Tuesday, 23 October 2012

Postcards - Woolsthorpe Manor



Saturday hits its stride
Small businesses sparkle shyly
Setting out their wares


Exiting Nottingham
Heading for Lincolnshire


 Boarding our craft
At 11.40 unlikely astronauts
Bereft of luggage

We leave this earth
via the water bucket
primordial soup


In the still orchard
Newton offers an apple
The Flower of Kent

Star shaped blemishes
Spangled ruby windfalls
Destined to fill pies


Interior shots
Artfully forbidden fruit
Here is temptation

Newton's cat
Stretches keeping the cosmos
At a curved claws' length


Monday, 22 October 2012

Postcards - Grimsthorpe Castle



In Grimsthorpe arches claim
Marcel Duchamp may well be
In the library

You will find us in
The walled vegetable garden
Under holly trees


Beneath the archway
Neptune beckons, planets spin
Turning tides, liquefying the light



Sunday, 21 October 2012

Postcards - Ayscoughfee Hall




Your younger body
Referencing
Their Isabella


Small basket in hand
Window framed and shadow lined,
Old stone, new insights


Her lover entranced
By dribbled words, transcribes her
Digital image


In the stone corner
Another transcriber crouches. Hold.
Catch. Breathe quietly


A whirling woman
Wears battered baggage lightly
Heel. Toe. Point. Move. Halt.




Cradle, stretch, tread this
Stately dance, timeless, graceful
Winding fibres taut


She is the action
A constant wool-gatherer
Axis, anchor, end point




Patient, persistent, 
Winding and unwinding the
Endless, captive thread



Enchanted Garden - Grimsthorpe Castle - A Dérive

Sculpted forms, paths and gardens, golden autumn, secret spaces









Happy Apple Day!

Some apples found and purchased from the orchard at Woolsthorpe Manor, the home of Sir Isaac Newton yesterday. The variety is called The Flower of Kent is a cooking apple and apparently tastes good in a pie! 







Compass



During October Beacon Arts presented an exhibition of four new commissions at three heritage sites in rural Lincolnshire: Woolsthorpe ManorGrimsthorpe Castle and Ayscoughfee Hall. International artists Jordan Baseman, Amanda Coogan, Jem Finer and Bethan Huws drew on the particularities of Lincolnshire to create new artworks. Amanda Coogan worked with seven emerging artists selected from a national open call to create a performance piece at Ayscoughfee Hall that took place as part of the guided excursion only.  Amelia Beavis-Harrison, Joana Cifre-Cerda, Robert Foster, Laura Mahony, Julieann O'Malley, Hestia Peppe, Sally Anne Roberts


Hestia Peppe - Ayscoughfee Hall

I went on the coach trip during Saturday October 20th and was reminded of Ceila Fiennes book Through England on a Side Saddle. With this in mind I decided to use the camera in my phone and variety of editing apps as a means of sending myself a set of postcards made during the day.  By using the apps I felt I was embracing some of the spirit of the Marcel Duchamps 'Ready Mades', as the technology was ready made and the images formulaic. The colours and style have a deliberately pseudo vintage look and my cue for this was largely taken from Jem Finer's space travelling mini-caravan. On my return I wrote the words to accompany the postcards. The journey, the properties, the art / artists and the incredible ticket price (£7.50) made it a hugely enjoyable day which posed many questions and delivered on many levels. 

The last tours take place 27/28 October Details and to Book

You can read the postcards in the posts below.
Postcards - WoolsthorpeManor
Postcards - Grimsthorpe Castle
Postcards - Ayscoughfee Hall