'I called today, Peter, and you were away.
I look out over Botallack and over Ding Dong and Levant and over the jasper sea. Find me a thermal to speak and soar to you from Over Lanyon Quoit and the circling stones standing High on the moor over Gurnard’s Head where some Time three foxglove summers ago, you came. The days are shortening over Little Parc Owles. The poet or painter steers his life to maim Himself somehow for the job. His job is Love Imagined into words or paint...' – WS Graham, opening lines of The Thermal Stair (in memory of Peter Lanyon) I'll be heading back here through the wild winds, thinking of Sydney pretending to be a storm, roaring through the door, Nessie singing... later in February as Artist of the Month throughout March. ... 'Approaching The Gurnard's Head' felting with stitching, inspired by W.S.Graham. Sold. The whole poem...❤️ I called today, Peter, and you were away. I look out over Botallack and over Ding Dong and Levant and over the jasper sea. Find me a thermal to speak and soar to you from Over Lanyon Quoit and the circling stones standing High on the moor over Gurnard’s Head where some Time three foxglove summers ago, you came. The days are shortening over Little Parc Owles. The poet or painter steers his life to maim Himself somehow for the job. His job is Love Imagined into words or paint to make An object that will stand and will not move. Peter, I called and you were away, speaking Only through what you made and at your best. Look, there above Botallack, the buzzard riding The salt updraught slides off the broken air And out of sight to quarter a new place. The Celtic sea, the Methodist sea is there. You said once in the Engine House below Morvah That words make their world In the same way as the painter’s Mark surprises him Into seeing new. Sit here on the sparstone In this ruin where Once the early beam Engine pounded and broke The air with industry. Now the chuck of daws And the listening sea. ‘Shall we go down’ you said ‘Before the light goes And stand under the old Tinworkings around Morvah and St Just?’ You said ‘Here is the sea Made by alfred wallis Or any poet or painter’s Eye it encountered. Or is it better made By all those vesselled men Sometime it maintained? We all make it again.’ Give me your hand, Peter, To steady me on the word. Seventy-two by sixty, Italy hangs on the wall. A woman stands with a drink In some polite place And looks at SARACINESCO And turns to mention space. That one if she could Would ride Artistically The thermals you once rode. Peter, the phallic boys Begin to wink their lights. Godrevy and the Wolf Are calling Opening Time. We’ll take the quickest way The tin singers made. Climb here where the hand Will not grasp on air. And that dark-suited man Has set the dominoes out On the Queen’s table. Peter, we’ll sit and drink And go in the sea’s roar To Labrador with wallis Or rise on Lanyon’s stair. Uneasy, lovable man, give me your painting Hand to steady me taking the word-road home. Lanyon, why is it you’re earlier away? Remember me wherever you listen from. Lanyon, dingdong dingdong from carn to carn. It seems tonight all Closing bells are tolling Across the Duchy shire wherever I turn. #wsgraham #poetry #felting
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Inspired by a favourite e e cummings poem... I’ve always loved so much how the reader Must participate and bring the poem into meaning x Break-up, fragmented, restructuring, infinite energy, unfixing, it's in the spaces between the words, letters, sounds, images, where true meaning resides – AL(L)ways!, no ‘one’ meaning, n(ot)ever... explode the grammar system! ...language is always late for the event… boundless and just… about to l e a p… PPEGORHRASS!! And a short leap from one revolution, to speak of a far far greater ‘system’ revolution! ‘The poem does not sing itself; it builds itself, three-dimensionally, gradually, subtly, in the consciousness of the experiencer.’ – e e cummings ‘PPEGORHRASS and Moon’ - Needlepunch sketch, A4 on handmade paper 🦗 #ppegorhrass #eecummings #felting #poetry #grasshopper ...and - Grasshopper decoded!
'so world is a leaf so a tree is a bough
(and birds sing sweeter than books tell how) so here is away and so your is a my (with a down up around again fly) forever was never till now ' - e e cummings I was going to make another Jackdaw sister (for her Sold 8 siblings!) but a different bird appeared... and my female blackbird burbled (a beautiful deep red-brown joyous, contented sound) outside my window as i worked... and as I'd seen three female blackbirds together whilst driving home from Zennor recently... it just had to be her x And the beautiful, exciting, spiritual, musical, painterful, playful, joyous, gentle e e cummings, whom I've loved, I feel, forever. To Love, pure Consciousness, Isness...and female blackbirds, within and as and of all of this :) 'if everything happens that can't be done' by e e cummings ❤️ if everything happens that can't be done (and anything's righter than books could plan) the stupidest teacher will almost guess (with a run skip around we go yes) there's nothing as something as one one hasn't a why or because or although (and buds know better than books don't grow) one's anything old being everything new (with a what which around we come who) one's everyanything so so world is a leaf so a tree is a bough (and birds sing sweeter than books tell how) so here is away and so your is a my (with a down up around again fly) forever was never till now now i love you and you love me (and books are shuter than books can be) and deep in the high that does nothing but fall (with a shout each around we go all) there's somebody calling who's we we're anything brighter than even the sun (we're everything greater than books might mean) we're everyanything more than believe (with a spin leap alive we're alive) we're wonderful one times one ............................................................................. Needlepunch sketch, superfine wool, 29 x 20 cm
❤️ 'What if a much of a which of a wind...' x
The hedgerows are returning!
'There lives the dearest freshness deep down things' ....one of my favourite ever lines of poetry ❤️ ...and resonant too with Cornish hedgerows :) in all their beauty and lines, colours, shapes, smells, textures and the joy expressed that just 'Is' 🌿❤️ I have a very old copy of poems and writings by Gerard Manley Hopkins and it is treasured... His words leap out beyond the pages, they 'flame out, like shining from shook foil' to me. God has always meant the same thing as Essential nature, Spirit, Aliveness, Love, Pure Consciousness to me...not an entity or 'object'. 'God is the permanent underlying substratum of all that exists...permanent, unchanging and self-luminous' - Ramana Maharshi ✨ - just as Hopkins' nature and the divine x God's Grandeur The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; And though the last lights off the black West went Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs -- Because the Holy Ghost over the bent World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings. #felting #poetry #gmhopkins 'What it taught me before, I keep. It’s air
ceaseless wind, water and sand.' - Pablo Neruda A beautiful windy walk with a friend today... and a view to Portheras Cove - a special place for me as I lived close by when my son was born and often walked with him here ...and to the Lighthouse and Boat Cove. - and from the astoundingly beautiful poems 'On The Blue Shore Of Silence' by Pablo Neruda: The Sea I need the sea because it teaches me. I don’t know if I learn music or awareness, if it’s a single wave or its vast existence, or only its harsh voice or its shining suggestion of fishes and ships. The fact is that until I fall asleep, in some magnetic way I move in the university of the waves. It’s not simply the shells crunched as if some shivering planet were giving signs of its gradual death; no, I reconstruct the day out of a fragment, the stalactite from the sliver of salt, and the great god out of a spoonful. What it taught me before, I keep. It’s air ceaseless wind, water and sand. It seems a small thing for a young man, to have come here to live with his own fire; nevertheless, the pulse that rose and fell in its abyss, the crackling of the blue cold, the gradual wearing away of the star, the soft unfolding of the wave squandering snow with its foam, the quiet power out there, sure as a stone shrine in the depths, replaced my world in which were growing stubborn sorrow, gathering oblivion, and my life changed suddenly: as I became part of its pure movement. ............................................................. This felting, Sold, was inspired by windy walk to Portheras Cove a while ago ...music and awareness... ✨ Felting - using merino, Shetland, Exmoor, tussah silks, wool nepps, bamboo fibre, stitching (36 x 32 cms) #neruda #poetry #felting #cornwall 'When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement.' ❤️ 'I got saved by poetry. And I got saved by the beauty of the world.' ... Her muses were owls and butterflies, frogs and geese, the changes of the seasons, the sun and the stars... a deep sense of being in the world as a spiritual experience.... Thank you Mary Oliver, I cherish your beautiful, inspiring poetry 🌿 'Canada Geese, Marazion marshes' inspired by a walk with my son and the poem 'Wild Geese' - 'You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -- over and over announcing your place in the family of things.' 'On Being' Studios - Mary Oliver reads her poems Gerryco23 - Wordpress blog on Mary - Mary Oliver, 1935-2019: 'one wild and precious life'
Creating a felting inspired by a poem by Nessie Dunsmuir has been a process full of developing greater understanding and inspiration. W.S.Graham is a fascinating poet, writing profound and exciting poetry and letters and his partner, Nessie Dunsmuir has a presence that is woven lovingly throughout his life and work. I’ve wondered about her, a quiet, supporting strength to WSG and resolved to find out a little more about her, in her own words. I’d discovered that a slim volume of her poetry had been published, but couldn’t find a copy until I thought of The Hypatia Trust which collects, and makes available, published and personal documentation about the achievements of women in every aspect of their lives. I contacted them in Penzance, Cornwall and they have a copy in their poetry collection! housed in the beautiful Victorian mansion that is Morrab Library. It was emotional and sensitive and I felt like I was meeting her at last, Nessie in her own words. Reading the poem 'By the Window' created such strong visuals for me and I just had to create a felting! By the Window by Nessie Dunsmuir Here by the window blackthorn and elder tree sharpen my sight to love. The shadows of small birds descend and raise, clearer than print on page, deeply forgotten colours of my stumbling days. The Easter fields of children turn again the legend’s wheel. The painted eggs begin to roll our death away. In the cold April day each child is blessed and lies with Spring within. Here by my head blackbird and beaded tree borrow me back from Easter’s cross and kiss. Bracken fronds hand me light. My own beginning eyes load at the sill the buds breaking to white. (1945) I love the themes of newness, beginning, Spring, peace, love, light, reminiscence, looking onto a brighter, more hopeful world -individually to universally and the cycle of life… I loved the imagery of Easter, children, painted eggs, a cold April day, a blackthorn, buds and flowering, the elder tree, the flying birds in the scene falling and rising and the image of the printed page…their shadows, marks and meaning… and the blackbird had to be Nessie, a female blackbird, looking out, observing…. Finding out more about the symbolism of the elder and blackthorn was fascinating, too, I’ve always known these twisted, gnarled branches as witchery fingers and that they are associated with the dark side of the year and quite sinister, however the Celts observed that this tree produced some of the sweetest berries among the sacred tribe of trees, at their most succulent and sweetest after a hard frost… the blessing comes after the challenge. The elder too, as the Goddess tree, the Elder Mother, The Queen of Herbs, full of magical, sacred properties; a tree of beginnings and endings, of birth and death, a spirit of transformation and the crossing of thresholds… I met the lady who bought my felting in the exhibition at The Gurnard’s Head and she told me how much she loved the poem and that her friend would too. It felt so wonderful, knowing that Nessie Dunsmuir and her poems are here, present in this W.S. Graham exhibition at The Gurnard's Head, Zennor where she used to visit, sing and meet with friends ... and that her poems are bringing happiness to others who read them and love them. Happy New Year wishes! I've been reading the wonderful 'A Year with Rilke' translated and edited by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows; these are daily readings which bring together many of Rilke's beautiful works, and for the 3rd of January is the poem 'Entering', from 'Book of Images' - just right for the year's beginning: 'Entering' by Rainer Maria Rilke Whoever you may be: step into the evening. Step out of the room where everything is known. Whoever you are, your house is the last before the far-off. With your eyes, which are almost too tired to free themselves from the familiar, you slowly take one black tree and set it against the sky: slender, alone. And you have made a world. It is big and like a word, still ripening in silence. And though your mind would fabricate its meaning, your eyes tenderly let go of what they see. Rilke's poetry often explores beginnings and departures, seeing and creating anew, being on the verge of the undiscovered... and stillness - evoking a presence beyond words and concepts. I always see strong visuals and colours when I read his work and love the creating and letting go in this poem... Do you find this too? That when reading poetry or any form of writing, you experience colours and visuals?... I'd love to know whether reading inspires you to paint and create. I was so happy to take part in a charity art auction this month, for Cornwall Hospice Care at The Exchange gallery, part of 'Newlyn Art Gallery and The Exchange' in Penzance. The event raised much needed funds for this important charity and was attended by many. It was an honour for me to show my work alongside many well-known and inspiring local artists and it's wonderful to know that my felting, inspired by a line in a poem by the local poet W.S. Graham has found a happy home. 'A few scattered rooks blown against the pewter sky' from 'Waiting for Snow' by W.S.Graham
SOLD (please click for catalogue of artworks in the auction) My feltings to illustrate an accompanying resource for a life-changing course |
May 2022
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