Annabel Keatley is exhibiting her paintings, alongside work by Emma Plunkett, Lesley O’Brien and Silvina Daniela Rodriguez, at Biblioteca Municipal Salobreña from December 3rd. More details here.
Mujeres Encendidas
For William Turnbull
I treasure this little booklet. It’s a catalogue from Waddington Galleries in 1981, a souvenir of a beautiful and influential little exhibition of small bronzes. It got me looking at Brancusi and Giacometti and prompted countless visits to the British Museum where I discovered Cycladic figurines and Bronze Age beaker pots, Elgin marbles and Benin bronzes and much more. William Turnbull’s work seemed to contain all the best bits, all distilled from seeds gathered from around the world and filtered through his hands. Continue reading “For William Turnbull”
Ago Del Torrone
Sue sent me this awesome photo by Robert Bösch. It seemed a natural follow up to yesterday’s It’s High Time. It’s another from the Eyewitness series. It shows 28 climbers striking a pose as they climb the Ago del Torrone in northern Italy, transforming it into some kind of weird alpine cactus.
It’s High Time
A couple of weeks ago I saw the Jan Garbarek Group play at the Royal Festival Hall as part of the London Jazz Festival. I didn’t take a camera, this image is courtesy of Gert Rickmann-Wunderlich. Garbarek was cool and sharp on soprano saxophone, warmer on tenor saxophone, always assured and inventive, but he was the only member of the group who did not take a solo. He retired too often to his seat behind the piano. I would have liked to hear him play more. Continue reading “It’s High Time”
Friday On Sunday
We walked to Friday Street on Remembrance Sunday. The approach from the north was down Hollow Lane which seemed a promising start. A deep cut road through the sandstone overhung with trees leading us into ancient woodlands. On the way we passed congregations remembering the fallen. All around leaves were falling, like memento mori. Luckily the sun was shining and it seemed we were granted a last fantastic dying burst of colour before the winter. Continue reading “Friday On Sunday”
Jelly’s Sketchbook
Jelly Green brought us another of her richly painted cow portraits recently, then produced a Moleskine sketchbook from her bag to show that cows are not her only subjects. Continue reading “Jelly’s Sketchbook”
Freud In The Frame
We were asked to frame a boxed set of 10 photographs – Freud At Work by David Dawson – mounted and glazed in simple oak frames. Continue reading “Freud In The Frame”
Cork By Cork
Conrad Engelhardt makes mosaics from used wine corks. He brings them to us at The Rowley Gallery for framing. Now he has sent us this little video to show how they are made. There is a lot of arranging and rearranging involved, trying out different combinations, it must have seemed a logical progression to record the process by stop motion animation. See also our earlier post What A Corker! The piece featured there is now on display at Lutyens in Fleet Street.
From Eggardon Hill & Pilsdon Pen
The four landscape paintings on exhibition at The Rowley Gallery were committed to 200gsm acid-free paper using artist’s watercolours and gouache from the peaks of Eggardon Hill and Pilsdon Pen in north west Dorset. Pilsdon is Dorset’s highest hill, and closely associated with the legend of the screaming skull at Bettiscombe Manor, down there in the Marshwood Vale. For many years the skull in question was believed to be that of an African servant girl of the 18th century. Under recent analysis it was proved to be the skull of a young girl of the late Neolithic, circa 4,000 BC. This is close to the vintage of the ancient shaped hills and sacred landscapes of Dorset – stone circles, burrows, tumps, burial sites, excarnation sites, and later fashioned as fortresses raised against the worsening weather and tribal pomp of the Iron Age. All are studded with human, animal and ritual remains in their steep, deeply dug chalk banks. Continue reading “From Eggardon Hill & Pilsdon Pen”
