Just Like Trees

Skinny. Frail. Feeble. Twigs. Using the weakest part of the forest, this is a story of beauty and strength like you’ve never seen it before.

For a 2020 pro bono campaign with the American Forest Foundation, KSV recently partnered with London-based mixed media artist Chris Kenny to use his Twig Saint creations to humanize trees and the threats they’re up against.

American Forest Foundation

Chris Kenny

Frames of reference

Seven Trees For Seven Sisters

This optimistic little painting was given to me by Christopher Corr. I’d told him about my idea to put seven trees on the roof of the new tower at Seven Sisters in Tottenham. Seven Sisters got its name from a sacred grove of seven elms that grew there in the seventeenth century. Christopher was very enthusiastic, but it has proved more difficult to convince the tower’s owners of the benefits of having trees on their roof. What follows begins with a Twitter thread I first posted in March 2019. Continue reading “Seven Trees For Seven Sisters”

Frames of reference

Campaign For Wool

An exhibition of 19 paintings by Christopher Corr at Salts Mill, a former Yorkshire woollen mill in Saltaire. They tell the story of the Campaign for Wool, illustrating significant events from its history. Continue reading “Campaign For Wool”

Frames of reference

Offertorium

One of a collection of new videodances created to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Mark Morris Dance Group.

It features Lauren Grant who has been dancing with MMDG since 1996, and who I first saw perform with them twenty-one years ago at Sadlers Wells.

Offertorium / Mark Morris Dance Group

Frames of reference

Deacon Hill

We left the car on Great Green by the Motte & Bailey pub in the village of Pirton, not far from our previous walk to Kingswalden Park, attracted back again by the promise of more green lanes and Hertfordshire hedgerows. We left the village and straightaway we were on the Icknield Way. Continue reading “Deacon Hill”

Frames of reference

America The Beautiful

This is the Biden/Harris victory video, a great plea for unity to heal a divided nation, and a great advert for picture frames! I just couldn’t ignore it. The film makers have used the device of a picture frame to signify that which is beautiful. And that’s pretty much all of the USA, united again, they’re all in it together, I think that’s the idea. I hope it goes well. I think the acronym POTUS must be for Pictureframer Of The United States. It’s a pity they’re not great frames but hey you can’t have everything. They’re metaphorical. And inspirational. And a great reason to feel proud to be a picture framer!

Frames of reference

Selborne

Selborne was the perfect rendezvous, being halfway between London and Salisbury. We came down and Howard Phipps came up and we met in the middle, in a field just off Gracious Street, the car park of the Gilbert White Museum, where we transferred the contents of Howard’s car boot to ours, in preparation for his exhibition in the Rowley Gallery window. But not before a lovely sunny walk around the outskirts of the village. And this map, embedded in the vicarage wall, dated 2 June 1953, is as old as I am. Continue reading “Selborne”

Frames of reference

Open Country

We’ve got a new window display for October – Open Country: Wood Engravings of the Wessex Downs and Coast by Howard Phipps. It’s a display that celebrates Howard’s love of the West Country and Dorset in particular. These are patiently wrought images, slow-grown evocations carved in wood and printed in exquisite detail, they always seem to capture the essential timeless spirit of each particular place depicted. Continue reading “Open Country”

Frames of reference

Forest Burning

A big new painting from Jelly Green. A big new fierce angry painting. A painful painting. It hurts to look, but I’m dazzled by it, I’m caught in its headlights. Jelly has found her subject and she’s not going to avert her gaze, she confronts it, rubs our noses in it. This is our future if we go on blindly supporting the ever diminishing returns of consumer capitalism. Continue reading “Forest Burning”

Frames of reference