A not to be missed film telling the story of an Amy Winehouse performance before an audience of 85 in a little church in Ireland in 2006, to be broadcast next Monday, July 23rd at 10pm on BBC4 – Arena.
Amy In Dingle
Constantine’s Dream
The Basilica of San Francesco in Arrezo, Tuscany, a late medieval church dedicated to St Francis of Assisi. In the chancel, the Cappella Maggiore, is one of the masterpieces of the Italian Early Renaissance. The walls are covered with a sequence of frescoes by Piero della Francesca depicting episodes from The Legend of The True Cross. Behind the suspended crucifix, at the lower right of the window is The Vision of Constantine, an image which has haunted Patti Smith for years. Continue reading “Constantine’s Dream”
Metamorphosis
One day a man from over the hills came into the shop to buy a greetings card. He was a graceless man of few words though he did say the card was for his sick mother, but the words seemed to stumble over his tongue as he spoke. He was a large, lumbering, oaf of a man yet he was very quick to choose a card, and he paid for it with a crisp, new £50 note. Continue reading “Metamorphosis”
A Bundle Of Walnut
A nice bundle of clean, new leaves of walnut burr veneer fresh from the tree. Continue reading “A Bundle Of Walnut”
Chick, Chick, Chick, Chick, Chicken
Marc the electrician came to see us, to fix the lighting and to bring us these delicious eggs from his garden in Thornton Heath where he keeps Cotswold Legbars, French Copper Neck Marans, a large speckled hen and a black tailed Colombian. Continue reading “Chick, Chick, Chick, Chick, Chicken”
Jelly Green At Kensington Place
Three big new paintings by Jelly Green go on show at Kensington Place from Tuesday 7th August. Their large north wall has inspired Jelly to stretch out and paint on a much larger scale than before.
The cows in this new series of paintings graze on the water meadows in the Alde Valley. One of the lovely things about this particular herd is that unusually they are a mixture of breeds from Simmentals to Belgian Blues and Charolais, which provides a much wider palette of colours and forms. These three paintings are my largest pieces yet. There is something really intimidating and challenging about working on this scale: the potential for failure is magnified, the empty space to fill completely daunting. But when they work, it’s a huge relief and a painting that is hard to ignore.
Cwm Idwal
This is another from the Guardian’s Eyewitness series, and it’s also another in a developing Frames of Reference series. This is Cwm Idwal, a valley in Snowdonia, and a word which seems to keep recurring, either as cwm or combe or comb. See earlier posts Down & Round & Up & Over and Wind Comb and Combe Again. This time it’s a photograph which won the National Parks Landscape Photograph Competition by Michal Tekel and it’s what you might call sublime.
A Sense Of Scale
In the past I have made a number of very large scale public artworks including a ceiling mural at Charing Cross Hospital which was 10 x 6 metres and a mural for the special care baby unit at Frimley Hospital which was 10 x 2 metres. Continue reading “A Sense Of Scale”
West Sussex Beaches
Christopher Corr has been teaching this summer at West Dean which involved taking students on excursions and field trips to local beaches such as Littlehampton, Selsey, West Wittering and Worthing, where the weather was variable (not tropical) but typical of British Summer Time.
Taj Mahal
After listening to his records for the past 45 years, I finally got to see Taj Mahal play live last week at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. I don’t know what took me so long but it was worth the wait. He’s just so full of music. One moment you could swear you’re listening to Howling Wolf, then Mississippi John Hurt and even at times Otis Redding. He’s a voice of resurrection. He gave us rocking bar-room electric blues and gently swaying acoustic country blues with touches of scat singing, reggae, calypso, Celtic flavoured banjo picking and a beautiful surprise duet with Baaba Maal. And also Fishing Blues.