Rowley Gallery Blog
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.
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”
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.
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.
Here’s Kai running the Plymouth Hoe 10 last year. A ten mile run around Plymouth Hoe, the highlight being this jaunty jig as she came by where her niece Molly was waiting to cheer her on. Kai will be running the British 10K London Run on Sunday 8th July and she’s promised a little hornpipe as she crosses the finishing line. See her page on the JustGiving website here.
This just in from Philip Maltman: Modern Day Greek Warrior for the Greek People.
This marquetry panel was designed by William Arthur Chase and made by The Rowley Gallery, circa 1920. It looks like the wood inlay is pine, sycamore, perhaps cedar, and oak-burr for the hair. It is titled Dancer With Cymbals and by its size and the way it is framed you’d be forgiven for thinking it might actually be a tambourine. It was recently discovered at auction and very kindly returned to its maker courtesy of the good folks at JHW Fine Art. Thank you, James.
These are three frames we made recently, containing a triptych made out of various wine and champagne corks, depicting the pixelated figure of a reclining nude. They are seen here at one of the restaurants where the corks were collected. If I’m not mistaken that looks like a Richard Smith painting on the wall behind, so I’m guessing this is The Boundary in Shoreditch. Continue reading “What A Corker!”
At first sight this year’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion resembles a giant table on the lawn with fairy lights hung beneath it. It was designed by architects Herzog & de Meuron and artist Ai Weiwei, the same team that created the National Stadium, aka the Bird’s Nest, for the Beijing Olympics. Continue reading “Serpentine Gallery Pavilion”
I just saw this sweet video and couldn’t resist it for Frames of Reference. I can remember building stuff and wishing for an audience too. It’s instinctive. It’s what boys do. But this little boy is a prodigy.