The Haven

Well, I made the decision on Monday morning that I was not going to do the full time Foundation course. The college have been great and made various other alternative suggestions for me but I realised at the eleventh hour that it was not the right direction for me. I am returning to complete the same thing but the slower way, via the modules I've already started at Aberystwyth Uni. I met my tutor there this week and despite the fact that she was the one who suggested I do full time art college she understood why I had made the decision I had. It will take twice as long and it still means I need to constructively use my time better but I am happy and relieved to have gone this way. So, feeling rather silly for starting something I did not finish I needed to re-group and do something I feel positive about. Hence, an early morning trip to the docks at Milford Haven to start taking images for my digital photography portfolio assessment. My theme is going to be 'boats and ropes'. Here are a few that I've selected as a starting point. I only have to have 10 images but of course, like all people let loose with a camera, I have loads. Time to refine and re-inforce the basic rules in my head and then improve.

Autumn Story on an autumn day

Sunny Devon

We've just had a wonderful four day break in a very sunny Devon. Despite all the forecasts to the contrary the sun shone all the time. It was a bit breezy at times but when the wind dropped it was like midsummer. Timing coincided with the end of the Devon Artists Open Studio fortnight but we only managed to see a few, crammed inbetween forays to the coast and to inland places to we wanted to revisit. Top of the list was Rosemoor, the RHS garden in North Devon which we last visited about 6 or 7 years ago. A lot has changed, making it even more of a stunning garden, if that was possible. The hot borders were zinging with coreopsis, rudbeckias, dahlias, monardas and salvias. The colours were all hot yellows and vibrant purples, rusty reds and smoky blues plus the added texture of grasses.

There were lots of butterflies around the hot borders. I made notes of all the plants I'd love to feature large in our own garden. I lost count of the times we realised we already had some of them but it was the scale at Rosemoor that made all the difference. To make the same impact I'd need to propogate our current stock to a factor of ten I think!

There is something there for every type of gardener, whether you love perennials, grasses, trees or vegetables. I loved these dribbling cones. Guess whose memory card on the camera filled up with too many photos of seedheads, unusual tree barks and colour combinations?

After the hot bed my favourite place was the vegetable garden. It was heartening to talk to one of the many volunteers there who was tidying up the beans. They'd been hit by rabbits. If the RHS can be struck by the furry marauders too it gave me hope for our little veg patch, a favourite of the local chapter of the Watership Down fan club.

If I could have had just one thing from Rosemoor it would have been this Cobea Scandens. I have tried to grow this so many times without success. I can get the seeds to germinate and start off but whenever I plant it out, it fails to thrive. I treat it as a half hardy annual but at Rosemoor it is perennial. The stems are thick and healthy and the flowers are a lustrous deep purple. If anyone out there has any tips for this please share. One day.... one day.....

We nipped off to Bude after leaving Rosemoor, leaving Devon for a swift sojourn into Cornwall for the late afternoon and evening. It was a glorious evening and we found a great place to eat outside and enjoy the scenery. I have been catching up with other blog posts this morning and read a special one from Jane which talks about those special moments that are timeless. We had one of those in Bude on this evening. Just sitting there in the warm of the evening with someone you treasure was just lovely. It felt like time was standing still. I never wanted the moment to end.

Interspersed with the sightseeing and walking were the visits to the open studio artists. My favourite was Jane Perkins who was exhibiting in a great cafe in Topsham so you could eat cake (lots of it) and drink tea (lots of it) whilst staring at her amazing work. Please visit here to see more. These images are made up of thousands of bits of plastic. Jane uses recycled materials like old beads, plastic toys, old watches etc to replicate well known faces or works of art. You had to see this 'Girl with a Pearl Earring' to believe it. All of the tones are created by choosing the right colour plastic piece. Each one takes about three weeks and I met Jane yesterday morning when we went back for a second look... and more cake... She says she loves every bit of the process from sourcing the pieces through charity shops etc to the making. Such ingenuity was inspiring.

I also found a couple of printmakers and managed to catch the opening preview of a new calligraphy exhibition at the Devon Guild of Craftsmen in Bovey Tracey. On our way home I also visited the studios of Clare Schmidt Norris and Rachel and Mary Sumner. All were inspirational in their own way and well worth a look through their portfolios.

The downside of course is that all good things come to an end. We've had a fantastic two weeks holiday but my young man has to return to the grindstone tomorrow and I am meant to be joining my foundation course. As it has already been going for two weeks I am starting late because of my holiday. All of a sudden I don't want to do it and I'm trying to remember all the reasons why I thought it was a good idea! Oh crikey, what to do?

Snap Happy

I've just had a fabulous three days on a course organised by Aberystwyth Uni on how to use my digital camera properly for outdoor photography. There were eight of us on the course, the other seven all coming from Aberystwyth so they stayed on site at the National Trust Stackpole Estate whilst I was able to drive home every night and dry out.... It was run by professional photographer Andy Davies and he was an exacting task master - but in a good way. I now know what all the buttons and functions on my camera mean. Automatic is banished forever.... gulp! We finished yesterday with a presentation of ten of our photos and now have to do a portfolio of another ten on a common theme by the beginning of December in order to gain the credits for the course. I learned some key things, one being that 'the photo is in the camera' i.e don't go messing about with it too much in Photoshop later, get it right at the outset. All photos were taken in RAW and saved as tiffs but my connection is so poor they just won't load so these few are jpegs. They are not as sharp as my originals so I need to work out how I can upload the better versions.

As I used to work for the Trust I know the estate and the area well so when we went to an event on site on Saturday afternoon I spent more time talking to people I know rather than getting my photographs done. My friend Emma was there with Alex, a local falconer so I was lucky enough to get up close to Popeye, a European Eagle Owl. She held him while I took some photos and he was very obliging but often moved at the vital click. Curses. Must try harder.... and talk less...

I took tons of photos of windy clifftops and frothy seas, craggy rocks and wild flowers, flying herons and gliding swans..... but under scrutiny I now see what works and what doesn't. So, I need to think of a theme for my portfolio. I might continue with my Postmans Knock theme of 'Taking Flight' but I need birds and butterflies as acquiescent as Popeye to make that work perhaps?Will have to think about that but in the first instance just have to keep using the camera in the 'new' way to reinforce what I think I've learned. Wish me luck.

Whistle stop trip

It's been a hectic few days away. I think I must be about two inches shorter as I have walked myself into the ground around parts of Shropshire and parted with my savings in a few too many galleries and bookshops than is healthy for a girl. I have also eaten too many cakes in stops along the way. If you read my musings on any sort of regular basis then you will know that I have been fascinated by the work of textile artist Mandy Pattullo this year and the story of maidens garlands - funerary tributes to virginal spinsters who died in the same parish they were born and brought up in. I remembered that one of the churches where these are hung is in a village called Minsterley so we headed there for a look. I was more taken with the skull and crossbones imagery above the doorway and the usual poignant pull of the headstones. One of the saddest marked the grave of a young 21 year old soldier who was gassed in action at Ypres and died of his injuries in January 1919.At least he is acknowledged. I could not find the names of the girls to whom the garlands were dedicated. They hang very high in the roof of the church interior and it is hard to see them so one has been brought down and encased in perspex for closer inspection.

Minsterley lies close to some beautiful scenery, near the Long Mynd and the Stiperstones which Shropshire are well known for. We went to a place called The Bog, an abandoned mining village where the local school, the only property left standing, is now a visitor centre. We had a fascinating time in there and there was more tea and cake but not until we'd walked miles in a howling gale. It was a very blustery day and I looked like I'd been dragged through a hedge backwards - not an attractive look - but it felt great to be alive, even though my legs ached! It was very obvious that schools have gone back as we were in the minority on the hills. We walked for about three hours and never saw another soul.

I got my shopping fix in Much Wenlock on Monday and Bishops Castle on Tuesday, both great little towns with unusual galleries and shops.... and tea rooms. I did not want to 'do' Ludlow shopping as well so we waited until Tuesday evening and then went into town when hardly anyone was around and the tempting shops were closed! I have been before and it is an architectural highlight if you love half timbered building and carvings on the fascias of them. This is the Feathers Hotel, adorned with carvings of strange characters. Ludlow is full of places like this and it is having it's annual food festival this weekend. This has become a major national event for foodies so the place will be heaving. I hope a good time will be had by all.

So, Wednesday was the day we planned to come home via a circuitous route which took in that visit to Compton Verney. In contrast to everywhere else we'd been this week, this was packed with visitors. We were jostling for space with coach parties. At one point someone told me to 'keep up' and then realised I wasn't in their party! They apologised and I laughed about it.... and then realised they were touring with a group of septagenarians...

The setting of the house is in landscaped grounds, quite fitting then that one of the current exhibitions is about the life and times of Capability Brown. The other main event is an exhibition of the garden paintings of Sir Stanley Spencer, someone who I have a liking for, although I found these wonderfully executed paintings too precise and too 'green' for my taste. Perhaps it was because the galleries were overflowing with visitors. I am never great with crowds, preferring to look and ponder at my own pace rather than someone else's.

What I had really come to see were the folk art galleries and the Enid Marx/Margaret Lambert collections. These did not disappoint. I could have taken so many things home with me if I had been allowed to do so. There were wonderful wooden models and signs, little dioramas and naive paintings. The best treat of all was the sight of seeing an Alfred Wallis original, painted on an old tin tray. Naive yes, but masterful at the same time.

To accompany the folk art display this year Compton Verney put out a request to the public to send in items that they considered to be contemporary folk art. There are some quirky and adorable submissions like the amateur, yet completely recognisable, painting of Bob Dylan picked up in a car boot sale and a storm at sea depicted in a matchbox. Best thing for me was a display in the small cafe. Running the length of the perimeter at eye level are framed drawings made by factory worker Albert Barnett in the 1970's. He drew every single day on the back of envelopes, on order pads, on receipts etc. He drew in ballpoint and the subjects were whatever he saw around him or intrigued him from the daily paper like the obituaries. Once completed, at the end of the working day he gave them to a fellow worker to take home for his wife. Some of them are clearly addressed to her. There must have been about 70 of them on display and this request has brought them to light from the family he gave them to. Some of them show his grasp of the written language was not perfect but that just makes them all the more special.Besides, his grasp of the visual language was spot on. It was worth the entrance fee for these alone.

We're heading off again next week to Devon for a few days but I foolishly booked a weekend workshop which starts tomorrow so we've had to break our holiday up into two parts. The workshop is organised by Abersytwyth University and it is learning how to take outdoor pictures with a digital camera. I have never fully understood what all the buttons are for on a camera so I am hoping for great things.... but with my grasp of technology I won't be holding my breath!

Drawing

We're off to Shropshire for a few days, heading home via Compton Verney, a place I have long wanted to visit. I'm taking my camera and my sketchbook. In some places I will automatically reach for the former but at Compton Verney I know that any recording I want to make will have to be in note or sketch form in the latter. I am perennially fascinated by when people sketch, why they do and how they do it. Last night I was reading the blog of Wendy Rhodes, an artist I met on a workshop a couple of years ago run by our mutual friend Sue Brown. I realised then that drawing was important to Wendy. It underpins how she works. Her latest post describes an exhibition she is part of this week with other artists committed to drawing. The piece Wendy is showing came from sketches made during a recent overseas holiday and I think it is stunning. All of the pieces on show made me think yet again about what drawing is for me.

I admire representational drawing and would love to master the delicacy of line and tone that can be achieved. Equally, there are days when I love to make huge expressive marks that don't represent anything other than my mood at the the time . To me, all forms of making a mark are valid. It reminded me of this video I saw recently. I am intrigued by the marks that are made by the random movements of the ball. Are the people moving it looking at the marks it is making or merely playing with it, blind to the beauty it is creating?

Summer nights

There is a lot of talk of 'autumn' but I am in denial! Whilst I accept there is a definite nip in the air some mornings we have had a week of wonderful sunshine here by the seaside and there are still plenty of people about enjoying their holidays. The Bank Holiday was great and we went for a long beach walk into Tenby on Friday night with the promise from my husband of a meal out afterwards. Well, my hero took me for fish and chips,eaten out of the paper and we ate it overlooking Manorbier beach, watching people surfing and swimming in the early evening light. I cannot ever leave Manorbier without a trip to the church but the light was fading fast by the time I took this photo.

On Bank Holiday Monday we went down to Angle Bay.When we first moved to Pembrokeshire we lived not too far from here and it is a lovely bay for a walk around but the tide was in on this night so I suggested we explore the churchyard instead before heading home. The church itself is about 14th century with 19th century additions. Growing around the porch was a beautiful passion flower and the trunk showed it must have been there many years. There is a local family synonomous with Angle and one of the family headstones was right outside the porch. I noticed that it was covered in lilies and passion flowers so supposed there must be a link there.

As light was fading fast I decided to come back during the day and drove down there yesterday on a beautiful, sunny day. The morning service had recently finished so I was lucky enough to meet and talk to the vicar and the church warden about the church. It has a fascinating history, not surprisingly, heavily connected to the sea and its location at the farthest tip of Wales. There are two graveyards, a later one being further up the village, even though the main churchyard appears to have plenty of space in it.

In truth, that is because many of the people buried there could not afford a headstone. As you walk around the different levels of the ground make it very clear what is underfoot. Those that are there however have some wonderful symbols carved into them, many obviously connected to the sea.

Behind the main church is a small seaman's chapel built in 1447. The crypt below was used as an initial resting place for the many bodies washed up in the bay after rough seas. The 19th century burial registers list many people who were found and buried with no name marker to identify them. Indeed, there is a large clear space in the churchyard which looks empty but there are many Japanese sailors buried there after a disaster in the bay during the First World War.

Just to one side of the chapel can be seen a small group of war grave headstones. These are a mixture of casualties from both World Wars, many of them Canadian. At least they have their names to mark their resting place but it made me think of families far away who have no idea of where their loved ones are buried. I found it all quite poignant.

I seem to have visited a few churches recently. I find them fascinating rather than morbid and I am particularly interested in the iconography of the headstones, as well as the typography used and the sentiments expressed. My wandering days are nearly over though as I'm about to start a full time art and design course at a local college. I have two weeks holiday ahead of me and then my time will fly by I think. We have still not decided where to go during our holiday or where to stay but if I do anything interesting I'll let you know. Have a great weekend!