ESSEX BOY MAKES GOOD

Delighted to be part of Josie Watson's terrific
Essex Days out site  http://www.essexdaysout.com
More collaboration to come. 

YELLOW WHEEL BARROW AND RED ROTAVATOR

Best of Friends: The Barrow and the Rotavator

Things are starting to get busy down on the allotment. 

Sian is working her way through a big mound of soil that was ‘inherited’ with Plot 4C.

The soil mound is a spoil heap of earth skimmed off or not needed and dumped from other plots we suppose. When cleared it will be the potato growing area.

The rest of S’s plot continues to slumber under a duvet of Mypex, toasty warm and in readiness for planting. 

A plot or so down is the home of a bright yellow wheelbarrow hardly used. The yellow wheel sits next to the rusty red rotavator which I hope will spring to life soon; one assumes it still has life left in it in spite of its oxidizing frame and components.

STRANGE OBJECTS IN THE MUSEUM

Phantasmagorical in a Glass Home

A big advantage of using the Members Room at the British Museum as your office is the chance to approach it from different directions. 

Just before Christmas I went via Room 11, home to a wonderful collection of Bronze Age bits and pieces.

I stood in front and very close to this fascinating piece. A five thousand year old treasure, a statue, grey and pockmarked. She appeared phantasmagorical, dimly lit with other tiny pieces at its shoulder within a glass home.

HOLY PLACES IN VILNIUS

Over  the last two years I have become familiar with the Churches in Vilnius. They are friends and when I have time I always call in and say hello.

Two weeks ago I went to see three particular acquaintances, the baroque St Teresa’s, the gothic Bernardine Church and into the Chapel of Our Lady at the Gate of Dawn.

Like all holy places they each have a tale to tell.

ST. BERNARDINE

The Church of St. Francis and St. Bernardine called simply the Bernardine Church. It was built in the 15th century. During the Soviet occupation it was closed. Now the place thrives.

Originally it was fashioned in the Gothic style, and then an earlier invasion by Russia in the middle of the 17th century, the Cossacks devastated it. When Lithuania regained its capital city, the church was restored and Northern European Renaissance and Baroque make over; notably some exquisite wood carvings and woodworking, which against the pale walls, jump up to greet you as you enter.

Bernardine Church 

ST TERESA’S

This church with its dark and warm mood with gold decoration shining through was built in the second half of the 18th century. Its high altar is among the most impressive in the city. Everything outside says ‘deep pockets; Swedish sandstone, marble, and granite – were used in the exterior façade.

The church is beautifully maintained with three naves giving it a basilica plan. There is room to move to room in the welcoming gloom. Whilst I am there one or two people come and go, making their prayers and supplications.

St Teresa Church

GATES OF DAWN

The Gates of Dawn enjoy a constant trickle of people making their petitions before Our Lady. People of all dominations and creeds come to kneel before the Madonna. The chapel is part of the only surviving gate of city’s original five gates.

The painting of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Mercy looks down to the side of us. It was painted in 17th century originally in tempera on oak boards, later repainted in oil.

All three friends have several things in common; places of peace and apart from their principal decoration and fabric, free of clutter and notices and all offering a place to just be present.

Chapel at the Gates of Dawn

MS PERPETUA AND MR CHELTENHAM

The idea for a book

It was over thirty years to since I had a composing stick* in my hand. I spent days in the printing shop department building, next Colchester School of Art. As part of the Graphics course we were taught to set type and proof the output – the real way to learn typography.

Fast forward to last month at the Letterpress Collective in Bristol. http://theletterpresscollective.org

It was a play date; in wonderful workshop teaching type composition and printing skills. Nick and colleagues have brought slumbering presses back for artists, writers and community projects in Bristol.

On a Friday six of us had the chance to explore font, compose words, signs, poems and prose.

During the day I worked on the front cover of a book that might come to pass. My headline type face was Cheltenham and sub-head face Perpetua.

PERPETUA

English sculptor and typeface designer Eric Gill for Monotype designed Perpetua. It is classified as a transitional serif font. It bears the distinctive personality of Eric Gill's letterforms.

CHELTENHAM

Architect Bertram Goodhue and Ingalls Kimball, director of the Cheltenham Press, it shows influences of the Arts and Crafts Movement. Originally intended as a text face, "Chelt" became hugely successful as the "king of the display faces."

* A composing stick is a tool used to assemble pieces of metal type into words and lines, which are then transferred to a galley before being locked into a forme and printed.

BUGS AND BEETLES IN BURNHAM BEECHES

Burnham Beeches A National Nature Reserve

Almost every week Chris and I cycle through Burnham Beeches and are impressed with the primordial feeling of these trees and their terrain.

The City of London thoughtfully manages these trees

The City of London Corporation bought Burnham Beeches in 1879. It now manages the five hundred acres really thoughtfully. 

The woodland has been regularly pollarded and many trees now several hundred years old. And the dead wood in and around these wonderful trees provides a happy home for wildlife.

We peddle past, chatting, as beetles bugs and birds among the sixty species of plants and animals here no doubt gawp at us.