Some abundance

There certainly is neither an abundance of sunshine nor of warmth this Spring.  I have never felt so cold in May.  But, nonetheless, there is abundant growth around the garden.  The wisteria is the best yet - lots of rain last year, and no heavy frost at the wrong time this year.

This is on the outside of my longest sewing room wall, which is South facing.  And opposite is a bed which over the past few years has lost two large gloom-making trees.  In the acquisition of so much light the symphytums (comfrey) have galloped away.

The tall one at the back, on the right is Symphytum officinale, and there are at least two others in there - but the blue Symphytum caucasicum has just taken over, much to the delight of the bees.
A little further up from the symphytums is an area still in shade.  Last year we started moving the pulmonaria (lungwort) in there, when I divided some clumps.  That too is a plant which quickly grows to abundance in our garden, and much loved by the bees, and I'm delighted to see that the tiny divisions are so strong now.

Our neighbour's lily of the valley is sneaking through too, but that's OK.

Our patch of 'wild'

Lately we have been thinking a lot about living with deer and pigeons.  This morning I saw our usual deer in next door's wetland meadow.  I love seeing them there, but of course they don't stay in the 'wild' area.  They love the tender shoots on so many of our shrubs, the tops and flowers of so many plants, and last year devastated my vegetable leaves.

Sadie Brockbank: Apple green

Then later this morning I went to another Open Studio: that of Sadie Brockbank.  Getting there from my village to hers did not take long, but involved narrow country lanes with lots of trees, ponds, bluebells, and a feeling of being remote from the urban.  This transportation to the domain of the animals was completed at my destination.

Sentinel

Sadie's work in two and three dimensions is full of the Spirit of the Animals.  Her beautiful pieces evoked for me so many of the folk tales which I used to read, and shadows of which haunt the recesses of my memory.

Passing through

Her collages are delightful, and made me wish that I was still commissioning picture books.  But like the wolf above, I was just passing through.  The work is life-enhancingly spirited, however, and gave me great joy.

Once more I saw the home and the display but not the actual workplace.  Both of the Open Studios had work in progress to show, and I suppose it must be enough of a faff to get the display ready without also having to tidy one's studio.  Besides, I suppose few of us want the admiring hordes to tramp through one's private space.  So now I am back, and uplifted, ready for a full afternoon's work.

Today's displacement activity

It was going well until about mid-day.  I had got through everything on my list - including poking the pigeon nest (we destroy their nests before they can lay eggs because we are overrun with wood pigeons).  And I was just about to get back to my recently neglected large quilt ... when I was distracted by an image which had popped up on uncovering a quote from Dante's Inferno.

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crisis maintain their neutrality.

I have spent the rest of the afternoon pursuing that image:

Ah well, there's always tomorrow to get back on track with my list, ....

Admiration, despair, and the buzz

I have admiration for so many things, so many aspects of life: from the ingenuity of design in Nature to clever graphic and psychological design in advertisements.  From brilliant architecture to neat packaging.  From mind-stretching literature to emotion-stretching music, ... there are endless triggers for my admiration. 
Sticking to visual art in its many forms - it is so easy to access multitudes of images through the Internet now, and I imagine that I must have forgotten so many artists and their works as new ones wash over me.  The other day I made the mistake of dipping into a couple of Pinterest collections, and almost sank without trace as wave after wave of admirable images came in too fast a tide.
When I was young I was thirsty for objects of admiration: I used to collect postcards of works of art, and of views.  In my office I always had a large display of posters, postcards, stimulating visuals, and prided myself in seeking out a wide diversity.  That was in the days when my creativity was in designing, editing, and commissioning, not in self-expression through visual art.
But in developing as a primary creator, finding one's own voice can be difficult enough without having to divest oneself of years of honing the ability to be creative in someone else's voice.  Input which excites admiration has now to be put through a different filter: either as a stimulus to some aspect of one's own art, or as a parallel contributor to one's whole context of thinking. 
But the admiration by itself should not simply become a fingerpost.   I find that I have to be strong at times when my self confidence in my own voice is weak that I'm not overwhelmed by admiration - or over-admiration of other work and a feeling of inferiority in comparison.  That way despair can lie.  One's own work can then end up suffering from a kind of twisted critique as one squints through what is imagined to be the other artist's eyes.  The admiration then I think becomes unhealthy - or at the very least unhelpful. 
Despair can also establish itself when I think about just how many folks there are out there trying to make it as an artist of some kind or other.  The more I admire what everyone else is doing the more I ask myself why I bother....
... And then there are the times when I encounter the buzz. 
That is, I come up against some work which makes my brain tingle, makes me want to rush back and work - work at my own self-expression because of the overwhelming quality of what I have seen.  I get the buzz from work which does not make me want to emulate it; I get the buzz from genius work which stimulates the desire for me to try to make something increasingly nearer the best which I can attempt.  I want to make work which itself will give me a buzz.
Recently I received such a spine-tingler at the exhibition of Lynn Chadwick's work.  I was filled with pins and needles of the mind as each piece set me off.  Finding out that he was self taught, that he did not make preparatory sketches, that he followed an inner instinct in making each piece were all reassuring to me, and emphasised a recognition with my own needs.  But it was the quality of the sum of his parts: the approach to the work, the theme, the materials, his determination to stick to his own methods, and above all the timeless quality of his particular forms which got me buzzing.
I have been thinking on and off over several years about working somehow in three dimensions.  No specific technique was revelatory, but the elegant simplicity of the whole resulting from a construction - each stage dictating the next decision - has made me want to pursue this more vigorously. 
The iron rods and the stolit which Chadwick used strike me as two ingredients used simply but ingeniously. The rods to provide an inner power, direction, shape, and the stolit gives surface texture, bulk, detail, and reinforces the 'attitude' - as he called it; in other words the body language.  This helped me to see my own use of drawn line and stitch from the perspective of his three dimensions for once,  rather than always trying to reach for the third dimension from the flat form.

 Towards

A very good experience

Over thirty or so years I have from time to time been a visitor at Open Studios events, and they have varied wildly - the worst being occasions when one knows as soon as the door opens that you want to be far away from there.  I decided however that I need to get out more, to find out what good work is being done around here, and so for my first visit I chose today to go to the studio of Helen Colling, an artist who works with textiles.  Some of her work can be seen on the Okra Textiles website.  (Okra because of its other name of 'lady's fingers')

Colling's work is figurative, concerning place and time.  It does not reveal itself to the casual glance, but it does immediately intrigue.  Outlines of figures, shadows, buildings, almost or definitely recognisable, all draw you in close.  The figures, although ghostly in presentation are firmly part of the context the buildings present.  They belong, and the whole atmosphere is benign.
Once pulled in close, the stitches, the textures, the overlaps are revealed, and with them the layers of detailed content.  How effective an examination of the continuity of a community in their built environment these pieces present.  And textiles seem to me to be an appropriate medium to depict the fragile and fugitive presence of each layer of humanity within their generally longer lasting urban surroundings.
Visiting Helen Colling's Open Studio was like seeing a brilliant solo exhibition, but also having the artist there to talk with, and to ask whatever questions occurred.  The only thing that made my visit a less than completely perfect Open Studios experience was that I must admit to enjoying seeing the actual workspace.  Although it was delightful to be offered coffee and biscuits in Helen Colling's lovely home, with many pieces of work hanging on the walls of the kitchen, living room, and hall, I did regret that the studio itself was not open.

Inspiration with depth

I am inspired by the work of folks from any era or any part of the world, but consistently there is a pull from the first half of the 20th century, and particularly from British sculptors.  Time and again I am gripped in the brain and the heart by work which I first stumbled across in my youth.  Perhaps that is the key, but it does occur with artists about whom I did not know when I was young.  For instance, I only found out about William Turnbull a few years ago, but was instantly drawn to his pieces, both early and late.
Although not mainly a sculptor, for several weeks now I have been making my way through a critical biography of William Scott which covers his work piece by piece and exhibition by exhibition.  It is taking me a long time, not only because it is a big book but because I want to ponder as I read. 
Amongst those I admire Henry Moore is the most famous (and I was fortunate enough to meet him, and to see his studios), and Barbara Hepworth too, but I also am strongly drawn to the work of Reg Butler,  Kenneth Armitage, and Lynn Chadwick.  So it was an imperative that on our way North to Scotland we should pause in Kendal to see the exhibition of his work at the Abbot Hall gallery and the Blackwell Arts and Crafts House.
One spurious aspect which attracts me to Chadwick himself is that in art he was self taught - have you noticed how often being self taught is pointed out in captions of work - but it always gives me a boost of confidence.  But it is his work, and his method of working which overwhelmingly inspires me.
He started with mobiles and stabiles (independently of Alexander Calder, another sculptor whose work I love).  There seems to have been a need to make spiky skeletal outline shapes in the 50s, as can be seen in the work of others that I have mentioned above.  But Chadwick's have a delicacy and an affinity with nature which particularly appeals to me.

 The Fisheater 1951 (seen here at Tate Britain)

He became successful quickly, developing his distinctive style: he welded his work himself, and also used a mix called stolit to fill in the gaps between the metal structure.

During the 1950s he developed a new way of working that involved welding an iron armature which was filled with Stolit, an artificial stone compound of gypsum and iron filings. This material provided an evocative, textured surface which would, over time, acquire a rich ferrous colouring. While he retained this working method, he later cast the works in bronze.

 Inner Eye 1955

He won the sculpture prize at the Venice Biennale in 1956 when Giacometti had been expected to win.  Over the years he renovated a large house, Lypiatt Park, and then bought the garden to provide himself with a  perfect setting for his work.

Chadwick talked about being interested in the 'attitude' of the bodies of his work; in other words the body language.  He achieved so much in subtle ways: a turn here, a lean there.

Two Sitting Figures

Sitting couple

The above photo is from a Flickr set taken in Chadwick's home estate - Lypiatt Park

I appreciated this opportunity to see so much of Chadwick's work and its development all together - and different versions of the same general design.  Each piece was made from scratch and small versions were not exactly maquettes for the larger ones.  I was so encouraged to learn that he did not make preliminary sketches or plans for a piece.  He let the welding of the iron rods and the piece's development dictate how the work went, and so if he was making a larger size of an existing piece and he wanted to change some aspect, he did. 

I was delighted to see the works on paper which I had not seen before.  The drawings and prints of the pieces were done after rather than before the completion of the works.  I cannot find reproductions of the drawings in the exhibition, but here and here are some other prints.

Standing figure 1962

I found the exhibition exciting, educational, inspiring, - and reassuring in a trivial, but personally debilitating stumbling block: I had got myself into a tizz about my own practice, and not finding it natural to sketch.  It was marvellous to find that such an exciting artist developed such great work from his own instincts, and from what the work told him it needed.  As an additional bonus to all my worries on that count dropping away - his use of the iron rod structure with the stolit infill also buzzed an idea at the back of my mind.



A dull, but a really fine day

Continuing our exploration of the edges of Loch Fyne we set off for Otter Ferry.  Not named after otters, but corrupted from the Gaelic oitir - the spit stretching out into the loch.  We watched four men in two canoes set off for Crinan, across the loch, and then we had the place to ourselves (apart from those working in the Oystercatcher pub where we later had lunch).

As you can see, the day was not sunny, but neither was it wet or windy - for which we were most thankful.  Also, a wealth was before me: a treasure of diverse pebbles, and seaweeds.  I was in snap-happy heaven!

It is so easy to think of them growing out of the 'ground' of sand, but in fact they have their sucker feet attached to a pebble.

They also seem to have a symbiotic relationship with something which looks like a kind of coral.  A bit of research is in order on my part now.

I could imagine bringing this last one home to put in a tank as a miniature seaweed forest.  There were also other growths such as this one which looks like some sea god's spare wig:

Eventually we tore ourselves away to continue up the coast to Lachlan Bay and two castles.  The old ruined Castle Lachlan has scaffolding on it at present.  This is not a great snap as I looked across the estuary.

Further up the estuary is the newer Lachlan Castle, looking very baronial, and doubtless shines on a sunny day.

I was also delighted to see definite signs of Spring as I looked across the bay towards the main loch: the trees were opening their leaf buds more every day.

Thence we went on to the ruined Kilmorie chapel where members of the Clan Lachlan are buried.  Once more we were enchanted by a cemetery.  This one is not only in a splendid situation with beautiful big trees around, but the ironwork edging to some of the graves is beautiful, even rusted and broken (perhaps because it is rusted and broken -?), 

and I particularly liked the flat grave stones raised up on feet.

We were not as lucky this year with the weather as we had been last April in Skye.  We had a couple of days of such wind and rain that reading was the main occupation (no wifi in this house!).  The day after the trip to Otter Ferry was one of those - our last whole day.  But as these things so often fall, the day we set off home was glorious: sunshine all the way.

I snapped these out of the car window as we drove on our last single track road across the peninsula to Dunoon to catch the ferry to the mainland and motorways.