Another poem from Kathleen Raine

Heirloom

She gave me childhood’s flowers,
Heather and wild thyme,
Eyebright and tormentil,
Lichen’s mealy cup
Dry on wind-scored stone,
The corbies on the rock,
The rowan by the burn.

Sea-marvels a child beheld
Out in the fisherman’s boat,
Fringed pulsing violet
Medusa, sea gooseberries,
Starfish on the sea-floor,
Cowries and rainbow-shells
From pools on a rocky shore,

Gave me her memories,
But kept her last treasure:
‘When I was a lass: she said,
‘Sitting among the heather,
‘Suddenly I saw
‘That all the moor was alive!
‘I have told no one before.’

That was my mother’s tale.
Seventy years had gone
Since she saw the living skein
Of which the world is woven,
And having seen, knew all;
Through long indifferent years

Treasuring the priceless pearl.

Just Beautiful. It is a wonderful feeling when you find something that links and intertwines with your work.

Kathleen Raine

Change

Change
Said the sun to the moon,
You cannot stay.

Change
Says the moon to the waters,
All is flowing.

Change
Says the fields to the grass,
Seed-time and harvest,
Chaff and grain.

You must change said,
Said the worm to the bud,
Though not to a rose,

Petals fade
That wings may rise
Borne on the wind.

You are changing
said death to the maiden, your wan face
To memory, to beauty.

Are you ready to change?
Says the thought to the heart, to let her pass
All your life long

For the unknown, the unborn
In the alchemy
Of the world's dream?

You will change,
says the stars to the sun,
Says the night to the stars. 

Lorna Graves

Dylan Thomas

In my craft or sullen art

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Not for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

Easter

Almond Truffles and A solitary Pelargonium.

I had lovely Easter at my Nanny's country house in Norfolk.

It is always very enjoyable to over indulge on homemade truffles and hang out with the family.

Glass

To preserve the past, can be seen as a dangerous thing.

Flower book before firing..

After firing, only floating ashes remain..

The transparency of glass symbolizes the wish to be understood while its fragility signifies emotional vulnerability an apt metaphor for the passionate idealization and libidinal over investment that characterizes obsession. To be obsessed with the past or with the love object. To be fixated on what is unattainable or irrevocably lost. This is a dangerous psychological state, leading to melancholy, sophism even insanity.

(Taken from the Freud exhibition The return of the repressed: Louise Bourgeois)

My favorite piece form the exhibtion

The Dangerous Obsession, 2003

Louise Bourgeois

A spiral is also a metaphor for consistency in my drawing.
The soul is a continuous entity.
I am consistent
You can trust her because she is consistent
If Louise tells you that
she loves you, she is not likely
to change her
mind.

Taken from 'The fabric works book'

Rainer Marie Rilke

Nature, the things we move among and use, are provisional and perishable,
but, so long as we are here, they
are our possessions and our friendship,
sharing the knowledge of our grief and gladness, as they have already been the
confidants of our forebears.

Jessica Greenman

Here are some delicate, detailed etchings of flowers by Jessica Greenman, who collaborated on a book with one of my favorite poets Alice Oswald.

Head of a Dandelion

This is the dandelion with its thousand faculties

like an old woman taken by the neck
and shaken to pieces.

This is the dust-flower flitting away.

This is the flower of amnesia.
It has opened its head to the wind,
all havoc and weakness,

as if a wooden man should stroll through fire…

In this unequal trial, one thing
controls the invisible violence of the air,

the other gets smashed and will not give in.

One thing flexes its tail causing widespread devastation,
it takes hold of the trees, it blows their failings out of them,
it throws in sideways, it flashes the river upriver;

the other thing gives up its skin and bones,
goes up in smoke, lets go of its ashes…

and this is the flower of no property,
this is the wind-bitten dandelion
worn away to its one recalcitrant element

like when Osiris
blows his scales and weighs the soul with a feather.

Margaret Mellis

Another beautiful inspiring artist, collecting flotsam and jetsam and creating artwork from these forgotten fragments.

She also exhibited in good ole' Norfolk at Salthouse in 2008.

And a beautiful drawing

Knitting

I have been knitting since a very young age, the skill passed onto me by my mother. I am still attracted to knitting because of the whole process of making a piece, the repetitiveness actions involved to get to the end result, is very meditative and relaxing. Its a little bit like ceramics in a way, practice. The only thing that knitting and crocheting provides is that immediate choice of colour. I am always in awe in a wool shop at the vast range of colours and textures of wool's and threads. Ceramic however is a slow art, a patient art, the outcome, for me nearly always a surprise, i do like this also. Chance and imagination is very important.

So its Easter Holidays (sort of). And I have been indulging in some knitting, especially as there is an excuse now with baby's on the way! 

Below is a baby cardigan, just finished. Knitted in a vintage waffle like stitch with glass buttons. 

I enjoyed doing this after making little socks and mittens!

Below is one of my first jumpers I made about 4 years ago now! 

It is made up of all remnants of wool, the combinations of colours is something i really like in this jumper.

And here is another baby garment in the pipe line, more vibrant!

Recently I have been thinking and i get the most enjoyment out of making things for people.

And Death Shall have no dominion

And death shall have no dominion.

Dead mean naked they shall be one

With the man in the wind and the west moon;

When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,

They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

Though they go mad they shall be sane,

Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;

Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.

Under the windings of the sea

They lying long shall not die windily;

Twisting on racks when sinews give way,

Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;

Faith in their hands shall snap in two,

And the unicorn evils run them through;

Split all ends up they shan't crack;

And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.

No more may gulls cry at their ears

Or waves break loud on the seashores;

Where blew a flower may a flower no more

Lift its head to the blows of the rain;

Though they be mad and dead as nails,

Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;

Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,

And death shall have no dominion

Dylan Thomas