Rowley Gallery Blog
A beautiful short film shot on Super-8 and painstakingly woven together by Adam Scovell. He was inspired by Robert Macfarlane, Stanley Donwood, Dan Richards and their book Holloway. I first stumbled into it here and I find it hard to leave. Adam has written a great piece about his film here. It’s mesmerising.
A series of postcards produced by Common Ground to accompany England In Particular, ‘a celebration of the common place, the local, the vernacular and the distinctive’. Continue reading “14 Postcards”
A lovely King Penguin book from 1955, donated to The Rowley Gallery library by Evelyn Hallewell. The colour plates are by Peter Shepheard and the book was a bargain at 5/-.
As well as being a beautiful picture book ‘Woodland Birds’ will lead many out to watch for themselves the inhabitants of our woods and forests. Continue reading “Woodland Birds”
As a small boy Père Castor’s Wild Animal Books were a magical introduction to nature, along with Beatrix Potter’s stories. The series of eight books first published in France in the late 1930s were brought out in English just post war. Continue reading “Père Castor”
Another book from the wonderful and sorely missed Notting Hill Books. This one was perhaps not so beloved as the last but it was one of my favourites. I always liked its folksy illustrations and the way one thing leads to another and life just inevitably gets more and more complicated. Continue reading “The House That Jack Built”
Of all the many books I found at Notting Hill Books this one stands out as a special favourite. Our children loved it. But now it’s out of print and hard to find. Continue reading “A House Of Leaves”
A short trailer for the forthcoming Holloway film by Adam Scovell, inspired by the book of the same name by Robert Macfarlane, Stanley Donwood & Dan Richards, in which they go in search of an ancient Dorset holloway – previously visited by Macfarlane with Roger Deakin. They were looking for the hide where the hero of Geoffrey Household’s novel ‘Rogue Male’ went to ground.
Read more about the project on Adam Scovell’s website – Celluloid Wicker Man – and there’s another link on Frames Of Reference – Holloway.
Roger Ackling made artworks like small miracles. He turned driftwood into diamonds. He died last year, his obituary is here. I never met him but I knew people who were taught by him and exhibited with him. I saw many of his exhibitions and loved his work. I think I even once walked by his house on the crumbling north Norfolk coast at Weybourne. There are presently exhibitions of his work at Annely Juda and Kestle Barton, and Occasional Papers are hoping to publish a crowdfunded book about him, Roger Ackling: Between the Lines. I’m looking forward to reading it. Continue reading “Roger Ackling: Between The Lines”
Another King Penguin from the collection of Evelyn Hallewell. This one’s a beauty but sadly missing a few pages from the middle. The illustrations are by Irene Hawkins but Rampion, Scabious, Rock Rose and Pasque Flower have disappeared. It was published in 1947 and, according to the label in the back, it was purchased from Binns Ltd. (Book Shop), Princes Street, Edinburgh 2. Continue reading “Chalk Flowers”
This might be a curio best forgotten, an embarrassing piece of juvenilia. Forty years ago this was my final year thesis at art school. Nowadays it would be called a dissertation. But really it was just an annotated photo album. I’d found a stripey beach towel which became a sort of security blanket for a while, it seemed emblematic of the striped abstract paintings I was making and I photographed it wherever I went. I put all the photos together in a book with lots of random quotes as if I’d swallowed a library, or more likely the Whole Earth Catalog and An Index Of Possibilities. It was all very 1970s and very pretentious, but what really strikes me today is how much it resembles a prototype blog post. Continue reading “Thesis & Antithesis”