘a’ Queen rather than ‘the’ Queen.

Yesterdays painting was , in part, inspired by my wanderings.

#689 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Home, Serendipity3 Comments

This patch of England has been my home since 1988, it is far from my place of birth and in that time I have not always lived here. But it is where my soul has its feet under the table. This morning for no reason in particular I wondered why Plymouth Sound was a ‘Sound’. Geography had the answer.

© Wikipedia

Yesterday we were at the far west reaches of the Sound, at Kingsand and Cawsand. The furthest point seen through the circle is, I believe, the far west point of Plymouth Sound before it becomes the Atlantic Ocean.

Conversely dog grooming occurs on the furthest easterly point at Wembury.

Yesterday I was able to take a photo of Both the easterly point and the most westerly with a wooden tall ship in the middle.

The Pelican of London had just left Plymouth and was taking quite a buffering from the wind as it sheltered in Cawsand Bay. Madness to think that a tall ship moored here would, in the past, have been ripe, low hanging fruit for the smugglers, pirates and wreckers of  all the places we love to walk our dogs and enjoy gorgeous scenery.

Bigger than a bight and wider than a fjord . Packed with history and landscape. 99% of @theoldmortuary blogs occur from here.

#403 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Art for sale, ponderingLeave a comment

It is a misty murky weekend in the Tamar Valley. I’ve been overwhelmed with a virus and have had to watch on as my fellow bobbers took to the water on the one day that our swimming zone was not treacherous.

But out of the gloom came a red dot indicating that I had sold a piece of art at the exhibition where I caught the virus earlier in the week.

I am super pleased as it was one of my experimental pieces with alcohol inks. Alcohol is also involved in other art projects this week. My ongoing urge to draw a Dublin back street complete with inebriated man having a pee. He is not so much the focal point, more a piece of street furniture as nearly every historic back street had at least one man relieving himself in a pool of light. I will spare you the Google images that I will be drawing from but there are days when I am glad my artistic researches are no longer tracked by the NHS IT department. There is a funny old system of on- call where you are only paid for emergency work that you actually do. In theory it can be done from home but often it was just easier to stay on site and do self interest work/ study in between cases. Mostly I did work related study but sometimes when I was doing arts courses. I would knock out a Fine Art essay. Me and IT got particularly close when I was researching ‘ Finding the Erotic in Nature’ . The nature of work in the NHS means that almost nothing except actual porn gets stopped by their filters. But fleshy looking plants really set the IT logarithms on me. Thankfully I had a good relationship with IT mostly because some of my colleagues could not keep their fingers out of the Porn Sweetie Jar that is the Internet, even at work. So they alerted me when my colleagues had transgressed. The quiet ones are the worst!

This plant, which makes beautiful tea was a very awkward search.

#394 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Art for saleLeave a comment

A busy day in the beautiful Tamar Valley helping to set up an art exhibition has given me no free time for a blog today. There have been some amazing pieces of art delivered, and I will share some stories from there next week once the curators have worked their magic.But one picture caught my eye today. When I moan on about greige weather I should remember that not all greige is dull and tedious. Sometimes it is as beautiful as this painting.

Late evening Dartmoor by Paul Kemp

#331 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Art for sale1 Comment
©theoldmortuary

Back to work. I’m showing work in a month long National Trust exhibition soon. Three paintings of four were completed before the holiday, although not yet framed. This one took shape today, it is not an accurate landscape but is a reflection of the landscape around the National Trust property. The area on the borderlands between Devon and Cornwall. For the most part views are obscured by Cornish/ Devon hedges . Tall hand built dry stone walls that are topped by0p small trees and other hedging plants. But every now and then the walls dip and the landscape falls away towards the sea or the River Tamar. Then drivers or horse riders get a peep of distant views, on this occasion at sunset.

#222 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Art for sale, SerendipityLeave a comment
©Michael Jenkins

Not exactly sunrise to sunset, but not far off. The curating and hanging teams for the Spring Exhibition, including me, worked hard all day to hang all the 2d and 3d work submitted for the Spring Exhibition. 12,000 steps on a hard concrete floor are enough to make your feet shout for a break, but that was not an option. All the works were hung and the space beautifully tidied up by the time the doors opened for the Private View. Then the owners of the same exhausted feet made sure that our guests had drinks in their hands and delicious canapes in their mouths. Lovely conversations were had and sales negotiated. Gilly our treasurer had her hands full with Pimms and payments all happening at once. All in all a good day was had.

©Michael Jenkins

#221 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Art for saleLeave a comment
©Mark Fielding

Setting up a group art exhibition is exhausting but the thrill of unpacking other peoples creativity is an enormous treat. The other great pleasure is meeting and talking with the artists as they arrive, weighed down by their precious creations.

©Sue Richardson

After the last two days of setting up and installing we have a week now of being open to the public and plenty of time to chat. Anyone local to Gunnislake or the Tamar Valley, we would love to see you, there will always be a warm welcome.

©Sarah Grace.

#184 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Bobbing3 Comments

Bobbers and their dogs left their usual Atlantic location and travelled up the River Tamar last night to celebrate an evening of live music and Coach Andy’s birthday. Bobber Helen was performing after recovering the lower register of her voice, the upper one having been temporarily disabled by Covid.

Bobbers always celebrate birthdays in the sea but Coach Andy is a special bobber because he never gets wet. So a landlocked celebration at the Who’d Have Thought It suited him very well.

Covid has robbed us all of so much but the curiously named pub exactly reflects the sentiments of last night.

Who would have thought that fifteen people, most of them strangers to one another, would have created such a bond because of a pandemic. During the dark days of lockdowns in England people were only permitted to travel short distances for exercise. Open water or the sea was the only place that swimming could happen. Crazy as it seems now Bobbing started when we even had to keep our distance in outside environments including the sea. Bobbing requires us all to struggle in and out of our clothes on a public promenade, Coach Andy keeps an eye on piles of clothes and the bobbers in the sea. We swim in an area with very tricksy currents. During lockdown even though travel was restricted to essential or exercise some people saw this as an opportunity to steal phones and valuables from swimmers clothes piles. There was also a Voyeur who would casually cycle up and down the promenade in a high visibility jacket hoping to catch an eyeful of damp flesh as we struggled in or out of our clothes. At one point Coach Andy was supplemented by members of the Police Force who showed the Voyeur the error of his ways and he cycled off never to be seen again. Although as his disguise was a high visibility jacket that statement is not strictly true. Someone, somewhere else is almost certainly seeing him. Coach Andy is an absolute master at wandering off and staring at the horizon for long periods when we get to the damp flesh bit of bobbing. He is also pretty good at a good old natter when other people come to visit the bobbing zone to marvel at the madness that is cold water swimming in all sorts of weather. His emergency finger is never far away from his phone whatever situation he finds himself in

Who would have thought you could put 15 strangers into a very unusual situation and then turn them into friends.

Who would have thought that three dogs could listen so attentively to a night of the Blues . I suspect no high notes may have been the secret.

#70 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Advent1 Comment

Sharp December sun was a gift that just kept giving. Even Miss Spearmint was not going to miss a moment of it.

I took a trip up the Tamar to Cotehele, a Tudor Mansion on the Cornish Bank of the river. Cotehele is a regular pre Christmas trip. Rarely in such gorgeous sunlight though. The Christmas Garland in the Tudor Hall is a longstanding Advent tradition. COVID has had its destructive way with the Garland and things are not as colourful or vibrant as in a normal year. The home grown flower heads could not be grown in such enormous quantities, with lock downs and lower numbers of available gardeners on the estate.

The Garland is still pretty impressive, but because it was less grand and attention seeking than normal it was easier to notice the smaller decoration details of the Great Hall. Simple Honesty bunches captured in the last, bright, shards of the afternoon sun.

A great picture to give a little digital tweak to.

And just like that it was time for the sun take its leave.