Knitting Socks

I've begun to knit my very first pair of socks. This is the first sock. 
I'm using up some old wool, as I'm expecting to make lots of mistakes. This is the rib; I'm starting the sock at the top of the rib, and working down the foot. I'm not looking forward to turning the heel; it looks pretty complicated. I think I'll be getting some assistance with that!
Everyone is ribbing (!) me about how I'm a bit late to be knitting socks for Xmas presents! Ha, how right they are. Perhaps for next Xmas?

Spurn....again

 Photos from my recent visit to Spurn Point.

The door inside the lighthouse.......

 Cracked window looking out of the lighthouse.

Looking out the lighthouse window to the groynes on the beach. 

I love the way the colours come together at Spurn. The greens, browns, greys, blues, are a soft background that the lighthouse structure frames and focuses. 

To stand in the lighthouse, was to experience the overlap of the outside world and the inside of the building. And the rust particles and peeling of paint of the lighthouse structure, emphasised my sense of dilapidation, and things being worn away. Just as the sea pounds the Spurn peninsula, wearing the pebbles to sand. Everything is shifting at Spurn, all is in motion.  

paul & paula's wedding

My busy week, ended with a special day on Saturday. My friends Paul and Paula got married in Wakefield. It was a fantastic day, bright and sunny, and full of lurve!
And they hired an old 1950's bus, on which everyone travelled to the reception, in fine style.
I couldn't resist photographing the metal balls on the back of the seats! 

 Paul and Paula after they'd got married, outside the church.

Inside the old bus; decorated with bouquets of flowers throughout. What a way to travel!

richard hawley & simon armitage

a fuzzy Simon Armitage, signing books, to ghosts in the machine!

A busy week, last week.
On Tuesday I went to Leeds to see Richard Hawley; on Friday I saw and heard Simon Armitage, in Wakefield.

Richard Hawley was awesome. He played a lot of songs from his new CD, 'Standing at the Sky's Edge', which I've been listening to avidly, for weeks now. It really mixes his trademark 'crooning', with something more psychedelic, and guitar-based. There are lots of drones in the music, which I dearly love, and nature references within the song's lyrics. 
Also a lot of....quiet....then LOUD....sections; where Hawley's voice is soft, and the main focus of the song. Then there is a shift to loud, rocking guitar-based sounds. His lyrics too, are subtle, and don't always go where one immediately expects. He eschews cliche...which is always delightful. 
The stage set, too, deserves a mention. He had trees, standing behind the band, appropriate in view of the subject matter of the new songs, and the way he referenced the natural world. 
I presume the trees were in pots of some kind; and they had magically maintained their green-ness, and leaves. During the show, they were light-drenched in hallucinogenic colours, like stained glass windows in Gothic cathedrals. 
I was struck by the connection, as the Gothic cathedrals have columns, with carved greenery and leaves, marching down aisles, creating a forest of stone. The ceilings are intertwining branches of stone, supporting the roof, and impressing the viewer even more strongly of the outer world of nature, brought inside the religious buildings.

My feeling of being inside a cathedral, was emphasised even more, by the fact that Hawley had a music stand beside him...in case he forgot his lyrics? It looked like a church lectern! The world according to Rev Richard Hawley! Mmmmm!

Simon Armitage was appearing in Wakefield as part of Wakefield's first Literary Festival. He did his reading at Westgate Chapel, which accommodates  a bigger audience than the Orangery. Simon was reading from his book which documents his walk (from North to South; against prevailing weather and wisdom!) along the Pennine Way. He was humorous; serious; interesting; profound; just what you want and expect of a poet!
He was asked if he'd listened to music on his mammoth walk, as he's well known as a massive music fan. He replied that he deliberately didn't take his iPod, as he wanted to immerse himself in the experience of the walk, and get away from those things we use everyday that can distract us from the world around us.
He did say that he'd been in a pub, on one section of the walk, and put some music on the jukebox, and it sounded almost physical. That he felt as if he could have reached out and touched it. That it was hallucinatory.
Such is the power of music. It can create synaesthesia within us. 
Simon Armitage's gig, then, connects to Richard Hawley's. The connection of their experiences of music; and the power of both music, and the natural world. When I experience these connections, I am lifted, and my soul is fed.       
  

Spurn Point; 'Textures of Spurn'

View through the lamproom window of the lighthouse at Spurn Point. Looking to the north (east) of Spurn Point.

We visited Spurn Point yesterday, to see Alice Fox's textile (and print) exhibition 'Textures of Spurn', on show at the Lighthouse. It was an opportunity to not only see the work (I've been following her artist-in-residence blog) but also to go inside the lighthouse, which is no longer in use.

Despite the weather; cold, windy, cloudy, with occasional rain; the views were fantastic, and the shape of the spit of land was made visible. 

The clouds were dark and threatening; the wind hummed through the telegraph wires like an Aeolian harp; the sea boomed and crashed.

It was an elemental place, and we were scrubbed clean by the sand blown across our bodies; faces and hands, scoured. I returned home with sand in my hair; dishevelled.

We walked the 3.5 miles from the car park, down to the lighthouse. Walked the steps up (and down) the lighthouse. Then walked the 3.5 miles back to the car. 

It was an exhilarating walk. A walk of memories, of previous visits to Spurn. And worth the walk, to climb the lighthouse steps, and see Alice's artworks. 

Alice Fox's enormous textile piece, 'Spurn Cloth #1', tied, and displayed around the circular space of the lamproom at the lighthouse.

 Another view of the lamproom textile piece, 'Spurn Cloth #1' by Alice Fox.

'Spurn Cloth #2' by Alice Fox. Hanging down two floors of the lighthouse space, at Spurn.

You can see Alice's blog, which tells the story of her residency, at www.spurnpointartistinresidence.blogspot.co.uk

Dyed, Printed, Stitched & Spun #1

The cotton is dyed using onion skins, a lovely orange brown colour. I've printed onto another piece of fabric. And the wool, is from my first attempts at spinning using a drop spindle! Not fit for knitting with, but very useful for adding texture to a fabric piece.
Not sure quite where this piece is going yet. I need to do some machine sewing on it. I tried handstitching, but it will just take too long, despite the added control it gives me with my mark-making. I'm hoping I'll be able to do some handstitching embellishment over the top of the machine stitch.

Today is bright and sunny, although cold; and we've reached the Equinoxial time of the year, so I shall be utilising the daylight that we have, and stepping out into my studio across the patio, to work on my canvases. After today, we'll be slipping inexorably into the dark. Winter is ahead of us. 
And I have begun knitting my very first pair of socks! Rather appropriate for the dark winter nights! Though too late for xmas presents! No, I think my first pair will be for me. I can iron out all the mistakes then!

sarah lucas @ Leeds

Above is the cover of Sarah Lucas' catalogue from her exhibition at Henry Moore Institute in Leeds. The sculpture, 'Gourd', is a cement cast of..well, of a gourd! One of a series of cement casts of fruit and vegetables. 
The catalogue reads;
'her concrete marrows and squashes have the fullness of the votive vegetables offered to fertility gods around the ancient Mediterranean.'
I like the contrast between the softness of the fruit and vegetables, and the hardness of the concrete; the greyness of the cast, with the real-life colour of the grown produce.

Below is the sculpture, 'The King', created from casts of plaster and wood.
The catalogue says of 'The King', that it is 'a mechanistic spiral of dagger-like paired plaster penises suspended over wooden blocks.'
I saw a whirling wheel; a swastika; a cross; an altar; a circle; action; movement. Delicacy of structure - it hangs from wires looking as though a sudden draft would cause it to fall. And solidity of materials - casts of wood and bone.
It has memories of archaeology too; the ancient picks used by neolithic people, made from deer antlers, with which they built Stonehenge, Callanish, and sundry other stone circles and monuments.

The catalogue says of this exhibition;
'In 'Ordinary Things', a selection  of thirty-one works spanning 1993-2012, these processes take in cutting, moulding, handling, stuffing, displaying, and assembling , utilising conventions that move from the monumental to the ready-made, the formal and quick-build, via the representational, abstract and true-to-materials.'

and;
'Lucas' use of found materials could be straight from the strategies of Arte Povera, that loose grouping of artists whose sculptures are resourceful compositions of objects and materials bearing the traces of use, responding to changing economic and artistic contexts.'

and;
'Sarah just didn't think about making art that could easily be exhibited, or sold, or archived, or consider the practicalities of flogging it. In that way...her work was women's work, done because it had to be done, for its own sake. Its currency, like the flesh of the animals and vegetables Sarah uses as a medium, was soft and vulnerable, not hard and bankable.'