Monoliths, Militant? Modernist?

Also, revisited some of my favourite cranes at the docks. Still wondering how or if the cranes tie in with the fortifications in my practice - both can be m onoliths and dinosaur-like in the landscape I guess. I'm reading Owen Hatherley's Militant Modernism......

Guernsey Trip

A return trip to Castle Cornet, infact for a wedding, and a chance to see some of my favourite WW2 fortifications, built amongst the centuries old stones and battered by the sea. Anna, Maria and Frieda still resonate with the brasher WW2 American nose-art pictures of 'girls'.

Trouble with lace.

Went back to the studio and re-did all the lace pattern on the glass bunker for the sandblasting that I had done last time - it was just too small in scale and looked too much like a lace curtain as opposed to representing a lace curtain that did not look quite right. Tricky!

Graffiti where?

For the House-Bunker -  internal house within it - this is the original image from a Guernsey bunker that inspired much of the idea some years ago. However, I need further images of the writing and cannot remember where in Guernsey this particular fortification was.

Tomb- House-Bunker-Tomb

Because of constructing the Bunker-House-Bunker, thinking about house shapes and the The House is Black form taken from Cyrus' tomb.  This image is from an engraving from Flandin  and Coste's Voyages en Perse 1840-1842. 

And so it goes full-circle, to the tomb-like bunker of Paul Virillio's Standardised Valhalla and the camouflaged bunkers that had a dual potential of home and tomb.

A chain of defences

I've been collecting  some old postcards of Guernsey and a number feature Martello towers. The landscape on these two is quite populated with them and the chain-like siting formation is evident. They are almost like a 19th Century British version of the Atlantik Wall.  I think the Guernsey ones are mainly sturdy granite whereas the East coast ones are possibly brick and rendering, but both with pretty thick walls. The Bunker-like role of unseen observer surveying the landscape recurrs as does the intensifying effect of viewing the world through a narrow aperture or loop-hole. I like the romance of the idea that Martello is a corruption of Motella, so named because of the myrtle growing round about the tower in Corsica.

Cancelled the trip to the Forough and the garden lecture next week, due to a funeral. Here is a snippet of Forough to inspire.