Pembrokeshire mist

            Intimate most meaningful


                         of moments


            when natures mood and I


                        are one.


             Then I can only stop and feel


              and know that I am this


                       and this is me -


             life cradles me .


            Dark coverlid of sky


                        glowering  overhead -


          womb of world myself


                       the embryo


          container and contained


                     kernal and the shell


                                   winds space -  



             or wrapped close by night


                       darkness and darkness -


             
             Then I a child -passed faith

                       feel ecstasy -oneness for that while .







             

Late night pub thoughts on the theme of success and anonymity to be recited or sung to rambling blues guitar -

                  It was late one night , or early in the morning and we were sitting drinking playing                           some chess and we talked about success and anonymity how good it was not to be                             known   (   l i ke  true  losers ) AND HOW DANGEROUS  fame can be W e
                  thought about those well known casualties we thought about Oscar Wilde  John Lennon
                 Jim M orrison  Jimmy Hendrix  Amy  Winehouse Janis Joplin Marilyn Monroe  Malcolm
                 Lowry Jack Kerouac A Rimbaud .................                                  






                                                P u b    thoughts 



                      You  reach  the top

                       your life will stop                      


                        Your much sought fame

                         eternal shame


                        Success  is  sweet

                        fools you will meet


                         
                        When you are known

                         the bird has flown


                       First they thrill you

                        then they kill you


                        You think they care

                       your worst nightmare


                       A  bankrupt  age

                        live  out your rage


                       The way is long

                       dont lose your song


                      Dont let the booze

                       become your muse


                      Go  to the bars

                     but watch the stars


                   and remember


                   Your  elation is


                   your  sole   soul  salvation


                         your  elation





                  

Love

                       


                   O h   t h e  t e r r o r


                   t h e  e c s t a s y


                  t h e  h u r t  a n d


                 t h e  p a i n  -


                  P l e a s e   l o ve


                p l e a s e  l o v e



               c o m e       a g a i n     !
                  

Nederland

                                  


                     
                 T h e    s n o w


                                
                         i s



                        c o v e r i n g 


                             m y  f o o t s t e p s



                     a s  I  w a l k


                          
                             t h r o u g h


             
                t h e 


                              c o u r t y a r d s



                a n d       d o w n    




                         t h e   a v e n u e s



                                  o f  t r e e s               

              

               a l l   i s  w h i t e               

  


                            b e f o r e  me                                                                


          a n d   I   w e l c o me



                      
                     a l l   t h i s  ne w n e s s 





                                   f a r e - w e l l  .........


     














                    

The village of oulton

 It was sacred Saterday  , and he had the whole Summer day to spend at his grandparents home in the birth place of his father in the small village of oulton ( an almost feudal  village near to his own birthplace of Stone )

          His mind still redolent of heroic acts and dreams of the night before as he walked the half mile to the bus stop (in those days no-one worried about you going off alone  at five years old ! )In rolled the red and cream bus, he adjusted his holsters held the pearl handles of his revolvers tightened the cord of his stetson and stepped aboard into the smoke filled petrol fumed vehicle . The smiling driver told him to hold onto his horses as the bus lurched its way up the hill -

                 Up the first hill to oulton cross ( where his aunt lived in a small cottage ) then down the steep hill called '" the flash  "  and fast it was ! Then up the other side past the rather sinister convent the first rather grand house of the village , past the large police station to the centre of the village with a small farm on one side and the Wheatsheaf pub on the other .Waving goodbye to the driver he took the small lane behind the farm to his grandparents house, although he well knew of the dangers of taking this route- it was a perfect place for an ambush ! He loosely held the pearl handle of his revolver in readiness .

            His grandparents lived in a house at the highest point of the villge on the edge of a place called the sand hole or the rocks , both were a good description .In the beginning of the century half of a hill was carved out for its wonderful golden sand until they hit the hard rock centrewhich stood there monumentally in all its different steps and layers as the perfect setting to his " wild west '' '

  On top of the rounded green hill  standing all alone was a large ash tree perfecting the symmetry (much later in its life lightning would claim it ).After the welcome from the family and being told that he must listen out for their call for dinner his objective was to find his way onto " the rocks "His uncle had initiated him   into the secrets of the place for this had been and still was an age old play ground for country lads ! The first obstacle then was the sand stone rock face with its various foot holds and hand holds ( rather like the climbers practice climb  of today ) But you needed to remember the correct holds or you would fall ! How satisfying it was to successfully haul oneself up and find oneself on the first ledge and layer of  " the rocks , with all the day yet to enjoy !        

       end of part one Oulton .

Thoughts of the day - The computer is without limets in its capacity of memory in its ability to make connections within  this field - but the  human spirit is unfathomable -and fortunately beyond the compass and scope of a mere machine  .And thats why .....................

Amsterdam

 As  he often did when visiting that fateful city ,out of curiousity or of nostalgia he would
 go to see the house that he had lived in for seven years some thirty years ago .
 Those were different times with its residue of the sixties, squatters and riots and a few bombs  going off here and there ( some uncomfortably close to the flat ! )
 As he turned into Ruysdael Kade, he felt as if he was in that time again , nothing seemed
  to have changed and the place felt charged with a spring like feeling everything felt new
  and sparkling and there was a  feeling of welcome from the street, the houses and the trees,
   especially the elm trees which he had so often looked at and drawn.
               The beautiful Rijksmuseum looked down with its golden towers over the scene-
 He looked up at the second floor of the house at the alcove where he had often sat, walking up
 the two steps he noticed that the door was still the same dark green with the same familiar metal grating over the small window and beyond he could see those steep leg breaking stairs leading- Looking at the names above the door , he noticed that the owner of the house  (after thirty years ,was still living there,and he knew that if he still held the key to that house, that he could walk  through the door, climb those hilly stairs and resume his life as before, forgetting his other life  and that other city .
      .

            


        

Incarnation

                          Descending from  high



                                      altitudes



                                             clouds  open - sunlight - mist



                                                        the  grey  Northsea -



                             clouds  water  strand



                                           flickering light through the  cumuluses



                                  joyfulness   -




              towns    lakes  -



                                          canals -                 squares of flowers




                          Amsterdam         -      a  dream  ?







               A room in de Pijp




                              intricate  patterns  of  sunlight



                                    upon a table -



                         friends - love  - family



                             webs  of  relationship


             past  and present



                                 God   -another  lifetime !






               









                                                    
h

A man is lost in the labyrinth he makes in Art and politics -W B YEATS

Thought of the day-Use technology use the internet but for Gods sake - for Gods sake dont fall down on your knees in adoration and in worship!

Thoughts about the "" sublime ""

Thoughts upon the word sublime , a word rarely  used today if ever in connection with art -

oh certainly we have "' Awesome'" and if ever was a word more abused it is this  one , I mean 

a haircut is not awesome however wonderful , a visit to disneyland is not or is it .

Some years ago I vsited The Highlands of Scotland in the late Summer

I came over a rise in the hill and there below was the Loch , a huge expanse of water surrounded

by high mountains the setting sun  burnished gold upon the water .One heard in the distance the

the weird calls of the golden eagle - I was awe-struck by the I MMENSITY one felt small and insignificant- one drowned in the vastness of it .

                  However getting  back to the wonderful word sublime - its difficult to relate this word 

to a lot of  modern art because it seems to have many narrative classical aspects However I would say an artist like Mark Rothko seems to aim towards this mainly through his experience of the immediacy

of the experiance of some of Michelangelos works . Actually the word means putting something  

on a pedestal making something  elevated something of a transcendant nature. I can bring to mind

many examples of this quality Bethovens ninth symphony-some of Mahler Bela Bartok

In painting Nicholas Poussin  -probably also the Greek word pathos has a part to play in its meaning .

 Certainly if  one goes into  The British Museum and walks into - lets face it the stolen 

statues of the parthenon freize   -there one finds awe there one finds in marble flesh echos of 

the "" sublime "

Contemplation

                In  the  bay - 


                                      what  white  purity



                 of  the waves  -




              For  the  "  maker "


                                    
                                   what blessed  snows




                                       of   a  blank  page  !

Pembrokeshire

                A landscape  - scooped and crested -


                    dark in imagining



                          light streaming over waves



                 fields - tilled earth -



                           zig zagging towards distant



                 mountains and jagged



                          heaped headlands .


                Whinning sea wind


                         makes metal gateways   moan -


                                             drone


                 Tibetan  music in the air



                          ( a fitting monody for so gaunt a scene  )  

   

        And I considered


                                        the stangeness


                  of lonely Winter days  - looking out upon

                 
        the    white pagan  saintly seas -


                  stranger even than silent snow in city suburbs .

Inscape

        Not the search for this or that   

                       state

       and not the domain of another

     

     the darkness  or light of another -

    no - but moving towards and being

   in that grey dawn like light

  a hinterland - a zone where all 

               is possible

where dawn breaks upon dunes

   that reach far horizons -

  into a reality where dreams begin

    are born and quicken into life

    not as metaphor       but a place

   where life and death - dream and

                reality

   melt like snow flakes

  in the flames of truth

  in the burning heart of all .

    

                             

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

smiles and sunbeams

This is for you -

On whatever shore you are .

Know joyfully '-

That all things

Will be renewed

And beauty will come

Like a awkward

Child        smiling again -




Wherever you are

In the world

The sun will search you out

Illumine every corner

Of your world

Come in through

A window and

Transform       a Winter room






And your inner

Sun will blaze

Luminously

Through-out your being

That darkening

Clouds  eclipsed

Till now

thought of the day and who knows-  well it is this. In the old  days I will not  say'the good old days  why   ? Because we( can not set the clock back ( or can we ? ) In the good old days before wirelessWell in those days you could be ALONE imagine that being completely alone israther sad you may imagine Well I have spent large periods of my life alone I have spent also many times in my life not alone with  a partner or with a very active social lif e( like now ) Hower I would  say that I learnt the most in my life by being alone- And I ask myself is it possible now with internet and phones to be really alone ? Ah you will say you can turn everything off - really? Aloneness is a very rare  occurence in our  time and I think that this  is a great tragedy -thought of the day--                                                                                                            

This painting belong s to the text below- my second viset  -

Dartmoor Tor in oils

This is a painting that I made a few years before The  Kiss (previous post),I Went in late September in  a kind of Indian summer I  stayed  in a caravan high above the river Dart rushing on its way  through the valley to the sea beyond, ,,Sometimes I worked for a sheep farmer. he was a great believer in a forgotten race of little people that lived there thousands of years ago- His great delight was in his collection of miniature arrow heads and , this for me was a deepening of the mystery of Dartmoor-This is a painting that I made a few months later in Amsterdam I made it from sketches that I made earlier, I was inspired by the wonderful geometry of the landscape that I witnessed almost every evening and I could easily understand the meaning that our ancestors would invest in this-This is  a wonderful aspect of creativity seeing the constant in the transistory here again is the mystery of the natural and that which is man made ,

 My second viset to Dartmoor was more dramatic .   Two days of heavy storms Suddenly the heavens opened and it was wonderful calm weather and I went out into the wonderful landscape.; Ifound myself  in a kind of museum a bit like the Britsh museum the famous  Elgin marbles I saw many animals a lotof geometric forms there and the greatestof them all a large sculture of the kiss Two large forms converging upon one anotherHower the experience was very ambigious were the forms made purely by the elements  are they forms that I created myself or are they forms created by another intelligence Of course I will later show drawings and paintings of my experienceHOWEVER I do know that the experience was very powerful and I do believe that the experience was  of a transcendent nature.

COTE DU SAUVAGE

Poetry-true language

     of lost lovers  -

           Pontivy -

I think about that place

         about you

feel sand and sea  -

        the bar

the people -tables -sparkling glasses

       held in that moments magic

              all looking out now

      at the deep blue horizon

watchers waiting for a god ?

     a ship- the return -

coolness of evening - nothing  ?

after arguing geraniums sing

      against the harbour wall

(seen with a painters eye )

boys plunging into the seas depths

the place gives us back our harmony

     

        soothes warring souls

shall our love remain like this ?

the lovers always looking sea -wards

         found faithful at last

   in this eternity '-    

This a sculpture in lime wood that I made over the last year called dancer

COTE DU SAUVAGE

Poetry

imagine

Hokusai

said

I want to express

everything

in just

one

dot


         imagine




I say

I want

to express

everything

in just

one

word\
     

       imagine

A curious conundrum

We are most ourselves

When we are absent -

When we are busy with a task

That we love, we disappear into

Our totality'



The tree is not only the chattering leaves

But the sturdy trunk sap and roots

Going deep into the earth'



Little mind thinks that he is the Boss

Big mind just looks on and smiles

Someday we will be friends perhaps-

Little mind is scared

Scared of the apparent nothingness of big mind-



Big mind answers -

One day you will realise that you are the one with nothing

Only then can we become friends !

The difficult thing

To be here now -

       The difficult thing

For desires ungainly restlessness


          Moves in times


                   Endlessness -

This is something that I wrote whilst sitting on the banks of the Rhine(going on its beautiful powerful way- ) looking at the churches and blue hills beyond in Germany.



           
                   France- Winter - 2015



      News on the television -

      Strange - only silent images

     Without commentary

      A clear Winter day -


     Birds fly unawares

    Across the camera frame -

    Trees patiently await Spring -

    In the distance a field is being ploughed

       


   Policemen dressed as samurai

  Squat with their weapons

  Behind a low wall

  Drinking coffee and smoking -

 Awaiting the assault

 All is deceptively quiet -




Suddenly an explosion

Blasts the silence -

A man appears on the flat rooftop

Waving his arms

The assault is over

The battle won

A nation breathes again -



The temporary insanity of

Man persists -

But the illumined Tao

Goes on forever -


               

Its time that time just turned around-its time that time concluded-

Time-always means tension  The process of becoming - and we never get there Maybe because there is nowher to go -

 intermezzo     do not swim in the corrosive river of time  allow time to go  on its restless way stay on the bank of the river  allow time to go its own  restless way-TIME is the enemy

DARTMOOR Perhaps it's interesting on a personal level; to say something about a place in England
that I have found very inspiring. I first came to Dartmoor in 1978. I had been living in West Wales, and went to live in  a place called Totness in Devon, on a farm with a few friends. I must say, when I arrived I did not have any real great expectations of the place, as I already had the view that the Peak district in the north and Wales in the West of England, were the most " magical "places in Britain.
I can assure you that I don't use this word in any airy fairy way!
Anyway, one of my friends said to me one day "lets go on to Dartmoor". From the time that I was very young (sounds strange  writing this ) I  was very sensitive to feeling that  a place would have upon me; of course both positively and negatively because I realized that places have a soul and there are places where the soul has been all but destroyed in nature which of course is related to industrial and ecological factors;
 So we took off for the moors - When we returned to the farm I felt that I had awoken from some wonderful and fragrant dream. The earth soul of Dartmoor  had embraced me and would never let me go!

This is a small sketch that I made after my last trip to Dartmoor  more later .

Bird Sculpture

In repose - sculpture with Molly

This is a sculpture that I made as a student in Manchester in 1962. It is made from flawed Alabaster.  

Learning from Nature

This is a work I made some years ago. Starting off making some mono-prints and allowing the images to suggest the text in a kind of associative way like the surrealists worked stimulating the subconscious or deeper levels. Although the work was made in this way, in a random way, I felt it became a kind of unity.