SHIVER ME TIMBERS

One year on and the first landing is complete.

WILDERNEST  2014 to 2015-

A sanctuary where mythic iconography and rhubarb both grow well.
And poster poems paper the sea lanes. 

Under the eyes of the recalcitrant wolf woven in willow, and the ice age elk, 

a wheel of tin cans spins at the top of the waterfall. 

Above the new jetty and stone ballroom, spindle-vanes sway on high oak poles revealing a white hare and deer escaping fire. Whirlygig oystercatchers and corncrakes stand to for the next storm surge. 

The subtle ghost of a longship burial with Odin's figurehead dragon articulates the site 

and suggest the tips of deep rooted stories. A life raft unfolds. 

The iron firepit remains solid.

Rumour traces of immersive arts workshops, morning sound walks, 

evening gatherings with feasting, music, shadow theatre 

and Sicilian guests dancing late under the stars.  

Artists: Martin Brockman, Duncan Copley, John Fox, Jamie Proud, Bob Fisher, Dan Fox and Hannah Fox with civil engineer Peter Wilshaw and Martin Gooding, Richard Redwin and Daniel Higgs.

Project Management: Sue Gill with John Fox.

 

STANDING in GOOD STEAD

STANDING in GOOD STEAD  

Locality and place  - wood, water, stone & wind

The village of Baycliff is on a hillside overlooking the western sands of Morecambe Bay. Close by, hidden down Swinestead Lane - a narrow country lane that plunges down to the shore - is the Beach House. 

We are in the small parish of Aldingham - 7 sq. miles in size - with less than 1000 electors, average age 45 and rising fast. The parish boundaries extend into the sands. Indeed more of the parish lies in the sands than on dry land. So our population is extended by 18,000 micro marine critters per square metre living just under the surface of the bed of the sea. Our neighbours are mud shrimps, tiny snails, lugworms and cockles.

photos Prof Peter Matthiessen

I used to think that the name Swinestead Lane was a posh name for Pig Sty Lane, which puzzled me because this steep terrain is hardly conducive to rearing nice fat bacon. [ Our first online newsletter was  'Making a Pig's Ear of It']. Brief historical googling tells me that Swine originates from the Scandinavian word svein  and the Old English word swin both meaning a tidal creek. This certainly is a sheltered spot where boats could have been drawn up before the bay silted up. 

According to the Oxford dictionary Stead means locality or place and it is linked to the Old Norse word staor  meaning stop, pause ....    How pleasing is that! A place to stop and pause, to connect with the larger rhythms of nature, the tides and the seasons. Swinestead - the place and the time to re-balance.

LEARNING the ROPES 18-21 MAY

LEARNING the ROPES environmental arts workshop 18 - 21 May.

We are delighted to welcome Phillips Snell of Wild Arts as our Production Assistant for the workshop. 

She is the recipient of an ACE bursary for an emerging artist to participate in the WILDERNEST programme here at the Beach House. 

LEARNING the ROPES will be a re-examination of the principles of creating art in a context that unites the everyday and the larger rhythms of nature, the tides and the seasons. Space to re-balance and exchange skills.  JUST ONE LAST PLACE LEFT!      Stay in a stunning cottage right on the beach overlooking Morecambe Bay. Start your day with a 10 minute walk along the cobbled shoreline to the Beach House, home, studio and workspace of John Fox and Sue Gill. 

"It seems entirely likely that if the last wolf is to return anywhere then it will be here at the Beach House where art and life are carefully synchronised." Dee Heddon, Prof of Theatre Studies, University of Glasgow

 

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.  

BEACH ART

Getting ready for our Family Walk and Beach Art Day on Saturday 26th April for Ulverston WalkFest.

So much plastic litter landed up on the beach after the 2 storm surges in December and January. We are still tidying up. Decided to transform some of the colourful wreckage into assemblages and figures with the trusty glue gun, and this week began to install them on the foreshore, creating a children's garden.

           

     

                                                                                                      

for more info on how to get involved on the 26th, email us on foxandgill@btinternet.com
                  

DREAMS and LONGINGS

Walking in winter on Gozo, the tiny windswept island SW of Sicily.
Lovely people, industrious and practical, living in austere stone houses in dry dusty streets.

I was intrigued by the designs on the net curtains in their front windows - poetic, lyrical, uncharacteristically sentimental. Maybe longing for an exotic view from their window or whispering dreams of an unattainable domestic life.





                                                                          

                                                                                                      

       

WILDERNEST

Wildernest is a walkabout tidal garden on the west shore of Morecambe Bay, below John and Sue's wooden eco house on stilts. Somewhat ravaged by a couple of recent storm surges the beach is now recovering, in time to plan the installation of a series of sculptural installations in the coming year - using and celebrating stone, wood, water and wind.

No, it's not the Baycliff Heliport - it's THE POD - the annexe for guest artists. Located on a new deck built and photographed by Dave Conway, on the sheltered side of the Beach House. Also the site for out Sunset Tequila Bar .....

             email us on foxandgill@btinternet.com  if you want to hear about the Wildernest programme of courses, workshops and gatherings.               PS artists in residence must be less than 7 feet tall.

  

SOLSTICE TIME. HAPPY LANDINGS.

THINGS as LONG LOST COMPANIONS

Three months ago we made an outdoor Museum in a Day from flotsam and jetsam, displayed on the beach in an upended packing crate that had floated in. It contains, inevitably, much plastic marine litter that the tides deposit daily on the shoreline.

It still stands there, with its back to the sea and a handsome bleached sheep's skull on top. Curious walkers on the Cumbria Coastal Way peer in, perplexed at rusty cigarette lighters - unlikely bedfellows alongside a baby's dummy, a cartridge case and an old lipstick.

In his book of literary mysticism PUPPET - an essay on uncanny life, Kenneth Gross writes about the shadow boxes of visual artist Joseph Cornell, with their tiny objects set one against another:

'Each object keeps a certain solitude and secrecy......  long lost companions who speak in silence ...... a fragile but necessary community'. 

 

                   

                 

    

Storm Surge at the Beach House

   Exhilarating day last Thursday as 9.81 tide came in at midday with massive waves and white horses. The westerly wind in gusts was blowing the spray backwards as they broke. Came up higher than we have seen it for years, breaking against the low limestone cliffs and scouring the shoreline. Then a high 1 am tide, but by then the wind had dropped and it was a millpond.

The Beach House was OK - high and dry on its  stilts. Some flooding on the beach below us, around the fireplace and museum, which soon drained away. The poles for John's whirlygigs and weathervanes stood the test. All credit to Jamie Proud and Andy Mortimer who sweated and helped dig really deep holes to instal them in the summer.

Next morning all was revealed. So much had changed on the foreshore. Massive timbers lying for years all relocated and twirled around. Reed beds trashed. The previously cobbly foreshore smoothed with swathes of shingle and transformed into 'proper' beach.

Half a mile south along the peninsula is Bean Well where 18th century schooners would visit to fill up with sweet drinking water. A constant vigorous stream runs down towards the sea, and is host to a huge crop of wild watercress. There has always been an ancient stone slab acting as a bridge over the stream for walkers to cross. Today all the watercress is gone and that slab is slewed like a frisbee, only just doing its job. Maybe a work party with massive crowbars might just be able to reposition it?

The biggest talking point between early morning walkers is the Wishing Tree. It's gone!! Lost in the storm, floated out towards the Irish Sea ......   A hawthorn which, seven years ago after incessant winter rains, slipped 30 feet down the soft bank, roots and all. Since then we have nurtured it and decorated it with flotsam and jetsam, delivered daily by the tide. Public art by stealth. A rumour trace and point of interest for walkers on the Cumbria Coastal Way, who would pause for a picnic, take a photograph and frequently add their own creations. Was this a place of pilgrimage or an aberration?

And where can it be now? If it is washed up near you, please give it our best wishes and add some of your own.

STOP PRESS  The good news is that, within 48 hours, someone has already started a new one. A polished leather boot - albeit a bit rusty around the lace holes - has appeared dangling from the lower branches of a collapsing ash tree and already several coloured plastic bottles and bits and pieces have been added. Wishing Tree/ Rag Tree/ Cloutie Tree - call it what you will - these places are important and, as we have observed over 7 years,  seem to have meaning for us.

Booting up the 2nd Wishing Tree on the west shore of Morecambe Bay

  

WINTER DROVING in CUMBRIA

Winter Droving Procession Penrith

Hannah Fox created this magnificent Ram's Head lantern to complement the agricultural theme. 

Thanks to Duncan Copley, Simon Hanson and Bob Fisher. She also dressed the square with a couple of dozen new silk flags, burning the midnight sewing machines with Naomi Edwards and Donna - who is more at home with the industrial sewing machine from her fantastic yurt holiday company on the shores of Windermere www.wildinstyle.co.uk   

Public lecture at Sage Gatehead at 2pm 8/11/2013

http://www.sagegateshead.com/event/nature-of-celebration/

THE ELDER BERETS

It's that time again. The elderberries are full of sun and rain ready for harvesting. Pick them and boil them in a syrup. A great boost to the immune system. Take some each morning. It really works.

Here's what to do. Using a fork strip the berries off the stalks into the pan, cover with water and simmer for 10-15 minutes. To extract the juice pour the whole lot into a large square of muslin. ( Turn a chair upside down on the table. Tie the muslin firmly to each leg).Place a large clean bowl underneath to catch the precious juice. To each pint of juice add 8-10 cloves and 350 g of sugar. Return to the pan and simmer 15 mins. Leave to cool. Bottle in sterilised bottles. Store up to 4 months or put into clean plastic milk bottles and freeze.

It's that time again. Our October Rites of Passage Autumn School may offer further mellow transitions. Two unexpected cancellations mean we can offer 2 late deal places. For further info. See our website: www.deadgoodguides.com

                              Headline below ( in black on dark blue ) above the stunning image of

THE ELDER BERETS 

reads: 

                                " A NEW CONCEPT OF CELEBRATORY FACILITATORS"

I

LATE DEAL on Rites of Passage Autumn School

Quick! Save £85 on your fee for a place on our next Rites of Passage workshop 21-24 October in Frome, Somerset. A couple of late cancellations means that we have 2 gaps to fill, so here's a special discount fee of £295 instead of £380 for a place. Just 4 weeks to go, so don't leave it too long. 

Full details on deadgoodguides.com