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”

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Wood, Metal, Pigment

The top floor gallery at Annely Juda Fine Art is one of my favourite spaces and when the sun shines in through the skylight on an exhibition of sculptures by David Nash it’s just about the best place to be in all of London. Wood · Metal · Pigment continues until 7th July. Continue reading “Wood, Metal, Pigment”

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Patience (After Sebald)

This modest, immensely enjoyable documentary is about one of my favourite books, ‘The Rings of Saturn’ by the German poet and critic W G Sebald, who was born in 1944, taught for much of his adult life in this country, mainly at the University of East Anglia, and was killed in a motor accident in 2001. It was first published in German in 1995, translated into English three years later and is an account of a walking tour of Suffolk, the people he meets, the places he visits, and the historical and literary reflections prompted by what he sees and senses, taking his mind around the world. Suffolk becomes a sort of palimpsest for his eloquent, precise, lugubrious, often drily witty meditations about war, death, destruction and decay, about memories and continuities and the feeling that nothing entirely disappears.

Grant Gee’s film should make anyone want to read ‘The Rings of Saturn’ and the rest of Sebald’s relatively small but exquisite oeuvre, some eight or nine books in all.

Philip French

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A Small Forest

A new window display at The Rowley Gallery by Christopher Corr. We asked him to paint a few trees. A Corr forest, or simply a Corr fest. And each of the four free-standing trees have a painting on each of their four sides, so maybe it’s a fourest of Corrs. Four corrners of the fourest. I’ll stop now. Continue reading “A Small Forest”

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Gamlingay

Further on down the road we came to Gamlingay, a familiar sounding place, its pretty name once heard and hard to forget. We got lunch at the Cock Inn while villagers hung out flags for St George. And I remembered that the church of St Mary is renowned for its medieval graffiti. Continue reading “Gamlingay”

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In Cambridge

As we walked into town we passed the back wall of Emmanuel College, overseen by the great Oriental Plane tree, Platanus orientalis, growing in the Fellows’ Garden. We tried to get a closer look but since neither of us are college fellows we had to be content to view it from a distance. Continue reading “In Cambridge”

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Arborealists In Lady Park Wood

A short film by Kashfi Halford about Lady Park Wood, a rare natural woodland in the Wye Valley, as seen through the eyes of The Arborealists, a group of artists with a shared love of trees. There is an exhibition inspired by their visit at Monmouth Museum from May until September, including work by Robert Amesbury Brooks, Graham Arnold, Richard Bavin, Philippa Beale, Ann Blockley, Karen Bowers, Guillaume Brandy, Emma Buckmaster, Tim Craven, Annabel Cullen, Francis Dalschaert, Tom Deakins, Jane Eaton, Alex Egan, Janet French, Jelly Green, Sarah Harding, Richard Hoare, Abi Kremer, Fiona McIntyre, Lesley Slight and Jacqueline Wedlake Hatton.

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Tangle

Oil paintings and watercolours by Jelly Green and bronze sculptures by Freddy Morris in the Rowley Gallery window throughout May. It’s a meeting of kindred spirits. Both artists are woodlanders, each in their own way exploring the beauty of the trees. Both have been artist-in-residence in various treehouses. Jelly has painted in the rainforests of Brazil and Borneo as well as in woods closer to home. Freddy loves to forage for fallen branches, looking for shapely specimens to cast in bronze. Continue reading “Tangle”

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Cool For Cats

The Rowley Gallery window is cool for cats. They like to meet here. The collective term for a group of cats is a clowder. So there’s presently a great multi-coloured clowder of cats gathered together on parade in the window of the Rowley Gallery. All looking cool, calm, collected, present and Corr-ect. Continue reading “Cool For Cats”

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