July 21st, 2009
Sorting out old books today, I came across a small 1930s brochure praising the delights of Keswick on Derwentwater. The author Hugh Walpole’s foreword got me thinking: ”We love this place because it is a land of perpetual change. Rain it may but even at its most savage the change in sky and colour is perpetual. Colour? No small square of ground anywhere in the world holds such vivid colour..”
It reminded me of Coleridge’s wonderment as he wrote to a friend in 1800 about his view from Greta Hall, where he was living in Keswick:
“Here I am, with Skiddaw behind my back; on my left, and stretching far away into the fantastic mountains of Borrowdale, the Lake of Derwent-water; straight before me a whole camp of giants’ tents,— or is it an ocean rushing in, in billows that .. reach halfway to heaven?”
Both their comments over a century apart struck a chord with me that ripples wider. Changing colours and shapes – Coleridge’s tents were Barrow, Catbells and Causey Pike – feast the eye and imagination. This certainly is the tonic for me as I walk the hills, but these same characteristics apply elsewhere and in other contexts too. Just recently I shot a series of photos (below) of street art in Valencia, both old and new; and got the same buzz from its energy, colour, zany humour and vibrant engagement.
What’s more the artists recycle existing resources – walls, doorways, corrugated iron – for their canvasses, so there’s an environmental advantage too! Photo No 1 is of Neptune surrounded by maidens and pigeon. No 4 shows the lively face of a young woman on an 18th century dish at the National Ceramics Museum.
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July 16th, 2009
This last week we’ve been to visit Seven Stories in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The brainchild of an old friend of ours Elizabeth Hammill, the National Centre for Children’s Books is housed in a 7 storeys high 19th century warehouse on the river Ouse beside the Tyne. Refurbished for over £6 million, the building is a stunner.
This unique Centre is fast becoming a museum and showcase for the original scripts and artwork of many of the best children’s books of the last 70 years. It makes a magical day for children and adults alike as they move from floor to floor through different areas and changing exhibits (See photo left of the storyteller’s throne).
It’s not only encouraging youngsters into reading, but in the process is introducing them to questions about relationships, friendship, travel, climate change (Photo opp), the environment and much else. It was exciting to see children’s response to the little fancy-full ship moored outside (Photo above), made entirely of recycled material. There’s a superb bookshop too, where we bought for The Larches a children’s book, Love your world, which can be used with our Children’s Wildlife Quiz.
Make a date to go the Centre – you won’t be disappointed.
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July 6th, 2009
Saw a fascinating art project at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) last weekend, which chimed with themes we’re exploring on lakelandbelvedere.com/ The Waste Not installation is the work of Beijing artist Song Dong who’s gathered together around a shed all the artifacts – shoes and stools, bottles and buckets, wood, wire, kettles, gramophones, packaging etc – which his mother saved over the years for future use and repurposing. They make a telling story at many different levels, one that’s both personal and political.
They flashed up images for me of our cellar with timber I’ve kept (and part used) for 40 years; and of the Ethiopian woman last year – when we trekked through the Simien Mountains – who squatted for an hour, so she could take away my emptied plastic water bottle.
Recycling and reuse makes sense to save resources, but here’s the conundrum. As economies develop, the incentive to conserve is lowered and more and more gets thrown away. Waste Not has a message for all of us, not least for the people of New York and Beijing, whose countries produce over 50% of all CO² emissions. There’s an intriguing video of the installation being assembled.
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