Dali and the Pyrenees

I finished my Pyrenean Odyssy at a place called Banyuls-sur-Mer on the Mediteranean Coast. I wandered onto the beach front with its smattering of bars and took off the red rucksac for the last time. I ordered a beer. I wondered how I felt after the 800km of walking over the central spine of the Pyrenees from the Atlantic coast.

I realised that I didn't feel anything in particular. Or, perhaps more precisely, I felt that I'd done something slightly too hard for me, but that that something had been akin to knocking my head against a wall.

Anyone with the right amount of determination could have done it.

I ordered another beer. I'm to meet my friends Rob and Barbara here. We plan to spend the night, and then to motor back to their house in Rasquera, Tarragona, stopping, en route, at Salvador Dali's house in Port Llligat, Cadaques.

For a hit of Surrealism. 

Surrealism, with it's neatly unrelated combinations of images and events appeals to me after the seemingly relentless predictability of these monster mountains, with nothing but the expected as you pass from one high col to another.

I realise how I'd longed for the unexpected as I'd ached and inched up one improbable pass after another, to be confronted only with more rocks, or sun, or sky.

I remember walking up to one high col with an erstwhile companion, Nick, a serial long distance trekker from California. He was ahead of me, and as he reached the top I shouted up to him, asking him what he could see.

Rock, snow, clouds', he replies, 'what were you expecting, Las Vegas?'

And I realised then that I was expecting something else from this walk in the hills. Something undefinable, something that I didn't know that I wanted.

Later I was to realise that I had had just this, but it took me a while to work through what it was.

Here's some images from the house that Salvador and Gala Dali built in the fishing village of Port Lligat, down the road from Cadaques.

Andre Breton laid down the law about surrealism in the early 1920's, explaining it neatly as the pictorial or other expression of the real workings of the mind. Others have explained it, perhaps more succinctly, as an attempt to portray irrational thought.

The pictures here show Dali's expressiveness at work at his home. There's a gentleness about his take here, a softness that allows irrational thought a place amidst domesticity.

Once you're past the taxidermy in the hall a lot of the space seems, well, homely. The bathroom's a sedate tiled affair and there's one room dedicated to photographs of Dali himself with assorted glitterati. The effect of all this is to make you feel quite at ease, almost at home. We all like tiles in the bathroom and photos of ourselves with other people.

The house is, in fact, a neat compliment and contrast to the Dali museum at Figueres, with its inside out Chevrolet that rains on the occupants (on the insertion of a couple of Euros),

and its outsize eggs and loaves as battlements.

The totality of my Dali experience, post Pyrenees, kept me thinking about my wanting the unexpected, or my wanting the real workings of the mind explained, via my experience in the Pyrenees.


After a while, safely back in the UK, and able to process the experience, I realised what I had gained amidst the predictable snow, rock and sky.

On the High Route in the Pyrenees I would wake up with a clear sense of purpose.

To get to the next stage on the trail. 

This would be an understandable challenge, possibly navigationally demanding and would maybe also include a frisson of physical danger. 

And there'd be a reward too, in the shape of a safe pitch for the tent or a mountain refuge for the night. There were two sorts of refuges in the Pyrenees, staffed and unstaffed. The staffed variety provides food, wine and blankets, and the unstaffed; simple shelter from the storm.

It's hard to make it out here but if you look closely you can make out the shadow of the Refuge de Baborte, an unstaffed refuge on the so-called wilderness section of the trail.

The reward of shelter after the physicality of the day, and the knowledge that some Easterly progress had been made toward the Mediterranean begins to form a pattern in the mind. Nomad like, my life had made a different and straightforward sort of sense.

Long distance trekking is a very accessible package, far removed from the complex and sometimes labyrinthine challenges that we face in our workaday lives. It's one that, at least with hindsight, I value highly, and although the Pyrenees didn't offer me anything at the time that surprised me or offered to explain irrational thought, looking back, there were a couple of hints or nods to the proximity of Dali and the unexpected amidst the snow, rock and sky.

I discovered these upscale loaves, rock hard, almost fossilised in a sack in a refuge in Andorra, and earlier these wild strawberries looked very dreamy if a little bit lost on the Aneto-Posets map.

The loveliest irrational image I found though, was this: Walled Garden.

I love the way the Firethorn is growing only in the shelter of the rough wall, and stands as a splash of colour in an otherwise monochrome landscape.

The gift though, that I took from the Pyrenees, regarding the real workings of the mind, was the realisation that there are simple ways that you can live life. And even if, for me, it was only for a little while, it was a realisation enough.

Back on the trail

After a break in the UK for some photography work, I'm now back on the trail. The High Route in the Pyrenees.

This post relates to the end of the first section of the walk as I complete the section through the Basque Country.

- and the walk continues. I remain a solitary figure in a huge landscape.

I make a successful descent from the Pic d'Orhy as the weather deteriorates. I cross the Port de Larrau and via the Pic de Gastarrigagna at 1732m eventually reach the unstaffed Cabane Ardane.

This is effectively guarded by a couple of brutish shepherd's dogs, howling, and snapping at my ankles.

The shepherd is nowhere to be seen, and, tired after the adventures of the day, I ignore the standard wisdom of giving them a wide berth, as I swing a walking pole at them, and lob a couple of useful stones at them as they retreat.

I share the Cabane with a couple of clean cut French boys. They tell me a tale of the sky that afternoon. How it was full, thick with vultures. That a sickly sheep had become bones within the space of 20 minutes. Our collective mind naturally explores the likelihood of this happening to us, and I sense us scanning the sky with a certain nervousness.

And they worry about the mice scurrying around the hut too, and, in the morning, inform me that they  'didn't sleep a wink' on account of the scuttling of midnight feasts.

I've had an excellent night, undeterred by anything as harmless as mice, preferring to save my nerves for more important stuff, like exposure above glacial lakes on steep sided snow, or pulling up on precipitous holds as the darkness gathers, or even falling and twisting an ankle, and having nothing but walking poles to fend off a skyful of vultures.

I avoid the dogs in the morning by a simple ruse, and continue circumnavigating around the huge hills of Chardekagagna and the Pic de Bimbalette.

And then, almost without warning, I'm in a weird and wired landscape  I'm in a pass between the Col de Uthu and the Col de Anaye. It's the wildest place I've ever been. Neither the sketchy Spanish mapping or Ton Joosten's guide have prepared me for this beautiful lunar terrain. Limestone sculptures jut from snow fields and ancient pines rise toward a hard blue sky. And the entire scene is surrounding by punchy peaks.

The day is winding on, I've had a couple of navigational setbacks, and have failed to find water recently. There has been a fiercesome thundery heat throughout the day and my stalwart 2 litre water bottle is as empty as a broken promise.

I become benighted here, in this larger than life landscape, and the soft rain that had previously and delicately washed the beach leaves in the lower parts of the valley becomes heavy, sharp sided and cold.

I have the night trapped in my ridiculously small tent amidst a fierce electrical storm. I dub the tent 'The Coffin', and feel as squeezed as a genie in a coke can. It feels as though there's an earthquake in the sky, and the rocks are seemingly fizzing with the energy of the lightning. It's hard to describe the terrible sense of entrapment in the coffin. Certainly it feels bad enough to consider exiting the tent to the preferance of the storm as the fearful weather seems easier to deal with than the claustrophobia.

I grit it out, and realise that the hail and steep sided rain is maybe a godsend, and assemble my billy and drinking cup outside to collect enough water to drink in the morning, although the constrictions of the space and the necessary unzipping of the tent soak the sleeping bag.

Naturally, or perhaps luckily, I survive the night, but these extremes of weather make me feel small, vulnerable, alive only via the benign good humour of the gods.

But now it's as if they're pleased to have a chance to demonstrate their good will, and the gods arrange for the day to dawn like a child's smile after a tantrum.

Its wonderfully clear, and there's an energy in the air as there is near a waterfall. I make tea, break camp, head off with renewed energy to Lescon. At one point, following an extremely sketchy trail of cairns I encounter one made of chocolate bars. Yes. A chocolate cairn. A cairn is a waymarker, usually constructed from a small piles of stones. I wonder if I'm hallucinating. I eventually suppose that some party must have left it for part of their party that has lagged behind. Maybe. Or maybe it's the benign gods, looking out for me. I dither, and then assume that this is probably the case, and help myself to a Peanut Brittle. 

After a seemingly interminable stretch on snowfields, and a little slip on some sneakily slippy and steep snow I make it down to fresh water. Its the source of a river, the Marmitou. The sound of the water is exquisite. The taste exotic. I drink about five litres of the stuff straight, wondering how I've never appreciated it so roundly before and why I've ever bothered to drink beer.

I saunter down to Lescon, and safety, and check into a Gite d'etape, a bunk house with food. There's singing, food and company, and the fact that we don't have a lot of language in common is a minor detail, after this taste of solitude and frisson of danger. 

Second Pyrenean Blog

'The condemned man ate a hearty breakfast', I quip to my friends Rob and Barbara as we sit on the terrace at their house in Rasquera, Catalunya.

It's day zero. My adventure's about to start. I'm to take the train to Irun on the West Coast, and then to get to Hendaye and the start of the walk. The High Route from the Atlantic to the Med. The tarantulas are larging it again. We drive to the train station. Rob offers me helpful advice about what to do if caught in a thunderstorm up there in the hills. 'Don't shelter in a crevice in the rock', he says, 'It can act like a spark plug'. I swallow, but don't pursue the metaphor. They put me on the local train to Barcelona, where I'm to catch the train to Irun. We have a jubilant parting.  And now I'm alone. It's just me and the 55 litre back pack. The Barcelona-Irun train is full. The guy behind the glass is profoundly helpful, books me a ticket via an obscure route, with a change in the middle. He's smiling all the while. I photo the departure board, to ensure I get off at the right place.

The train is slick, powerful, air conditioned. We speed across seeming desert under bruising skies for hours. I consider the distance. I distract myself with 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles' on   the kindle. I have an hour and a halfs wait at Castel Jon Del Ebro. It's a station in the middle of nowhere. There's no cafe, no bar, no departure board, just a bewildering amount of track and platform. The guy behind the glass this time is profoundly unhelpful. Curses me for not understanding Spanish. I wonder off, I sit on the platform, imagine myself in a spaghetti western. I'm Lee Van Cleef. I walk back into the booth, pull the cheroot from between my lips menace the guy as I assure him that the Irun train will stop here. I can't imagine missing this train in this no horse town. Another employee turns up, with a smile as wide as summer. He asks me where I want to go and escourts me across the track to an obscure line, waits with me until the train arrives. We communicate with smiles. I settle back into the kindle, arrive in Irun, after more spaghetti landscape and brooding skies. I wonder why I thought it'd be fun to do this trip alone. I find a pension, buy a couple of beers and a sandwich, wonder about the reality of  Tumbleweed, my imaginary footloose persona. I awake to the sound of trains passing the window. I'm surprised to see that one has 'Hendaye' illuminated in orange on its side. I feel as if the Gods are giving me chances. I'm confident enough to put marmalade on chocolate croissants, against the waiter's better judgement. I tell him that this is how I like them. 'Me gusto esta', I say, presumably fairly incoherently. I shuffle toward the subway train, there's a dusty white van parked opposite. The first three letters of the registration plate are HRP. Now this has to stand for the Haute Route Pyrenees in anyone's lexicon. The happenstance of coincidence and omen accelerate my progress toward the now imminent fulfillment of a dream. I'm in Hendaye. I shuffle around this tourist town in full kit, feeling a little foolish. I follow the guide book to the letter, become almost immediately lost. I ask a guy selling vegetables if he knows the way to an obscure railway underpass toward the outskirts of town. Rather miraculously he understands my worse than school boy French, points me in the right direction. He looks at my bag. We smile. I show im the front cover of the book, 'The High Route, Pyrenees', we look at each other, smile again. I set off, chuckling.

I cross under the M10, have a can of sardines. I look toward the Atlantic, and the big ships nestled against the safety of harbour. I wonder about the next couple of months of my life, alternating between exultation and funk. I follow well marked paths, pour water over my head to cool down, meet a charming guy from Holland, intent on listening to the football match between Spain and Holland in a Spanish bar. I hike on, digressing from the GR11 toward the HRP, as dictated in the bible. The path trickles out, I'm thrashing around in the mist and prickle bushes. Precipitous, edgy, ugly conglomerate looms around me. I curse myself for a fool. The mist clears monentarily, I regain the obvious school boy ridge, with its safe passage down the mountain, shuffle down to the closed hotel that is the first nights stop. I'm  surprised to find my new friend from Holland already there, relaxed against a tree with headphones and a beatific smile. We're delighted to see each other. I settle into a routine over the next few days.

The bleak dirt tracks full of hunters jeeps and quad bikes changes character, slowly transmogrifying via a Christo like sculpture above Pamplona into my imagined heather hollows.

I gain my first glimpse of the high hills themselves around a squat and snowless ski resort at Iratty. A days marching and now I'm amongst them. I'm atop the first 2000 metre peak of the trail, The Pic De Orchy, a pointy mountain writ large like that from a child's picture book. It's as if I'm up with the Gods, looking down on mortality. The world seems to fall away, and I take care where to place the accoutrements of domesticity as I make a cup of mint tea, with extra sugar and exultation.

As scarey as a bagful of Tarantulas

The last few months of my life have seen a steady diminution of my material possessions.

All my lendable stuff has been lent, my stashable stuff stashed, the flat sold.

I'm down to one 55 litre back pack.

I'm staying with friends, on a small olive and apricot farm near Rasquera, Catalunya, Spain.

I'm making the final preparations for the trek.

Tommorow I'll catch the Barcelona train 

to Irun, and from there I'll make my way to Hendaye, the border town between France and Spain on the Atlantic Coast.

From here I'm set to walk the High Route across the Pyrenees.

500 miles from the Atlantic to the Med. The route stays roughly on the central spine of  mountains that separate France and Spain.

There're mountain refuges along the way, and there's also a couple of remote sections, where you have to rely on your wits.

I wonder how I'll cope with the solitude, the navigation, the physicality of it all.

I have a bag of essentials and very few luxuries.

About a week ago, on the way down from the UK, I'd crossed the Pyrenees around Andorra and Ax les Therms in the car. As I reached the top of the pass the mountains wrapped themselves in a vicious storm, and became as scarey as a bagful of tarantulas.

It rattled me at the time,  and last night I dreamt that my bagful of high tech survival kit had turned into the metaphorical tarantulas, gibbering up at me as I attempted to make camp for the night.

I grimace, steel myself, make a final check through the bag.

It's compartmentalized in dry bags. I have 'wardrobe' for sox and a spare T-shirt. I have 'office' for maps, and the luxury kindle, 'hardware' for the Sat nav and solar charger. There's a 'larder' too, a first aid kit, an ultra light weight tent the size of a bottle of coke, a tiny stove, crampons for the higher sections .... And not a tarantula in sight.

It doesn't seem much for 500 miles but it weighs over 15 kg.

But it's ready. I'm ready. I hope I'm ready enough. And if not. Well. I'm coming anyway, like we used to say as kids, when we played 'hide and seek'.

 'Coming, ready or not'.

Writing this, I realise that I've the same overwhelming mixture of sensations, now, as I had then, squashed in the airing cupboard or wherever, and they're taking short cuts between my mind and stomach.

Anticipation, delight, excitment and fear.

A heady combination.

I think back a couple of days. Barbara, my friend from Rasquera and I had been on the coast for lunch, and we'd spotted this sculpture at l'Ametlla de Mar.

Now then, I wonder, if I had legs s long as this, what would I be feeling now?

To be able to walk like the Gods, amongst the Heather Hollows of High Hills, and to take one's rests, with such elegance.

To tackle the mountains with style. That's what I'd like to do. Even if my legs are pint sized, human, and 53 years old to boot.

To tackle the mountIns with style. As my favourite poet, Charles Bukowski might have said; 'That is what I call art'.

Sky Blue Pink

I recently painted the front door for our house bubble gum pink

and didn't think too much more about it until a friend of a friend asked me:

Is it legal ?

Legal?

Well, yes

I said

I think so, no complaints so far...

Later that day, about to relate the tale to a friend of how the colour of my front door's legality had been brought into question I got no further than

I've painted my front door pink

before she asked

Is that a euphemism?

and looked at me faux coyly in a lovely way she has that she reserves solely, I suspect, for simpletons.

Determined to catch up I resorted to hearsay and Wikipedia and was surprised to learn that pink is controversial enough to have a campaign aimed at it's elimination. Well, that's not quite true but there is a campaign railing against the 'culture of pink which invades every area of girls’ lives'. www.pinkstinks.co.uk. Pinkstinks thinks that the culture of pink for female tots leads to a whole load of bad stuff including body image obsession, as girls are conditioned to subscribe to the damaging boundaries within which they will grow up in via pink. There's a lot of conviction and a high degree of passion flying around the site and although they don't seem to say if they think that pink would be just as damaging if it were to be foisted on boys instead of girls, I was surprised to learn that the correlation between boys:blue and girls:pink wasn't always the case.

[Is this true? Ed.]

Yes. According to Woman's Journal, a women's rights periodical published from 1870-1930:

pink being a more decided and stronger colour, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.

So. Pink is a moveable feast. It arouses strong feelings and it used to be a colour associated with boys and now it's associated with girls. Just when Pink shifted it's association is unclear but I was pleased to learn about the mutability of pinkiness as I've always been intrigued by the choice of colour for the doors and down pipes of Swansea's old J Shed - a very masculine building if ever there was one.



J shed was re-developed in 2004 as part of the bland chic-ification that was the then Welsh Development Agency's best efforts around Swansea's old Prince of Wales Dock. Thus J shed's now shows a very National Trust style approach to colour which resolutely eschews pink. In fact it's grey and sage as, amusingly, The Bland tend to ignore the ravages of time on colour intensity when they redecorate, and assume that history chose faded colour schemes.

J shed was built in or around 1895, about the time the PoW dock was expanded to accommodate the larger steam ships that were then giving sail ships a run for their money.

But does anyone know when J shed was painted pink?

The Prince of Wales' Dock was probably in decline in the later half of the 20th century in the face of competition from the larger King and Queens' Docks to the West and the loss of traffic due to the demise of Welsh coal. So I'm guessing that the last redecoration was probably in the 50's or 60's when pink should have been well on the way to being re-aligned from boy colour to girl colour.

You can see the actual colour transition at J shed in this picture of a wheel from the bottom of one of the doors.



J Shed's doors & downpipes were once blue and mutated to pink via British Empire Blood Thirsty Red thus showing an anachronistic embrace of what was probably the then accepted colour code for gender - assuming of course that we subscribe to the notion that J Shed is indeed a 'masculine' building. That's another subject, but it certainly existed in a whole heartedly male world - that of Swansea's dockers and the world's sailors. I suspect J shed was pinked up in the 50's or 60's by someone who thought that pink was still associated with masculinity .. Tho as we're unclear as to when pink or gender shifted it's allegiance it's hard to know just how far out of line this thinking was.

Whichever way you look at it, J shed's choice of colour is curious, and begs the larger questions of how the exclusive assignment of a single colour to gender is assumed, as well as how the shift of this colour between genders occurs. In the currant maelstrom surrounding sexual identity, pink, and the assumptions we all make around colour & gender, should be well worth watching.

More research, as they say, is needed. Also, and far more importantly to a boy whose pink credentials are nailed firmly to the door at Number 4 Uplands Crescent:

When will it be our turn again to have another go with pink?

Boys. Really now.

What's not to like about pink ?

Paul Roche :: Genius Potter

How do you make clay do this?

I met Paul in 2004 and over the years have taken great delight in photographing his work. Not least of course because he'll usually give me a piece of work in exchange for the snaps, and when we saw Paul for tea recently I was proud to receive a 'Trophy for Underachievers' from his recent show at Picton Castle.

The first time I photo'd with him was for an exhibition he and fellow arts tutors at the West Wales School of the Arts, Carmarthenshire were holding at St Clears, Pembrokeshire. Paul's pieces were a series of movie projectors and wall plaques. Ceramic projectors projecting ceramic movies - how beautifully off the wall is this?

This is Paul, adjusting the focus on one of the machines.






Later that year he was holding a joint exhibition with Ingrid Murphy: Stilled life. His pieces were a series of portraits in clay. This is 'Sloaney Ranger'.




And this is Claire, seen against one of Ingrid's pieces from the exhibition and the image used for the invitation.



The next two exhibitions that I photographed for him were at the Queen's Hall Gallery in Narbeth in 2007 - a joint exhibition with Mick Morgan, and then a one man show at Aberystwyth early in 2009. The Queen's work was a mixture of domestic objects: irons, food mixers & taps along with a series of cakes. Wedding cakes. It was more or less a sell out show. Here's a selection of domestic objects made less ordinary, celebrated by an extraordinary mind.

The Aberystwyth show was all about the 'glory of the ride' as Zen Dog would have seen it.. about ascending, for example, a rickety set of stairs or a fantasy ladder thro a fantasy tree. The prizes at the end of this journey are of course, only implied. Here's some of the trees and stairs.





There were other exhibitions that I didn't photograph but this brief foray thro' Paul's work over the last few years gives some idea of it's range. Wonderful. Witty. Thoughtful. Wise. Whenever I see Paul I'm delighted by his enthusiasm and exuberance and always surprised at what his next project is. Stoves, fishtanks, go faster stripes .. anything that no-one but Paul would consider making in clay. I've watched Paul work a few times now and can vouch for a chaotic fluidity and an instinctive passion. It's almost as if his hands are connecting directly with the clay and bypassing any need for the brain to get involved with those hum drum motor functions. As the clay seems to grow organically between his fingers Paul takes delight in the developing form, and as it finishes, seems almost as surprised as I am. Ingrid Murphy, now Programme Leader at the BA Ceramics Course at UWIC, talking to me about Paul's working technique said something along the lines of 'Clay's not supposed to be able to be made to do things like that'. Check this last picture below. A self portrait in clay.





That's Paul the maker on the left. Paul as made by Paul on the right. Just in case there's any confusion. But seriously now. How does he make clay do this?

You may have more in common with your cups than you think

How pots have a handle on our stregnth & fragility

Around 1991 I impulsively ended a long term relationship & moved out of the safe shared house that I'd lived in with the girlfriend I'd met at Uni ten years previously. For three or four months I enjoyed a lively madcap adventure of sculpture, travel & photography as well as new friends and a new, and naturally doomed, business venture

It was a manic episiode, not that I knew or cared and after it had run it's course I found myself in an unfamiliar world at 29, The Street, Aldermaston with a whole load of new possessions and not a lot of my old ones, a self-pillaged bank account & a bowel-curdling fear of the future

Aldermaston is mainly known on account of it's connection with WMD and I guess a lot of people wouldn't know there's a village there at all. There is & it has a pub, post office & shop as well as a Manor House whose owners let the locals walk in it's grounds. It's a friendly place, and the best refuge I could possibly have hoped for with such a headful of nonsense

As well as the pub and the post office there's also a pottery which was then employing seven or so potters. They used local willow wood to fuel the kilns & the clay was often hand dug nearby. It was run by Alan Caiger-Smith, who, although I didn't realise it then, is a giant in the ceramic world

I was drawn to the pottery and to the people in it as well as to this magic way of making in such a self contained, organic way. And, luckily for me, I was welcomed



 

This is the throwing room at the pottery with two of the potters, Lou and Ursula. They were playing up as I was fumbling with the camera and the picture works largely by accident, somehow managing to explain something of the pottery's exuberance and creativity.

I love how Lou's gesture appears to be dispensing with time, in the shape of the pottery clock. I could identify with that & felt certain solidarity with Lou as image; it helped me realise that I wasn't the only one to have ever had a reckless throw of the dice.

 

Maybe on account of this Lou & I became friends & during the friendship Lou gave me several pieces of work including this earthenware cup and saucer:



This was her own work as opposed to the more mannered pieces that the pottery produced and all the more special to me for that reason

Pottery is the earliest craft, probably discovered accidently via clay hardened under a hunter-gatherers' fire. Humans have grown, even evolved with pots; we use the same language to descibe ourselves physically as we do vessels. We share neck and shoulder, belly and feet with them as well as a mouth and lips. The Potter Bernard Leach goes further than this and suggests that pots also share strength, fragility & quietness with us

I didn't feel any of this then in an articulate way but in the topsey turvey days and months when the enormity of turning your own life upside down becomes a flat-lining reality, the turmoil I'd wake with would take some distraction. I'd make coffee with Lou's Cup and would feel less worse. It lent me windows of calmness because there was something there that I could share my fragility and quietness with. And later, strength too. It was a godsend

Two or three years went by & the pottery was starting to close. Lou was moving on & one day appeared with the plates below 

casually & gracefully handing them to me. It was a while before I realised that she wasn't just giving them to me for safekeeping & I was touched. They became the feast plates on account of their gargantuan size and I loved them instantly. I love them still, because of what they are: accessories of celebration, and, ipso facto, for what they helped me regain: celebration itself

All clay pots were once earth, and, because of their colour and weight, the feast plates remind you of this. They're not pretending to be anything other than raw fired earth that's had just enough adjustment to allow you to eat, clean and store them. And just enough decoration to let you know that although they're understated, they have form. And with this lack of artifice, they can take you back to the first hunter-gatherers' fire, and help you to understand the quietness of your place in the world



The strength, fragility & quietness that vessels can meaningfully share with us could be extended to include the qualities of flaws & weaknesses. And the capacity for playfulness. The bowl above has the beauty of counter intuitive rhyme to it as the curve of the brush responds to the curve of the bowl itself. Playfully. And the glaze drips and finger marks flaw it. It was the last vessel that Lou gave to me and it came with an understanding that playfulness & the beauty of flaws & weakness, not to mention beauty itself, are all intertwined



Here's Lou in the pottery: Anyone familar with the work of 'The Pottery, Aldermaston' will recognise the characteristic brush strokes just visible on the bowl she's painting and also on the bowls behind.

Something real remains for me within this photograph. A ghostly angel maybe, perpetually painting with an quiet grace and turning clay into metaphor



Before Lou left we took a trip to the Atlas mountains in Morrocco and after that the patterns shifted and our lives took different paths. So this is Lou & how I'd like to remember her. 

 

Irrepressable, optimistic &  crackling with enthusiasm for the start of the day.