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.
Nunney Castle near Frome, Somerset comes close to perfection. Here water laps a small rectangular island, out of which rises a tall, ruined castle with four cylindrical towers. Continue reading “Nunney”
The Ship at Levington last April, newly refurbished and reopened just a couple of months earlier, it was a good place for lunch before a walk along the north shore of the River Orwell. Continue reading “Levington”
The Artist magazine has published an interview with me. It’s a four page illustrated piece called Masterclass and is in the July edition which is out now. It’s an excellent read. Susie Hodge, the art historian did the interview and I have to say I’m delighted with it. Continue reading “Masterclass”
Here’s a few photos of things that have been happening in the garden recently. Peace and tranquility in a suburban garden. English cottage garden style, wildflower areas, a little bit wild. Hedgehog recently in residence, slugs not. Continue reading “A June Garden”
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”
No trip to Barcelona is complete without an excursion to Montserrat. It had been recommended many times so finally we got the train from Plaça d’Espanya. The ticket price included a transfer onto the rack railway at Monistrol de Montserrat for the steep climb up the mountain. Continue reading “Montserrat”
A favourite clip from Louis Malle’s 1958 debut movie, Ascenseur Pour L’Échafaud, starring Jeanne Moreau with a wonderful improvised soundtrack by Miles Davis.
Davis was booked to perform at the Club Saint-Germain in Paris for November 1957. Jean-Paul Rappeneau, a jazz fan and Louis Malle’s assistant at the time introduced him to Malle, and Davis agreed to record the music after attending a private screening. On December 4, he brought his four sidemen to the recording studio without having had them prepare anything. Davis only gave the musicians a few rudimentary harmonic sequences he had assembled in his hotel room, and, once the plot was explained, the band improvised without any precomposed theme, while edited loops of the musically relevant film sequences were projected in the background. www.discogs.com
I have to admit I’ve not yet seen the film (though I did once see Jeanne Moreau looking in our gallery window) but I’ve listened to the soundtrack countless times. I bought the LP years ago after reading a recommendation by Richard Williams and I agree with him that it’s one of Miles Davis’s best.
Long ago I made cups, real ones out of porcelain to be exact. And now I don’t do that anymore. Instead, I often paint pictures of cups. It began innocently enough, as a path for transposing the ceramic cups that had always inspired my pottery into paintings. This simple idea launched an obsession and soon my desire to paint cups got a little bit out of hand. Because I had so many different ideas, I began numbering them in an effort to hold it all together. Continue reading “100 Cups”