Starting work on a new studio at last.... and some medieval mayhem!

 Well, I had some time off work today, my planned walk in the woods was rained off so I thought I would make a start finally on my studio to be!
I'm finding it very hard to get on with any artwork in our tiny house and the thought of having a brilliant space of my own is really exciting. If only we had a ten day week to get it done! So, I armed myself with the pick hammer thingy and began to knock and scrape away all the ancient loose crumbly lime plaster from the outer walls...

 I ended up with dust and chips of mortar in my hair, eyes, in my clothes, and blisters on my hands too but after a couple of hours it started to look like this...

I got half way up that wall so far but I'll need a ladder for the rest another day, then some serious re-pointing and plaster board for the internal walls. But little by little I SHALL have a studio!

And now for something completely different... It was the town's Medieval Fayre day again last weekend so as we did last year I dressed our shop window for the occasion, this is one I really enjoy putting together...

Tony ready to fend off awkward customers!

 And this year we thought we would dress the part too...Tony wore that chain mail coif all day, even in the workshop and had neck ache for the next two days! Its really heavy... It seemed to go down well with the customers though. I suppose they might have had picture framers in the middle ages???

Needless to say there were a lot of lines quoted from Monty Python's Holy Grail! Tony's off now to go and fight the Vicious Chicken of Bristol! 

More studio updates, hopefully coming soon!

 

Sorry I just couldn't resist this clip......

The Tale of Raw Head and Bloody Bones....

I'm very excited to announce that my brother in law's first novel is now available for pre-order, here! So of course I am shamelessly plugging it! Jack showed us the bound proof copy today which looks amazing.... quite a hefty volume too with Jack's name on every page header!
Here's how the publishers described Jack's book...

"An explosive, transgressive, ambitious, wildly imaginative debut from a major new writer"

How's that for an introduction! It's been so exciting watching Jack going through the process from being picked out by a major agent during his MA to finally seeing this work in print!

Here's the Synopsis from Amazon's site:

The year is 1750.

Meet Tristan Hart, precociously talented student of medicine practising under the legendary Dr William Hunter. His obsession is the nature of pain and preventing it; the relationship between mind and matter and the existence of God. A product of the Age of Enlightenment, he is a rational man on a quest to cut through darkness and superstition with the brilliant blade of science.

Meet Tristan Hart, madman and deviant. His obsession is the nature of pain, and causing it. A product of an age of faeries and goblins, gnomes and shape-shifting gypsies, he is on a quest to arouse the perfect scream and slay the daemon Raw Head who torments his dark days and long nights.

Troubled visionary, twisted genius, loving sadist. What is real and what imagined in Tristan Hart's brutal, beautiful, complex world?

I believe it will be released in January, can't wait to get my copy!

I am not in Jack's league, but I took my wordhoard gathering out into the woods the other day, notebook in pocket, eyes, ears and heart open to gather the skeins of thought blown on the wind.

 I took my camera too and must show you this Rhododendron hidden in a dark and shady hollow that seems more flesh than wood. Its the most human looking tree I have seen...

 The boughs look muscular, arched back, arms up raised, breast, armpit, navel....

 It made me think of all the myths and tales of people who have taken root and transformed into trees, either driven by grief or trapped by a curse or pitied by the Gods...

  Amazing nature, strange indeed...!
I ended up gathering some good stanzas that I thought to share here, but afterall I might hang onto them a while yet to weave into my story that is gaining its own flesh but needs yet to re-order its bones. I feel its becoming poised like an indrawn breath, leaves all a tremble waiting for the lightning to strike. Other things keep emerging too, wanting to become a part of the story, almost like it has a life of its own beginning to awaken. I think there will be much of the woods in this story...

 I seemed to have chosen the wettest, muddiest path home through the woods with my wellies that have split all the way round and are no longer water tight! But was truly rewarded by following briefly a jay, flitting bright-winged from tree to tree ahead of me, a jewelled flash of colour in a dancing game.
But best of all, in the low green valley between the enclosing arms of the woods, I saw two beautiful Buzzards sky dancing overhead.
They circled one another on languid wings before clasping each other's talons and spiralling gracefully together, down, down, down, faster and faster, with the sun flashing on their wings.... then at the last possible moment they separated and skimmed apart, wing tips brushing the very tops of the wheat. They circled away and rose back into the sky to soar one after the other above my head.
That I stored in a quiet place next to my heart.

 And before the drenching rains returned, we managed a last picnic tea in the woods after school yesterday beneath a gathering of oaks overlooking that same valley. Much better than cooking if you ask me!

Woodland treasure - Sky-heart cradle, a Dragon or two and a Fuzzypeg family...

 Well it seems once more despite all hopes that weeks are fleeing by without me picking up a pencil or a brush, so I have no artwork to post here yet for now... but I know that all the imagery and scents and sounds of recent weeks are storing up in a quiet corner of my mind, waiting to flow outwards again... I'm still not sure why or what I am waiting for, but I know that if I sit worrying over a blank page chewing a pencil it will do no good. Time WILL come to just sit quietly and let the words and images that wait, quicken and unravel...

 But here and now is the small infinately delicate treasure I found today on our walk through the woods, light as breath, frail perfect sanctum that nourished a flickering wonder of coiled life-spark. That from something so fragile comes the brief bright-wing spirit to sing under rain laden leaves and brush the sky with its small heart... how can that not inspire!

The foxgloves also are all reaching tall in my parents garden despite the stormy winds and rain we've had... I love their speckled-ness. I even managed to catch a bee or two in my photos...
 I have a vivid childhood memory, perhaps aged about six, of watching a bee go into a foxglove flower, and for some unfathomable impulse of curiosity I had pinched the petals gently shut. The bee inside of course was furious, bizz-buzzing away angrily inside... and I was so horrified I was too scared to let go! I think mum came to the rescue luckily for me and the bee...!

Harebells too, the colour of summer skies...

 Later we went to our local Castle a couple of miles down the lane in Nunney, with the particular purpose of photographing our daughters for a competition at school - a bit of fun, for a picture of people reading in unusual places... so Elora being in love with Dragonkind at the moment posed like this...

 

Here's a bit more of the castle, its a nice place to have on the doorstep...

These ruined turrets rising through the trees remind me of Gormenghast a little...

 And here's Elswyth's photos reading Robin Hood of course!

I will leave you for now with some gorgeous little prickly babies...

 Our neighbour is a volunteer at a nearby animal hospitol and is currently nursing this lovely family of Fuzzypegs back to health until they are strong enough to be released into the wild. A well meaning but sadly ignorant family were keeping them in a rabbit run and feeding them milk and bread so they were really malnourished and sickly, one of them even had a plastic ring from a beer can around its middle. Thankfully they have all survived and have grown a lot in the last week now they are eating meatier food.
The children have been lucky enough to see them up close a couple of times now. Beautiful creatures indeed!

Huge gloves for little hands but necessary!

Beautiful heart shaped faces

This one almost reminds me of a little old woman swathed in cloak and shawl...

Hope you enjoyed these little prickle-pins... I will let you know how they get on when they are ready to be released! Bye bye for now...