58/100 Back and forth

This is intended to say something about connection and/or point of balance/change from one year to the next, but I fear it implies far more than intended that there has been a lot of gloom in the past, 

which is definitely not so!

I wish a very happy and contented new year to all who read this.

57/100 recovering ...

A day in bed, unwell so this one, taken by my daughter in Aldeburgh and slightly cropped by me, 

will have to suffice.

56/100 Back home

Home again - checking the photos, reliving the memories, 

and trying to recreate something of the  atmosphere

55/100 Christmas retreat

A tongue-in-cheek response to James Fielden's 'Winter retreat' - an early morning walk to the Martello Tower, Aldeburgh, Christmas Eve 2012

54/100

53/100 needles found

52/100 107 years ago

Christmas day 1905, in Warley, Yorkshire - Taken by Tom Sutcliffe, my paternal great-grandfather, whose wife Sarah, brothers, sisters, sisters-in-law, neices and nephew areincluded along with his daughter Dora (my grandmother, back row second from left) and his eldest son, visiting from America to where he had migrated in search of work.   Two other brothers were in Manitoba.

51/100 - print studio

I was first shown the magic of printmaking at Cleveland College of Art and Design in Middlesbrough, when oil-based inks were still in use - I know they were less 'green' requiring white spirit to clean up, but the smell was something to get high on,

50/100 Generation

One of several prints from a plate made by the sugar lift method,

in part a demonstration of viscosity inking, 

I intended to say something about generations, but was never fully convinced

49/100 - non-toxic intaglio

'Safe' meaning a lot less toxic than it used to bewith nitric acid - the red deposit is the result of etching with copper sulphate and salt, the blue because the plate is coated with plastic.

(I can't remember how/if the plate turned out/was successful)

48/100 - Orcadian subtle veins

Some Orcadian sand patterns - Warebeth beach - a response to James Fielden's subtle veins.

47/100 Practice to deceive

and much as I'd like to be thirty years younger (but with the extra thirty years' wisdom)

 it's not going to happen ... :(

46/100 Logins rope

45/100 'Everything's all under control'

For several days now the clouds above Middlesbrough have been lit with an orange glow;

not, as I first thought because the sun had relocated to it's May hour and position to rise

but because of ICI's firestack burning off some technical problem.

44/100 Swedish triangles

For reasons totally beyond my ken this will not load the right way round,

but as I'm playing with flags and a harbour perhaps it doesn't matter that much

43/100 Pond art

42/100 and there's been a lot of this about, too

This was from a few years ago, when the car we had was red (not so impressive against silver).   We've had several days of freezing fog and hoar frost - beautiful to behold.

41/100 ubiquitous

Somewhere south of New Orleans - my first visit to the States, arising from a desire for several folk from Six Sentences to get together.   We'll soon, fingers crossed, be planning our fourth.

40/100 candles after all

Early on in my Fine Art degree course we were required to produce a series of work on the subject of 'journey'.   I chose to record what happened to candles lit for an hour each day (I know, I know but this wasn't the most pretentious, by a LONG way!), one was a black cube the other a tall, fat  yellow  one.   This was in the days before I knew how to Photoshop - superimposing drawing over painting has produced a much more interesting result.

39/100 Morning light north and south

Cornish dawn superimposed over Orcadian dawn -

 Penzance chimneys and Stromness sea pinks

38/100 Ice circles, New year's day, 2010

 

Composite image of ice circles in a puddle, 

 within sight of Stanton Drew's circle of standing stones, 

apparently the third largest collection in England.

37/100 The blacksmith's wife [41]

Who?’  

‘Who is she?’ 

‘Who has done this?’  

‘Who will tell her blacksmith man?’

Owl, slow howling, insufficient strength to say his name.  

Me?   Me.  

He?

Bursts in, bruised, raven-shraak, scattering the what-who-whooed concern around me.  

‘One dead?  Two?’    

Anguished acceptance, seeing blood-smeared thighs akimbo, fleshy shreds, grey-lilac limbs drowned in a crimson pool.

‘Gabriel’ barely-breathed.   

‘She lives!’

Kneels, lifts my hips to slow the scarlet trickle, wraps me to his heart, calloused hand caressing cold-sweat cheek.

Eyes question mine, pledge overdue revenge, frantic for my survival.

Too late. 

Too much blood.

Chorus:  ‘She’ll surely not survive such loss!’

No.

 


This is part 41 of 'The blacksmith's wife'.   The whole is a prompt-led serial  which began on the Friday Prediction, in March  and continued, one hundred words at a time, for forty-one episodes.   One of my aims in this 100 days project is to complete the illustrations for each episode and publish the tale in book form.    The  story can be read in its entirety here.

36/100 The blacksmith's wife [40]

Village harvest festival, marrows big as three-year-olds, piglets with two heads, jams and hams, ale and rose-hip wine drunk to excess by red-faced farmers and their wives.

I, disguised, occupied the fortune-teller’s booth; promised death or love or money as desired to successive gullibles.

But I was the bigger fool:  Mathias the final customer.   He  knocked me down, played Punch to my Judy and, while Gabriel wrestled with a farmer’s son, kicked life from my belly, leaving me in hopeless lonely labour.   With a screech ‘twixt owl and vixen I expelled bloody pulp, then a second lifeless babe burst forth.

This is part 40 of 'The blacksmith's wife'.   The whole is a prompt-led serial  which began on the Friday Prediction, in March  and continued, one hundred words at a time, for forty-one episodes.   One of my aims in this 100 days project is to complete the illustrations for each episode and publish the tale in book form.    The  story can be read in its entirety here.

35/100 The blacksmith's wife [39]

Despite forthcoming fatherhood, Gabriel allowed no languishing; still expected me to skin and gut the animals he brought home. So many were so often full of babes themselves and I disgorged in unaccustomed sympathy e’en as he ate, hand clamped to my quailing mouth as his clutched spoon and bowl of herb-steaming rabbit stew. 

‘Coney-skins’ he claimed, ‘cleansed and stitched together – a winter coverlet for us, and another for the babe.’

‘Or a shroud for me if you persist in forcing me to make it!’ I one especially nauseous day did cry.

But it passed; I grew big, unaccustomedly contented.

This is part 38 of 'The blacksmith's wife'.   The whole is a prompt-led serial  which began on the Friday Prediction, in March  and continued, one hundred words at a time, for forty-one episodes.   One of my aims in this 100 days project is to complete the illustrations for each episode and publish the tale in book form.    The  story can be read in its entirety here.

34/100 The blacksmith's wife [38]

By dark Gabriel’s forgiving sweetness had turned sour.
His hands around my throat, not quite in jest, jeopardised my breathing:  ‘There’s penance to be paid for your promiscuity,’  

He’d forgot that he had likewise sinned, also that I fought dirty, and, hand-slipped, I did.

‘And what of yours?’ I squeezed, then told him of my condition.

‘You’ve lied before, why should I believe you now?’

He yelped again and smacked me;  our bed became a battleground, the loose-weave wool that covered us a sweat-reeked coat of arms – Thor rampant, wife couchant.

By morning status quo had been queasily restored.

This is part 38 of 'The blacksmith's wife'.   The whole is a prompt-led serial  which began on the Friday Prediction, in March  and continued, one hundred words at a time, for forty-one episodes.   One of my aims in this 100 days project is to complete the illustrations for each episode and publish the tale in book form.    The  story can be read in its entirety here.

33/100 The Blacksmith's wife [37]

 ‘Sweetling’ he grinned, ‘‘Tis time you learnt experience eclipses fumbling adolescence every time.   His dangled promise of delight is but soft come-quickly when compared to the stiffness of my intent to prick more than your conscience into cleaving solely unto me.’

I allowed my hair to eclipse my gleeful anticipation:  such a welcome promise to dangle before me, sufficiently dispelling stiffness from the tumble I had taken (and sorrow for the one I’d not, since my jealous spouse appeared several minutes sooner than desired.)

But damn his eyes, he well read mine, and laughed and bade me wait ‘til dark.

This is part 37 of 'The blacksmith's wife'.   The whole is a prompt-led serial  which began on the Friday Prediction, in March  and continued, one hundred words at a time, for forty-one episodes.   One of my aims in this 100 days project is to complete the illustrations for each episode and publish the tale in book form.    The  story can be read in its entirety here.