skate

A small group of young people have taken over and engineered a derelict area next to the studio to suit their skateboarding practice.

I've seen them in the space from a distance, and kept meaning to explore when they weren't around... I got my chance last week, and relished walking around the structures they've created. Their building materials are basic, weathered, scattered and they have utilised rubble piles and concrete surface to great effect. The experience was no different to viewing sculpture in a carefully curated space and bought to mind artist friends who would have enjoyed this solo preview. 

This intervention is (of course) done without permission. Even so, I carried a sense of trespass in their space, and felt as if I was breaking a rule! 

October baby

This vine is a vibrant reminder that mum's birthday is drawing near. She would have been 85 next week ❤️

She was the last of seven children and her mum, Ada was 42 when Doreen Edna was born ❤️

finds - watercolour

I painted my July finds in the groups I'd discovered them, three different woodland pathway sites on a local walk.

signs of life - a decade on...

10 years ago today I posted my first musings on this blog. 10 years!

This last decade has seen me move from Sheffield, to London, to Derbyshire with 9 house moves - my much longed for settling evades still, but is getting closer, fingers crossed.

I've grieved much this decade, the realisation that I'd never be a mother and the loss of my own mother to liver cancer in 2017 and that I continue to walk a single path... and so be it.

I've lost and gained friends and done my best. I've relished the beauty I see and witness good intent and kindness everyday.

I'm a little floaty as I'm on day six of the seven day #rationchallenge, and have raised almost £500, you can sponsor me here if you wish. Today I met a friend in Hall Leys Park in Matlock, she told me I looked pale. She also said well-done!

It is a beautiful day.

  

shards

Visited New Mills two weeks ago and found these treasures by the river near Torr Vale Mill. I think the ceramic shards were brought into the site with building debris to shore up the river bank, they don't make sense in the location.

It reminded me of an allotment I had a decade ago near the Greyhound Stadium in Walthamstow - the earth was full of ceramic and glass. Someone told me the soil had been transported out of bomb damaged central London after the war.

Recently, I read the word 'sherd' for the first time and though it a typo. Sheard comes from 'potsherd', defined as a broken piece of ceramic material, especially one found found on an archaeological site. In general, sherd only refers to pieces or fragments of pottery whereas shard may refer to broken bits of glass, metal, rock, and ceramics. 

sycamore

I walked to this tree on the shortest day of the year last December, and found myself standing by its side on the longest day this June. I'd not planned to do this, but found I'd measured a half turn of the Earth by my pilgrimages on foot to this tree, a sycamore.

finds

Last month I went off for a walk after a succession of rainy days. Top soil had been swept from woodland pathways revealing rich pickings of the domestic pottery shards that delight me. I've found these many times before on a particular path near Scarthin Wood, but on this walk they shone from pathways I'd never gathered from before. I kept them in the collections I'd found them, placing the muddy finds in different sections of my backpack.

I'm drawn to these worthless shards, were they a preferred bowl, favourite cup of a father or son, were they handed down from a mother to a daughter, precious, part of a wedding gift? Was anyone heartbroken when they shattered? Can I sense an echo from who held them? Who raised cup to lips, clattered a spoon scrapping the last morsels of porridge from them? The past in the present, a ceramic trail, reminding me of Hansel and Gretel's attempt at retracing steps, staying safe in the wood.

I'll paint these in their families, recording their cracks, breaks, pattern and decoration in watercolour and pencil. Devoting my full attention while I fix their likeness to paper.