September 2006

September 1st - 11th

If you have been a faithful reader of this log you might be forgiven for having moved elsewhere to seek out your normal dosage of insomnia treatment. If you have, of course, you won't be reading this anyway - or you will be efficaciously asleep. There have been reasons for my lack of attention to the log.

After nearly thirty years of being more or less a full-time Mum + artist, today Scarf Support and I entered a new phase as the last child left home. I have bored three of them into departure, raised as they were on a diet of textiles, textiles and yet more textiles, ensuring that they will never again look at a nineteenth century Wayang Kebo geringsing without stifling a yawn.

In my bio page there is a short reference to the fact that I started painting fabric when I was in hospital expecting twins and it's these two that have recently departed in their own chosen directions. Not unconnected was this week's visit to Liverpool. It's many years since I was last there, and I have never given it a proper visit. I found it an eye-popping mixture of rot and regeneration, grandeur, grace and grime. I couldn't stop taking photos : see below.

Albert Dock, Liver Building etc
Martins Bank, now Barclay's	Interior, India Buildings
Town Hall, with protest	A Liverpool pub with amazing decoration and lettering
	Safety-barrier section: note classical allusions...!
The greengrocer's apostrophe live's	Interior, pub, with Guinness, ale and cider

September 12th - 15th

Each day this week I have been working at Thomas Roberts House where I have a small exhibition as part of West Devon's Nine Days of Art. There has been a good steady flow of people coming through and the preview was really well supported. The show goes on until Sunday evening and then most of the work remaining will wing its way to galleries in Wales, Oxford and Scotland.

My new Japanese wax brushes have arrived! There's nothing as exciting as new toys. I felt like putting out the banners and organising the Hatherleigh Silver Band to serenade them in so they feel happy to work for me now they have travelled half way round the world. Here is the parcel as it came in from the States.

And here are the brushes

I have bought two identical sets of ro-fude brushes (each set comprising a 12, 8 and 6 brush) and a medium shikibiki brush. I have introduced them to the wax as advised and started to experiment with them this week to see what marks they will make. Already I am finding that I can create more fluid and varid lines with the ro-fude brushes and these marks are bound to affect the direction of new work. The shikibiki is a different beast as it will make "drier" marks but I haven't done much with it as yet. It is beautifully made, with a split shaft and the hair stitched in place through the two strips of wood.

September 16th -17th

We took down the exhibition this evening. I am really pleased with the response from local visitors, and the hall of Thomas Roberts House was a lovely space to work in (see below). The show, as part of West Devon's Nine Days of Art, was the first of its type I have taken part in since I moved to the area. Thanks to the many who came to see me and responded to my invitations; a special thank you to Anna and Charles who made me feel so relaxed about being there in their hall, and to Robin who came up from Cornwall to see me today.

September 18th - 23rd

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First of all, they've gone. I saw lines of swallows gathering about 10 days ago as above, doing the avian equivalent of checking boarding passes and removing all sharp items from their hand baggage. You never actually see the moment they disappear south and I suppose they leave in dribs and drabs anyway. But one morning, they're just not there at all, and there's a bleakness in empty grey air preparing for winter.

If you've followed this every-so-often tale of art (with country folk thrown in) for a while you will be aware that I walk the dog most days down on The Moor. I have photographed it often during the year and in June there is a spectacular display of grasses. Now it so happens that we are developing a water crisis in this country - along with all the other crises we have brought upon ourselves. One issue with which the water companies are constantly challenged is the water wasted due to leaking pipes, and the time it takes to mend them. So it seems churlish to complain when millions of pounds of water-born (sorry) profit is ploughed back into new systems and pipes. Unless it's here.

23rd - 28th September

I am teaching a shibori workshop on Saturday so I've been busy preparing samples and notes for students. We'll be doing two types of work: one is a clamped stack of square folded fabric, and the other method uses a flat spiral tube bound at intervals, to create chevrons.

On Saturday we went to Beaford to see a small exhibition of photographs by the late James Ravilious called Fields of Vision. There were a number of images we'd never seen before - but when you consider James made and archived over 80,000 photographs in his Beaford period that isn't surprising. James Ravilious photographed the rapidly-disappearing way of life in the Devon landscape, generally in black and white, and with a painter's eye. Click here for some images and further links.

Some of his photographs are so familiar to me that they have become icons and it was something of a shock to realise that there are subjects of his most famous images still very much alive. I saw an elderly Olive Bennett in Torrington yesterday - you can see her top left in these images published by Canns Down Press. Anson Hartford's film about Ravilious, shown at the Fields of Vision exhibition, interviewed many of the characters from his photographs and had them reminisce about the images in which they appear. The film was a thoughtful and intelligent addition to the exhibition although I found the Alan Bennett voiceover an odd choice. We have put our name down for a CD copy. The exhibition and film will be given further showings this autumn. If you live in Devon or hereabouts, don't miss it. Times and places here.

In lamenting on the state of the Moor, waterpipes and general mess (last entry), I didn't mention I'd found a heap of broken china and glass in the spoil heaps. It was in an area never known to have been lived in or on, and the pottery has, generally, a Victorian feel. There was too much of it to be accounted for by the presence of gypsies, who, I was told, often used to set up camp there. Unless they used the same area to tip their rubbish year after year. A Romany-type caravan passed through here the other day although I have no way of knowing whether the man in the picture is a gypsy, or a modern traveller returning to old ways.