WHAT REMAINS?

Filling the gap between image 4 and image 6 - here it is, Mr Punch astride the skeleton of a prehistoric elk - the last of the collection finally to be mounted on the wall alongside the path down to the beach. Plenty of comments from passers by.

Our local astronomer from the village, with an observatory in his garden, walks his 2 dogs every day past the Beach House.
"Do you know Holbein's painting of The Ambassadors? Same content. You've hit the button," he said.
We didn't know it and had to look it up.
John replied that he is trying to make images that communicate and are not sentimental.
"That's not in the least sentimental," came the reply.

Then Lily, a neighbour. "I've been looking at your pictures. Very ritualistic. They're pagan, not C of E! Elemental I'd say."

These images are more than a metre high. John is producing A4 size prints in the studio on exquisite archival paper for people with smaller walls to hang them on.

POSTER POEMS

PRINTS from original paintings by JOHN FOX & MARTIN BROCKMAN.

WILDERNEST project - WOOD, STONE, WATER and WIND

Installed on 20th August along the path down to the shoreline below the Beach House. 

DEAD GOOD WORDS: STANDING HIS GROUND

DEAD GOOD WORDS: STANDING HIS GROUND: The Ghost Elk has survived ex-hurricane Bertha. Installed by artist Martin Brockman as the first part of the Wildernest Project  - a growin...

STANDING HIS GROUND

The Ghost Elk has survived ex-hurricane Bertha. Installed by artist Martin Brockman as the first part of the Wildernest Project  - a growing sculpture garden in this elemental landscape located here below the Beach House. Four artists' commissions using wood, stone, water and wind to create four temporary installations, made possible by funding from the Arts Council.

We are averaging 500 visitors a month. Some stumble across the work accidentally, others are driven by curiosity and fascination to search for almost a mile heading south along the cobbled shoreline from Sea Wood car park [where they spot the sign announcing the hazel herd on the beach]. The rumour is out. Once discovered, they linger, take photos, read the panel about the mythology then turn and walk back to their cars.

Responses range from " As I saw it I immediately thought WARHORSE!"
to " I like the baby one best".

   

VISITING the MUSEUM of WATER

Intrigued by a small preview that was showing at Lancaster Uni, we wanted to visit the full installation beneath Somerset House, on the bank of the river Thames, and to take up the invitation to donate to the Museum. Deciding which water to take down to London was easy. Some bathwater from the newborn twins Luca and Bel, our latest grandchildren. We nurtured it carefully on the train journey from Cumbria to London in a sensible screw top jar.

The paved courtyard of Somerset House has a huge water sculpture spouting straight up from the ground, which is treasured by the city's children on hot days, who will be blissfully unaware of the crypts and 17th century gravestones just below their playground.  We took the lift in the far corner down to the Museum of Water, where we were met by a guide and led through narrow stone passages open to the sky, which felt like a cross between a Venetian labyrinth and a mediaeval dungeon.

It took a while for our eyes to adjust to the darkness as we stepped inside the vaulted chamber of the Deadhouse.  Nooks, crannies, niches from floor to ceiling were filled with bottles, jars, flagons and phials of every shape and size, each containing water donated by someone, each one candle lit. Water from a holy river in India, a bottle of tears, a melted snowman .......    The curator's table was in a niche. She invited us to sit down and tell her the story of the water we had brought. With our permission she recorded it. Sue began, John embellished, each finished the other's sentence. Our story was told.

Then we took out the 'real 'bottle  - a small antique bottle we had dug up in the garden - rectangular in shape with an elegant neck and its own perfect ground glass stopper, and our small ceremony began. We transferred the water without spilling a drop. It felt important to seal its precious contents, particularly in this somewhat sinister setting.  Striking a long match from the box we had brought - the recorder is still running at this time - we melted a stick of sealing wax and sealed the stopper with rich red wax. Finally, two curlew feathers collected from the sands of Morecambe Bay attached to the front face of the bottle and a handwritten label on a ribbon. We chose a spot to place our bottle, alongside other baby related offerings.

We were adding our joyful thanksgiving in the full knowledge that some bottles contained fear, regrets, bad memories, grief. John created an instant poem which was also recorded.

This bathwater of our twin grandchildren is unique.

Flowing from an ancient place it spirals a future blessing

to the babies with no water at all.  

Ours is bottle number 452 and we have a beautiful hand stamped parchment receipt, which is safely back home now in our family treasure cupboard. 

Museum of Water - artist Amy Sharrocks - commissioned by ArtsAdmin  6 - 29 June 2014.  

Discussing the Subject of Death

On BBC RAdio 4 Today programme this morning Jon Adamson tells us that, in the 3 years since he started the idea in the UK, there are now over 700 Death Cafes where people can drink tea, eat cake and talk about their mortality in a comfortable cafe-style setting.

Our well thumbed handbooks The Dead Good Funerals Book - which answers all those questions about funerals that you always wanted to ask - has been spotted more than once amongst the crumbs.
Clean, non-sticky copies available from us at www.deadgoodguides.com 

  

A NEW ISLAND appears

It is not often a new island appears on your doorstep. Here is IDRIDGE SCAR, a dark horizontal band of limestone, 1.5 km south east of the Beach House out in Morecambe Bay. We found it marked on old OS maps, hence the name, but in the 15 years we have been scanning the Bay countless times a day, there has been no sign of it until now. Here it is back again, demonstrating the dynamic nature of this Bay and its storm surges, constantly silting up on one side and scouring out down to the bedrock on the opposite shore in an endless cycle.

     

We walked out to explore it and saw close up the limestone ridge of rock fringed with a green beard of seaweed. We have not actually set foot on it yet as there was a sinister channel flowing fast between us and Idridge Scar.  We must wait until there are extremely low tides and dry weather.