Today somewhere near Sherwood Forest...
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I rarely share my home life here, or indeed pics of me if not 1: teaching or studying 2: wearing a swan head mask. However, this is one happy day on the stern deck of the steel shell of what will be both my new home and my sometime private small workshop venue. I hope to welcome many folks aboard, and unlike my current boat, people taller than 5’10” won’t have to stoop anymore. Which is pretty cool as almost all my relatives are over 6’ tall. .
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So, in about 6 weeks, I may have something to show for my many years of waiting, planning and saving. I am learning much about creating fitting containers for life to flourish and magic to happen. .
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Normal wild materials, art and nature posts will resume tomorrow! But tonight I am daydreaming about my boat. Also @a.rural.pen , I will finally have walls, and they go straight up rather than lean inwards! So I can go get your labyrinth framed now, it’s gonna look great in the saloon. (btw landlubbers, that’s boat-speak for lounge or living room, sadly I don’t have a Wild West hotel or anything...) Yet. .
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#boatlife #sterndeck #happywoman #steelwork #marineengineering #widebeam #madeinengland #riverlife
Hearth-life, not half-life. .
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Oak galls for ink boiling on the stove, perhaps absorbing the stories and songs, sunny breakfasts and candle-lit moments in the living room / kitchen at @sherkin_north_shore . It is one of the most inviting places to just be. Open to us at all hours for tea and relaxation, it was the receptive hive in perfect complement to the creative hub of our cliff-top classroom. . .
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I am currently on the train home from Scotland and have just crossed The River Tay at Dundee, yet again, which is one of the measures of my brief life, as it is also a tradition of mine to send greetings to friends from here. Potametronomy, is my new coinage (Potamos - ancient Greek for 'river', Metron 'measurement') for this recurrent riverine allotment of days. Crossing the Thames, the Tyne, the Tweed, the Forth, The Tay, The Dee, each month, both ways. A joy.
It was such a low tide, the river was almost still, reflecting the sky. Sandbars were visible for the first time in my 5 years of this journey. Treacherous for boats but beautiful from the vantage point of the viaduct. No birds, which was strange, but they were probably further out in the estuary, hunting, or perhaps sitting on nests, incubating eggs.
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#traditionalmaterials #oakgallink #makeink #sherkinisland #wildtwinscourse #ceilidh #artcourse #writingcourse #trainofthought #newwords #potametronomy
Baskets, boxes, books and feathers. From day one of Wild Twins course, how we begin. Gifts of books, quill-cutting, brush-making, pulling the hazel lids off tubs to see what’s inside. Magic seeks a fitting container. It is so in myth, in tales and also in life. Part of my work is to match-make between ‘internal’ content and ‘external’ form. .
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The box, the casket, the cauldron, the chalice, the book, the library, the locket, the wardrobe, the ark. (We all know deeply these things are more than a place to put things.) The vessel, the alembic, the crucible, the hollow tree, The Globe. .
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Goodnight all. .
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#traditionalmaterials #naturalartmaterials #naturalart #organicartist #basket #feathers #rawmaterials #gifteconomy #handmadebook #birchbarkbox #barkbox #ashbark #naturalcordage #wildtwinscourse #fishskintanning #bushcraft #codskin #goosefeather #swanfeather #container #myth
Wild Twins course day two: the alchemy of colour - making paint from natural binders and grinding rocks for pigment. A handful of history, a pinch of geology, a generous splash of chemistry, plus some elbow grease... Result: personal sets of wild materials, ready to make art and words in response to nature, each other and the bursting moment. .
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#wildtwinscourse #naturalartmaterials #naturalart #pigment #ochre #chalk #paint #makepaint #organicartist #earthskills #artcourse #watercolour #watercolor #tempera #glair #treegum #paint #artmaterials #traditionalmaterials #charcoal
Hawaiian materials in pic 7 kindly gifted by @avalon.dawn.art
It’s a week since the Wild Twins course ended and I am back in the thick of life, travelling, teaching T’ai Chi, planning the material details of an upcoming drawing commission... Over the next few days when I have time I will post some images from our time on Sherkin Island. These are from the Thursday walk, out to the southern side of the island, the edge of the world. .
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#wildtwinscourse #sherkinisland #wildnature #atlanticcoast #paulkingsnorth #thesea #ireland
