Unravelling The Ripple

A portrait of a Hebridean tideline by Helen Douglas, this beautiful visual book unfolds as a single photographic image flowing through the textures and rhythms of sand, wrack and wave.

This book, hiding on my shelf too long, is the perfect antidote to a stifling and muggy urban heatwave. It’s a cold flannel on the inside of my elbow, the fresh breeze of a Scottish shore held in my hands. Turn the pages slowly, take it at walking pace, listen to the ripple of the wave unfurling, cool your feet in its crystal waters. It will wash you clean around the island. But first, an essay by Rebecca Solnit. Continue reading “Unravelling The Ripple”

Frames of reference

A Handful Of Twigs

St James the Less

I photographed these Twig Saints quickly, against the trellis on the south-facing wall outside my workshop, as a farewell gesture, just as we were returning them to Chris Kenny for a forthcoming exhibition at the After Nyne Gallery in September. They are all framed by the artist, often in adapted and reformed cigar boxes, cobbled together with the wooden backs of old picture frames sourced from The Rowley Gallery. The little Twig Saints are delicately fixed inside and their weird and wonderful stories are told in captions displayed on the reverse of their box-frames. Continue reading “A Handful Of Twigs”

Frames of reference

Sweet Chestnuts Of Zonza

This magnificent sweet chestnut tree stands in a field beside the main road north from Levie on the outskirts of Zonza in Corsica. It is on private property opposite the Hôtel Le Mouflon d’Or, so this was as close as we got. It is featured as a notable tree in the Guide des Arbres Remarquables de France – Le Châtaignier de Zonza: Sur la commune de Zonza, châtaignier de 14 mètres de circonférence qui est très vigoureux. On their website it is listed as Le châtaignier creux de Zonza (the hollow chestnut of Zonza), propriété privée. The horses were fortunate to get so close. Continue reading “Sweet Chestnuts Of Zonza”

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Majesty

The Majesty oak is well named; it truly is majestic, /məˈdʒɛstɪk/, adjective, having or showing impressive beauty or scale, synonyms: exalted, august, great, awesome, elevated, sublime, lofty. It is all of these and more. It lives in Fredville Park at Nonington in Kent, alongside other exceptional trees called Beauty, Stately and Staghorn, but Majesty is said to be the finest oak in all of the British Isles. It stands 60 feet tall and measures 40 feet around and estimates of its age vary from 400 to 800 to the best part of a thousand years, no one knows for sure but it looks to me like it’s been here forever. Continue reading “Majesty”

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To The Jade Emperor’s Mountain

This richly textured puzzle-picture wood engraving is not much bigger than a large postage stamp but it is crammed full of intriguing detail. A stepped path winds through a grove of trees amid a cultivated chaos of cross-hatched herring-bone earth. How is it possible to get so much into so little? This tiny concentrated memento is a leitmotif for our July window display – To The Jade Emperor’s Mountain and other works by Jonathan Gibbs. Continue reading “To The Jade Emperor’s Mountain”

Frames of reference

Cyclops

This is the third book of poems by David Attwooll with pictures by Andrew Walton. The previous two books resulted from shared walks around Oxford. This last book circles around David’s final illness. He died in August 2016 from Erdheim Chester disease. One of it’s symptoms was a gradual loss of sight in one eye, and the poet’s increasing identification with Polyphemus, the giant cyclops from Homer’s Odyssey. There is a dark humour in these poems; David’s sense of fun is evident throughout. I met him only once, but I agree with his daughter, Kate AttwoollHe was… the most modest of men, instantly filling those who knew him with a welcoming sense of human possibility and kindness. So without further ado, here is the whole book, hand-scanned cover to cover by yours truly. Take it slow, and click on each image to get a better view. Continue reading “Cyclops”

Frames of reference