Lady's Smock

We have been amazed at the profusion of Lady's Smock all over the garden this year. Usually a clump here and there and a sprinkling all over. Not this time. Any ideas?

Apparently it is loved by the caterpillars of the orange-tip which will account for the many of them hovering around the plants at the moment. More interesting I read that, being a good source of Vitamin C early in the year, it was good against the scurvy in olden times. There was a problem with this, though. The plant was particularly loved by the fairies so anyone picking it was liable to a good cursing!

We will not have to worry too much in this regard. We can get our green stuff from Tesco and leave the fairies to have a ball.

"Exquisite Editions" at The National Print Museum, Dublin

Over in Dublin there is a very lively print museum where there are inspirational workshops for children and adults to learn about the creative processes involved in the making of a book surrounded by the type and presses collected together from letterpress print shops.

At present there is an exhibition which runs round the gallery above this active print shop entitled Exquisite Editions. Around thirty books are displayed which have come from active presses around the world who continue to use presses such as those on show in the museum striving for the highest possible standards and using high quality materials.

The books have been selected by a Dublin printer, Jamie Murphy, who has his own press The Salvage Press where he creates  his own very finely printed editions.  This is a version of The Battle of Maldon with wood engravings by Simon Brett.

There are showcases for the display and hanging above each is a description of the press involved in the making of the book on show and the details of the book itself. It has been curated with great care and obvious love for the many ways in which books can come into being.

We were delighted that Jamie Murphy chose Angela Lemaire's A Christmas Sequence which was photographed at the show and put on Facebook so that we may share it with you here.

enfolding . . .

 During much of 1997, a 'studio' was formed from a sheet of plastic lashed to a number of trees in a birch grove surrounded by fields at Catchmays Court and the sculptor, Matt Baker, could be found carving away for hours a day at a sizeable chunk of reddish 'forest stone' which had been chosen and imported from a nearby quarry that has been in operation since Roman times.

The figure that eventually emerged from this stone can be seen in all these photographs. All the stones that surround him had been there for probably hundreds of years. Some were left just as they were but many others were moved, by Matt and various helpers, so as to form the low walls of an enclosure with the figure more or less in its centre.

 The figure can be interpreted in numerous ways. He is clearly emerging from the ground itself and the element that partly envelops his naked body can be read, depending on the angle of your vision, as a piece of material, a hollow tree or a solid rock.

 In the words of the sculptor, While in the the process of becoming and emerging from its surroundings, a figure is seen in the process of beginning a gesture. The weight of the body is focussed behind the right hand, as the hand intends a sweep outwards and around to echo the shape of the enclosure.

 Just as the figure is becoming, from out of the folds of the place, so he is conjuring the folding from the outset.

 

 The sheep may or may not have a sense of all this but what they DO know is that 'creative' hand is absolutely fantastic for rubbing the part of their back that they simply cannot reach!

For that was the starting point of this post for me. It was agreed with Matt, from the very beginning, that the sheep who roam these fields should be very much part of the sculpture . . . hence its name. The fact is that cohorts of the creatures come and go as the seasons go by and they all seem to develop different behaviour patterns . . . particularly as to where they go to get out of the wind. Some cluster around the base of a Western Red Cedar, and some in the corner at the foot of a large Pin Oak.

This morning, however, blisteringly cold in the wind but with bright sun, the whole troop was using the sculpture's area in just the way that had been planned for. I just had to go for my camera!

Iconic French poem translated with stunning images

New Publication

At the beginning of January 2015 we sent out a notice to those who have opted into our mailing list about this exciting book which brings the ground-breaking French poem by Blaise Cendrars to English readers in a translation by Dick Jones together with stunning imagery by Natalie d'Arbeloff. Almost within the first day all the copies of the special edition were spoken for and the main edition is being sent off to some very prestigious libraries. We repeat that newsletter for those who may have missed it or not opened their email that day!

 poem by Blaise Cendrars
translated into English by Dick Jones
with imagery by Natalie d’Arbeloff

This extraordinary epic poem - known for short as the Trans-Sib, given its deliberately awkward and cumbersome title - was written by Blaise Cendrars in 1913. It is a compound of the literal and the surreal, a breathless travelogue, historical commentary and dreamscape narrative.

His daughter, Miriam Gilou Cendrars, writes for this edition a note about the importance of Cendrars’ work to modern poetry of the twentieth century. She has enthusiastically praised this translation and has encouraged us throughout in our labours toward the realization of our dreams and hopes for this edition.

 The poet had been in Russia in 1905 at the time of unrest followed by the Sino-Russian war and the dramatic incidents which occur on the journey he makes (in the company of his lover, Jeanne) may well have happened to him. As an impressionable young man he imparts a sense of vivid truth, writing of these historical events in minute detail.  

 

  This vivid truth is also powerful in Dick Jones’ translation into English of the poet’s original text in French. As he writes of the poem - ‘the narrative itself is presented in a refreshingly direct and simple style, breaking entirely with the traditional conventions of verse form and its graphic literality is punctuated by passages of lambent and dreamlike imagery, prefiguring by 40 years the experimentation of the Beat poets in Cendrars’ beloved United States.

 

 Dick Jones and Natalie d’Arbeloff were both equally excited by Cendrars' writing and together created a rhythmic, pounding fusion of image and words retelling this journey across Russia on the famous Trans-Siberian railway. Cendrars' account of this journey has been immensely influential on the literature of the twentieth century especially in Europe. It deserves to be better known beyond the French-speaking world.

  The translator continues to work on other poems by Cendrars and for those unfamiliar with the work he has created a Facebook page for Blaise Cendrars which is well worth exploration.

2015 48pp. 335 x 355mm

Main Edition: ISBN 978-0-907664-92-5   150 copies numbered and signed by artist and translator    £295 (plus p&p) 

Special Edition:  ten copies for sale  The book is placed in a drop-back box together with a portfolio containing four images printed and hand coloured by the artist.Two are taken from the book and two were made especially for this Special Edition (see below). Each is individually signed and numbered by the artist.            £1350 (plus p&p) 

The paper is Canaletto Liscio 160gsm. Typeface is Storm Sans. In the printing of the text, twenty-four different colours of ink were chosen, employed at random. The suite of vinyl cut images are printed directly from Natalie d’Arbeloff’s original blocks. The book was case-bound at The Fine Book Bindery with papers designed by the artist and the lined slipcase and the Box containing the Special Edition is blocked with an image of Cendrars.