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open studio starts tomorrow

Posted jane -->on 26th May 2017

I’m waiting for the evening to set up my signs – I have a mallet, but the ground is a bit hard, I just tried one ..

this morning’s early walk brought one of the most magical things that’s ever happened to me – two hares on the lane above Bullfer Grove ran towards me instead of away.

I think they were intrigued by the beep of the video button on my iphone,  and my leaf contact print dress blended in in the dappled shade of the hedge – their sight is not thought to be very good. so here is my Hare poem (in the Rialto) come to life!

they hovered and looked and sniffed and dithered for about five minutes,

in the end deciding to bound away back to the field.

earlier this week I walked down Cakes lane – got soaking wet feet and trouser legs, the rain has made the grass, cow parsley, docks, hogweed and the odd nettle, shoot up.

everything in full leaf, even the ash trees have decided it’s worth the risk.

Bullfer Grove is a better bet for dry feet on an early walk

I recorded a thrush singing in Cakes yesterday morning

it sounds quite nightingale-like at times

the hedgerows are as pretty as gardens.

I’m filling mine up with pots for Open Studios.

which has liberated the shed, I even cleaned out all the spiders and dead flies –

the shelves are still full

it’s so sad that some pots have been hanging about in there for ten years

so I am open to offers

and I think they look much better out in the garden than crowded on the floor of the shed.

two for tea

and tea for two

some wood-fired

some last year’s experiments

some just old friends.

some that have very definitely been overlooked, up on a high shelf. they need to be on their own.

the office has been de-officed and cleaned up, and will be my painting studio after this.

these are all from the last seven or eight months

the abstracts!

the evolution of the landscapes

from winter

and autumn to spring.

I do hope I see a few people!  then tomorrow afternoon Bimba is arriving. she will deserve a whole blog to herself

for the time being, this was taken in Spain. a slight lens distortion making her nose even longer than it really is.

It’s just been pointed out to me that I haven’t given the address of this event (which is on for 3 consecutive weekends by the way including this bank holiday Monday). I’m in the Norwich and Norfolk Open Studios catalogue, number 103. I am at The Granary, Sharrington Road, Bale, Norfolk, NR21 0QY

for hare afficionados, here is Cowper’s account of his tame hares – link

archaeology

Posted jane -->on 21st May 2017

I’m clearing the old office out, to make it into a summer studio and a gallery for Open Studios, which starts next weekend (27th May). I’m opening studio and garden for 3 days the first weekend, as it’s a bank holiday Monday, then the next two weekend just Saturday and Sunday. I had the old photocopier removed for recycling (expensive!) and amongst the old paper carrier bags and wrapping paper tucked behind it was a watercolour I painted in 2001.

I painted a series, and when I looked in the plan chest I found five more, two red, and two blue the same size, and bigger square red one. I remember enjoying how the pure colours behaved on the paper, sometimes drowning in water, sometimes very intense, and planning the bare paper areas. lovely paper to paint on too.

four are mounted, the first red one has gone to the framers. it is going to be very expensive, using clearglass because it makes such a difference to the colour.

then I found something much older. I went to Norwich Art School for summer school in 1985 and got very involved in the print department, especially etching. they had a fantastic etching studio, with a very big press, and I was liberated by two weeks of life-drawing before I started on these.

the three make a triptych. obviously Picasso’s Vollard Suite was a big influence too, but previous to this I had made a huge painting on a roll of brown paper of human figures with animal heads, more influenced by Assyrian bas-relief.

these three coloured etchings are one-offs, artist’s proofs, but I also have an edition of 25 in black.

I have to mention a particularly pleasurable outing, in The Rialto, one of the most respected poetry magazines. This is the cover, which is lovely; they always have great covers. I have FOUR pages and a mention on the back! wholly amazing and wonderful. I would encourage anyone interested in poetry to buy the magazine, and subscribe, not because I want you to read my work especially, although of course that would be very nice, but because it is a wonderful and beautiful publication, and the Arts Council’s support depends on there being more subscriptions and sales.

meanwhile I’m still walking solo, although in six days that will no longer be the case. as she will be on the lead you won’t see Bimba trotting ahead like Tilda. we shall see how her recall and attachment to me progresses, but when a dog goes off after something it’s seen, one’s heart is in one’s mouth, and I am less prepared to take the risk this time. This photo interestingly echoes the stormy etchings above.

I caught a few drops that time, but this cloud looked like soaking me for most of the walk.

lastly, a rare find in the churchyard

meadow saxifrage

rare because there are so few unsprayed meadows with ancient turf left

after a very dry spring we have had rain at last and there are plenty of puddles reflecting the sky!

even so the ash trees are only just coming out.

a weeks ago the oaks had very young leaves still but now they are well covered

in my garden the buttercups are replacing the cowslips

for Open Studios most of the pots for sale will be in the garden. I hope to see plenty of people. Bimba is arriving on the first afternoon, which will be interesting – she is an easy dog, sweet and affectionate, so although I will have to keep her on a lead while I have the gates open for visitors, it will be good to have her meeting lots of humans.

 

grey is a subtle colour

Posted jane -->on 7th May 2017

our skies are grey this week, with a cold easterly and then northerly, and then back to vicious easterly and fine damp mist.

my last painting was in a similar state,

but it seems soft grey skies can inspire something better

this is “A Little Rain Earlier” after today’s transformation. it is only 24 x 30cm.

despite the cold wild flowers are showing up in the lanes.

this bank of borage repeats year after year.

down Cake’s lane the ferns are all coming up strongly, male fern

and hart’s tongue like a green crown.

red campion start early and go on half the summer.

I’m not sure if the bracken isn’t a bit slow this year.

but all is greened up, except for the ash trees, which seem to be waiting for warmer weather.

I put these bean and chard plants in a week ago, watered them today as everything is dry. the state of their greenness entirely due to being raised in a greenhouse; the runner beans seem to have grown but nothing else has the larder in the seed to make such immediate progress.

 

abstract

Posted jane -->on 4th May 2017

it’s the season for acid yellow fields. there aren’t as many here as usual, it shifts around, but it certainly grabs one’s attention.

in fact I can’t smell it this year, the virus that laid me low also removed most of my sense of smell, but I remember the sickly sweet stink of it.

having painted the bluebell wood, I started wondering how to approach these landscapes, now all vibrant green with fresh leaves effervescing out of hedgerow and wood, studded occasionally with the strident yellow.

all I could come up with, it seemed, was yellow. completely abstract. in fact there are several layers here, and I have done quite a lot of mark making which is under the final coat of yellow; the layer under it is gold … small canvas, 30 x 30 cm. there’s safety in smallness, apparently. well, for a start, the canvas is not so expensive if I fail!

emboldened by this one I started a few more. I should explain that I stopped painting in around 2003 partly because I wanted to work in a more abstract way, but I couldn’t work out how to. so the pots were my abstract paintings, the glazes did it all for me.

since I started painting landscapes I have learnt so much about working with acrylics rather than oils, how to handle small scale, and transferred intuitive mark-making from working on clay to working in paint.

so now I have the skills to play with. I’m using water soluble wax crayons as well, so one could call this mixed media rather than acrylic.

the paintings are still very much about landscape.

a detail before this one was finished – it’s bigger, 50 x 60 cm

it is improvisatory, quite scary, feels like stepping over a cliff edge, but things start to come together and make sense as they build up.

I’m still paying attention on my walks

lucky enough to catch this holly blue in the little bit of warmth we had on the bank holiday

I don’t know if this abstraction is going to be total

here’s the second stage for another small one

but it might encourage me to put the paint aside for some time and come to terms with my ceramic practice.

in the mean time there are a few more canvases waiting in the workshop. and in three weeks I will have some thing to divert my attention – I am adopting a Spanish Galgo, found on the street, among so many thrown out after the hunting season. she is somewhere between a whippet and a greyhound, and will be arriving with a van full driven all the way up from Galgos del Sol in Murcia in the south of Spain. I hope the next bank holiday weather is warmer, otherwise she might need a coat.