feasts and flowers

the culmination of three months work, Feast was set up and open this weekend in the Lund gallery in Easingwold. a curiously flat feeling ensued. of course, it’s quite grand and theatrical and brightly lit in a very newly converted building, so while it looks rather glamorous, it’s perhaps not quite the “ghostly banquet” I envisaged. ripped tablecloth, dust and cobwebs everywhere, old beams, earth floor, and a certain air of wabi-sabi might have been more appropriate.

a few of the bats which had to be housed in a separate part of the roof here, might have helped to produce a mood of decay and dissolution. however, it is also meant to be a celebratory piece, and I think it does that. the dogwood stems in the four vases, flushed dark red and reaching for the light, help to usher in Spring; their leaves will be sprouting soon.

closer up, the pots themselves have that crumbling darkness, the texture of times lost or forgotten, a reference to the life and death of past generations. so perhaps the eternal cycle of planting and harvest, I don’t know!

maybe the muslin wrong-foots it. there is something which is not quite working, I think.

you can see pictures of the whole group of pots on a web page here

back in Bale, a few flowers are poking though the mats of dead grass, which is mostly still looking pretty dormant. the first white violet on the verge in Clip Street.

in Cake’s lane clumps of primroses are exposed by the drastic february hedge trim.

it looks terrible, broken branches all over the place, and the brushwood shaved down to the ground, but without this treatment biannually, we would never see the primroses.

they are at the first stage and in another two weeks the clumps will be twice this size.

today I saw two roedeer in the wood. another magical moment, as we walked in parallel, stopping to look at each other. it was most likely a mother and daughter, the daughter a little smaller and behind, staring at us. their winter coats perfectly camouflage them against the bare trees. my dogs are a little calmer these days, and Tilda, blocked by my legs, didn’t make a sound, bless her.

another hollow oak has gone down across the lane. there are several waiting to fall. the last one was the home of tawny owls; I hope they have found a safer haven.