Coastal view postcards

Continuing thoughts on unfinished, or in this case, barely started projects: part of my collection of postcards showing Guernsey coastal views. This image taken in Guernsey some few years ago. Current interest for me resides mainly in the images of docks and martello towers. No answers to this as yet - it probably needs another few years of sporadic pondering. 

The Starting of Finishing Things

Step one of finishing projects that refuse to die after several years: have ordered a print of one of the lightbox images to check out size and proportions of image and border. I've used the proportions of the transparency that is at the root of this, but have an idea that maybe the lightboxes need to be  small and jewel-like, contrast of colour and darkness.

Next I need to research lightbox manufacturers.

AND is it meaningful that the barometer in my studio always points to fair weather?   

Some Space.

A rare few moments in the studio since my return from Africa and this china deer stamped 'Foreign' seeming poignant on my desk.

Before I forge ahead wanting to 'make stuff', my task will be to take stock of the studio and the new amount of space by the back window, cleared  just recently. How will I make best use of it? I also need to update some of my web presences and tackle the problem of updating my own website.

Enchanting Arcadia

The overgrown 18th Century pleasure garden that is Hackfall. A wooded paradise of cascades, overhung pool, moss and fern - originally a contained and artfully contrived sylvan idyll. And when I stayed there - snow, hail and ice. I became transfixed by the aspect of the overhung pool, both looking down from above, as in these images, and in the reflections close up. When the thaw set in the fountain began to play again.

Transformation of the studio bunker ...

The bunker at the back of the Queen of Hungary Studios, now behind the Nissen Hut, has undergone a transformation. The ivy has received a haircut and an impromptu playground has appeared. Here is a before and after comparison. What a surprise when I went to empty the cafetiere. Perhaps this is an inventive type of camouflage?

Inspiration for a sculpture

I rediscovered this old photograph from our Guernsey family side. I think it may be of my Grandfather's beehives - I certainly remember him keeping bees. I like the accretions of the storeys of this wooden tower and imagine it gradually increasing in height until, under the final weight of the blanket, it topples over.  It looks like a tower on the edge somehow and not long to reaching that critical point. 

Make more models

A visit to The Hepworth Gallery to view some of Hepworth's plaster maquettes and other model workings. They were a joy to see, but highlighted my own woeful lack of 'finished' maquettes for sculptures. My studio is littered with half-baked working models abandoned and interest and focus lost. Hepworth's maquettes have inspired me to do better and to value them more for their own, intrinsic value and character, as well as useful steps in the creative process. Whilst at the gallery I took these images of boat shapes to help with maquettes for a work that currently is either too boat-like or not enough.