These are some photographs that  I made in the summer inEngland ,in North  Staffordshire near a town called Leak In a way this is very high ground and in some ways the gateway to the Peak

 district  ( part of the Pennine chain that is so to speak the backbone of England ) This is a very austere and dramatic place I am often reminded of certain photos that I have seen in certain remote parts of Australia When I was a teenager I knew the whole area  very well because my friend and I would fly fish in the valleys beyond .And indeed  having passed through this gateway of this place ( called the Roaches ) one drove down to the beautiful river valleys of the  river Manifold and the  Dove I think one of the things  that I am trying to explore in this blog is the importance of the influence of many places upon ones life and work - The little relief sculpture below has something of this landscape

This is a bas-relief called Landscape

In the prescelly hills

                   Your  Autunm mode -

                    mirrored essence of my 

                                          being -

                   mood of the forgotten

                   poem in my heart .

                    Stillness - stillness of hills

                     elusive in your taut

                    oblique distances -

                    Ripeness of the valley

                    synthesis of sombre colour

                     gold brown and grey

                     exquisite leafage





                   What is the ineffable

                               essence

                    we feel about place or event

                    having so much meaning

 ,                  ( yet in wordless recognition )


                    in the feeling beyond sensation

                    in the sight beyond seeing -

                     in that elevation where we

                    feel at ease ?




                    Shoulder of hawk scanned

                                 heights
                   

                       this homing to the valley

                   the kernal of a house


                    collecting L IG HT


                   that will transfigure you


                  if you stand by the window -



               As she stands there - gathering light - giving peace .

This is a poem that  i wrote after a visit to friends who lived in a very alternative  green cottage in the Prescelly hills, this is probably the place where the famous blue stones of stonehenge were quarried and hauled all that distance to Salisbury planeAnyway in the order of "" magical "" places in W AL ES this place ................I rate highly

                

                

                  

                 

                 

                 

               

                      

fall

The  gold  and grey

         of Autumn        mock

                     

                  the  indelicacy  of      art

Only in loves -

Only in loves

    darkness and light

rich

         woven tapestry

   coloured by our passion -

or when souls roots

            grow down

into the fertile soil

         entwining  -

nights abandonment

dreams and visions.
.




Only in loves

alchemy - the dross

the golden thread -

     mystic union

the redness of all roses -

     voice of violas

in the rooms where

     we twisted our

dark tangled skein of intimacy




Only in loves

      furnace of smoke

and flame -or deep

     in the dark abyss

of our dumbness

I will remember CRY OUT

I will not forget

      not even for nivana

these words to heal

and cleave loves sad seperation .

These are two drawings that Imade in Dartmoor at the time that I made the painting of the Kiss ,you can see that the painting basically follows the drawing that I made the other drawing suggests ?

four kern paintings in watercolour ( I call them kern paintings because they are made from the centre and not related to the traditional rectangle or square