hamer the framer

Being John McLean

This time last year, as relief from the winter gloom, we went down to Margate to see an exhibition of paintings by Patrick Heron. This year there’s no need to travel quite so far; the Art Space Gallery in Islington is full of winter sunshine until the end of January. I don’t know why I’ve never been before. It’s an intimate series of rooms and alcoves and niches, presently framing some wonderfully joyful bursts of colour by John McLean. It’s a memorial exhibition for a sharp, bright and generous spirit. Continue reading “Being John McLean”

One Earth, One People, One Love

Happy New Year

Suites Violoncelle J S Bach

Les suites pour violoncelle seul de Johann Sebastian Bach interprétées par Marc Coppey
le 24 juin 2015, Chapelle de la Trinité, Lyon.

Bach Cello Solo No.1

In August 1954, at age of 77 Pau Casals (1876-1973) performed Bach’s G-Major Cello Solo at Abbaye “Saint-Michel-de-Cuxa”, a Catholic monastery located south of the small border town Prades in France (Catalonia of Spain is on the other side of border). Pau Casals settled in Prades in earlier 1940’s after the Spanish civil war in 1930’s, and he came back to Prada as the conductor and cellist at Prades Festival in 1950’s. A small museum in Prades is dedicated to the memory of Pablo Casals.

Bach – 6 Prelude

Sophia Bacelar plays the Prelude from Bach’s Cello Suite No.6 in D Major.

Bach: Cello Suite No.1 in G Major, Prelude

Culture – the way we express ourselves and understand
each other – can bind us together as one world.

Must Be Santa

A carol for Jeremy Corbyn

Not Dark Yet

A carol for Boris Johnson

For Henry Frankel

Henry Robert Frankel (Oct.11, 1944 – Nov. 2, 2019) was an American philosopher and historian of science noted for his historical and philosophical analysis of the continental drift controversy and subsequent discovery of plate tectonics. He was Emeritus Professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City… Frankel’s four volume work, The Continental Drift Controversy, published in 2012 by Cambridge University Press, is generally considered seminal and definitive in the field of earth sciences… Through this career-long research, Frankel became recognized as the world’s leading expert on the controversies associated with continental drift and the development of plate tectonics. Continue reading “For Henry Frankel”

The Journey Of Things

At the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich to see Magdalene Odundo’s exhibition The Journey of Things, a celebration of 45 years of her amazing hand-built pots, featuring many of her iconic vessel sculptures, and accompanied by a history, or rather a herstory, of inspirational encounters along the way – touchstones first seen at the British Museum, the Commonwealth Institute, the Museum of Mankind, the Pitt Rivers Museum, Kettle’s Yard and the Sainsbury Centre itself, to name but a few. Continue reading “The Journey Of Things”