Rowley Gallery Blog
I’m sifting through photos from Italy. We just got back from holiday and I’m surprised at how many arches there are. I didn’t consciously set out to photograph them but it turns out I’ve got more photos of arches than of anything else. Not only are they structurally efficient but they’re also intrinsically graceful and irresistibly photogenic. Here’s just a small selection from our first day in Perugia. Continue reading “Underneath The Arches”
In Gozo last Summer I took the opportunity to walk across the top of the Azure Window to capture the view down over the rock pools and beyond to Fungus Rock in the distance. Continue reading “Azure Window”
Thanks to a tweet from The Fife Psychogeographical Collective I found this video by Bill Drummond at the Birmingham Mail website. It feels like a small miracle. A band of outlawed Romanian buskers performing the anthem of the European Union under Spaghetti Junction – a perfect metaphor for the knot we’ve tied ourselves in. I’m offline now for a few weeks while I check if Europe will still have me.
I have three of Gunnera tinctoria. It’s the little brother of Gunnera manicata (those huge waterside plants you can stand underneath at posh gardens) – but it’s still plenty big enough for a small suburban garden with 3ft wide leaves. I used to have only one but repotting gave me the chance to sneak off a couple of sideshoots for propagation. Continue reading “A July Garden”
Oval Form no.2 by Barbara Hepworth, pencil and gouache on paper, in a frame constructed by Ben Nicholson, was recently sold at auction. We were asked to frame a photograph of the drawing. Making the frame was like making a Ben Nicholson construction; it was a great privilege. I used a simple pine moulding, the horizontal sides overlapping the vertical sides, and painted white. Continue reading “Some Nicholson Frames”
This white metal fencing is so distinctive and evocative. It instantly conjours childhood memories of days out, picnicking on the banks of the River Hodder. It must have been erected by the Lancashire County Council in the 1950s all around Ribblesdale and Bowland. This view is somewhere near Kirkby Lonsdale, possibly skirting Farleton Fell, a wet landscape of sheep and wind turbines. We were hoping for sunshine; there was a distant patch illuminating Blackpool Tower. And then there was a curlew, on the wall beside the road, right next to us, but in the time it took to stop and get the camera it lifted off and soared away. The closest curlew we ever saw, and it saw us closely too. Continue reading “Abbot Hall & Packwood”
Asked recently to frame this print I was told it was a map of all the trees in Kensington Gardens & Hyde Park. It sounded too good to be true. I wished it was but I knew it wasn’t, but it was a good excuse to go and check, to visit the trees on our doorstep, too often taken for granted. So we came for a closer look, through the rose-scented Orme Square Gate and into Kensington Gardens. Continue reading “A Walk In The Park”
I’d been looking forward to this for years. Ever since we first had his wood engravings I’d been curious about where they came from. We usually get Howard’s prints in the post or occasionally he might bring us a few, but this time I was invited to go and collect some myself. It was an opportunity to visit his studio, to see how his wood engravings are made and also to discover the landscape that informs them. I left the A303 and followed the A30 down a dead straight Roman road to Stockbridge then along the old drover’s road towards Salisbury. I began to recognise the distinctive local features, the gentle rolling hills, the trees silhouetted against the sky, and I knew I was entering Phipps country. Continue reading “A Short Walk With Howard Phipps”
Where the month of May was perfumed with hawthorn and cow parsley, so I associate June with the smells of rowan, elder, privet and pyracantha blossom. In the garden, the honeysuckles have been in bloom for the last two weeks, and on a hot humid evening the perfume is heady – almost overpowering. In contrast my rose ‘Lady Emma Hamilton’ smells at its best early in the morning, with a delicious perfume of peach and orange. So I go out for a whiff first thing before I go off to work. Continue reading “A June Garden”
This is the Ponte della Maddalena (Bridge of Mary Magdalene) across the Serchio river in Italy, also known as Ponte del Diavolo (Bridge of the Devil). We visited last year on our way to Lucca and I was reminded of it again recently when it appeared in Il Racconto dei Racconti (Tale of Tales), a magical film shot in spectacular locations all over Italy. It prompted me to go looking for more mementoes. Continue reading “Mementi”