Light : 03

The 'stinky back alley' I referred to in last post. I thought this photograph was lost in the robbery (almost two years ago now) but holding my nose and diving in to a cluttered inbox for some long overdue filing under 'b', there it was, thank goodness, as if to prove a point that in the midst of rubbish out shines beauty.

In tandem to this post, the extraordinary–yet–humble story which occurred as I knelt in a flowerbed surrounded by empty bottles of Lambrini is now up on news. With thorny plants catching my jeans, it struck me what a very strange throne this was as I observed such a momentous occasion as the Angels landing. But it is fitting, as this whole story has been one of good things coming out of darkness. The first phonecall I received to come on board with the project came 2 days after that robbery, which cleaned me out in more ways than can be imagined.


{Today's soundtrack: The Shins}

Light : 02

When was the last time a beam of light caught your eye? No, I mean really stopped you mid-track, so that for a second you forgot what else you were doing.

I remember ages ago walking down a stinky back alley on the way home, tired and miserable. The sunset bounced off windows at the end of the street and made golden pools all along the alley and it has been my little street of reminder ever since – a reminder that gorgeous things come out of rubbish.

Taking photographs, (as I discussed a while ago in my first post about light) it is difficult to avoid the 'exquisite light' moments that happen upon us occasionally, and even for the most quiet, humble soul it is very hard to resist the poetic temptation to make them mean something other than just basic physics at play.

Whether these moments are meaningful in themselves depends on who you are and what's going on for you at that time, don't you think? Whether you need a 'Damascus' moment or just some help picking out the shape of things in a shadow, we are nowhere without light. It doesn't need to be earth shattering, as these photographs from today show – humble, regular, straight in front of you. But I fear we ignore light and take it for granted, some even pretending it doesn't matter.

It's often after or during a storm that the best light moments happen, beams bouncing around off wet surfaces in the most brilliant ways. Don't tell me this is mere physics and without metaphor. Silver linings, and all that. Consider this, that maybe the best light beams are saved for when you need them the most.

(There is an extraordinary story about light and the angels from this week, but I'll save this for your delight tomorrow on news.)

Go outside! Get out from your lightless places!


{Today's soundtrack: Band of Horses - Cease To Begin}

Be Calm

Just stay calm. Sit on your hands. Coffee won't help, neither will that chocolate you're being offered. Breath in and out. Remember, you are the same person you were yesterday and will be tomorrow. Walking still requires one foot in front of the other.

But, my goodness, this is exciting...


(more on news)


{Today's soundtrack: Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocalypse}

It All Collides

Events around here this week are just too much for an ordinary human to navigate alone.

Saturday, I went to a very moving and uplifting wedding, laughter bouncing off the walls. Yesterday, I sobbed with shocked companions throughout a friend's funeral, and by the evening was sending love and hope flying across the planet to New Zealand where one of my closest friends has gone into labour with twins...

...and this afternoon they call to tell me the angels are arriving in Bristol on Monday.

A year late, but I always suspected they would choose their timing well.


{Today's soundtrack: Joby Talbot - May, June and November from Once Around The Sun}

Little Elf

How is it possible to become emotionally attached to a car? It's only a heap of metal with four lumps of rubber underneath, isn't it? Not this one, evidently, as I got really choked up today when it was driven off to meet its new owner. Yep, sold to the man with the soft spot for vintage motors. Ooh, that distinct smell of old leather seats and petrol, mechanical clunk of a really long gear stick and huge steering wheel with no power for turning on a sixpence. It's provided forty years of love, this little one, and I only enjoyed three of those.

1969 Riley Elf – 'a mini on high heels' as a friend once described it. Off she went today, pottering down the lane into the busy beyond.

You couldn't drive anywhere in this car without people really smiling at you, and it was having the same effect on me inside as I went. Such a joyful object, just the way it looked, never mind how it moved! And that's the point. It brought me an awful lot of joy at a time when I really needed it, and have had an amazing journey since. Don't need the car anymore to tell me things are ok – it's brilliant to get to this stage. Happy, but I'm very sad too.

"Off you go, little one!"




*

NB. The photos today are clearly not taken by me! Thanks Jimmy for these, and also Ray Singh who inspired many happy Sunday evenings waxing it up at Carwash Club.


{Today's soundtrack: Wavey Dave's Big Chill remix: rum, glitter fairy and guilty pleasures. Cheers Big D, and thanks for the good times!}

Bless Him

We've lost a man who meant much to many, but he kept himself apart, so the many never managed to tell him this. It is bewildering, his choice to go, but it is not for us to speculate, judge or gossip, only for us to salute, say thank you, and bless your soul.

MF, we love you, and will miss you.

x

Sailor's Sweetheart

My 'Sailor's Hand' tribute the other day got me thinking. Although names weren't mentioned I know who I was referring to. The 'Sailor' will know too, and so will his sweetheart, and in fact it was she who first suggested those words which I remembered all these years on, then all of us who revisited them as I described.

She put into words what her man would be feeling, so it's unfair to misrepresent the Sailor's Sweetheart and put her words in his mouth. My tribute does remain the same for a man who has held firm and sailed his ship through fierce storms, but she really is the wind in his sails and brings a big heart on board! Thanks to her for saying what he was feeling.

There is no picture today, just an apology and an idea that I should visit them with my camera soon.


{Today's soundtrack: a friend + guitar on open mic at The Miners.}

Easy Life

Sitting still watching out over the beach, hair crimped with salt, hands wrinkled and dry from the wind, freckles coming out, nose running, and sand clinging to my toes, I shut my eyes and all I can see is the crest of a wave as it breaks over the nose of my board, then recall that feeling of being up against a power almost too big for you, when the wave is so enormous you have to dive through its base and the force of it crashing over you is so strong that any second now it might wash your skin clean off but you hold your breath and keep going... Right here in this moment I just had a flurry of ideas about things and had to write them down.

But this post isn't about me! It's in honour of a flustered waiter who, obliging and trusting, lent me his biro ("like gold dust around here") and a few sheets of his order pad to commit the ideas to paper, all because I ignored the golden rule – don't leave home without a notebook!


What were the ideas? A series of drawings to be put together like songs on an album, and it's all well and good having the wild ideas which leave you as soon as you have to go and do the ironing, but it's another thing seizing them as they gallop past and insisting they go on paper – that's when they start to become real, and that's probably why loads of people never do it.


There's a related post on news.


{Today's soundtrack: Kings Of Leon}

flipped

Sorry, yesterday's picture is rotated on its side by mistake as I sent it in hasty anger and from the phone. Today, the ipod is charging, I did get some more sleep, and the irritable grouch is on its way out. Off to draw things on clifftops for a few days so I hope to post but forgive me if the pictures come out sideways!


{Today's soundtrack: lighthearted noises - chuckling and the like, and a loud, random shuffle playlist on the road trip.}

"I'm On The Train!"

When you find yourself with little to say, silence is fine. This extends as far as not very funny Dom Jolly impressions when on a train with colleagues and someone else's phone goes off, as 'ironically' delivered by this man sitting in front of me. He had only just finished his own loud call about snow machines and pea gravel for a car shoot.

Grating. Embarrassing. I need more sleep.


{Today's soundtrack: nothing, ipod's out of juice. Grr.}

Sailor's Hand

You said to me ten years ago, "It's all just on the horizon for you isn't it?"

I said last night, "Everything's still just on the horizon."

You replied with a hearty laugh as if to say, "Yes, I know darling, but keep going."

I consider the work of your leathery hands, and the weather lines on them that say it's not always been plain sailing – you've had your eyes fixed on the horizon for seventy years now, but you do love it in your boat.

The secret really is to be happy with today, isn't it? Older, wiser, you are good.


{Today's soundtrack: Seth again. I'm captivated.}

Good Enough

That piece of text, over there on the right, about understanding things–there are some times I don't need photographs or words to understand, but for some reason am still compelled to make a picture to try and explain, so here I am with a couple of really terrible gig shots and what may well turn out to be very clumsy words! I'm putting them in because they just have to be good enough.

This weekend I went to a festival and heard some amazing live music. I watched Seth Lakeman's wild and uncontrollable energy concentrated and pushed through the robust little strings of a fiddle (pictured) while he thumped the floor and sang out to heaven, and as he made a noise bigger than massive itself I stood utterly captivated because–in visual and audio form–he was describing how it feels inside when I am shooting or drawing and lost to almost everything else.

Later, I listened in shock as my friend Harry and his orchestra played Holst's Mars and Jupiter. I didn't know he was performing that piece of music – Jupiter was my mother's favourite piece. Even though I grew up with it, this is the only time I have ever heard it live so naturally the memories came blustering in like fierce gusts of wind. And that wind blew – it blew all the sheet music off the stands, blew the unruly sound waves down from a teenage rock gig somewhere else on site, blew my hair in the way while eating festival falafels and the microphones over the violin section picked up its heavy blustering while Maddy (Harry's daughter, pictured, with Harry in the background) punctuated the score with "Daddy, I love you!"

I sat stunned in muddy grass while Maddy's mum, my friend Karen passed me a tissue, and I fumbled for my camera desperate to capture something of all this in pictures, knowing any attempt to shoot it would be hopelessly inadequate.

These pictures are rubbish, but today they are good enough.





{Today's Soundtrack: Seth Lakeman - Poor Man's Heaven}

Just say 'yes'

"The tears of the world are a constant quantity."

On Sunday, in a brief moment of sorrow I looked out at a deluge of rain–the angels' tears they were, in empathy. The sorrow wasn't long lasting, passed as quickly as the rain, but it was there so I gave it the moment it was asking for.

Some say you can't be truly transformed unless you suffer some degree of brokenness. This isn't to say throw open the doors to pain, but at least find out what it has to say and deal with it.

The enemy of brokenness is Pride, which Judgement and Criticism are constantly prodding in the back. They are there to convince you vulnerability is wrong. Be without them, they won't let you progress anywhere in your life.

{Today's soundtrack: Lamb - Heaven, from What Sound}

Rickie's Field : II

{Today's soundtrack: Susumu Yokota}

Rickie's Field : I

{Today's soundtrack: Susumu Yokota}

Corkscrew

[ in response to this morning's hair-raising shadow ]

I wasn't sure whether or not this should actually appear on the news page, but settled for posting here instead as it is a source of inspiration.

This is my hair, and it seems to be forming shape, and this, my friends, is worth noting.

The humid weather has lately, I suspect, caused a boom in profits for those manufacturing frizz-reducing hair products. It is likely the ripples will be felt as far as implementation of proposed Controlled Parking Zone restrictions, as hair across the nation refuses to be tamed and spreads rebeliously wherever there is space.

Enough is enough.

Today I visited the stylist to have highly cumbersome locks addressed. Not only have I learnt from another creative professional on her expertise and persistence in wrestling a Goliath-sized opponent, but the sculptural inspiration I am left with will no doubt feature in a drawing soon.

All these corkscrew curls make me think of wine bottles... I'm off home. Have a very lovely weekend. x

I say...

So there I was gently waking up with circles of confusion, when the shadow of my own head-larger-than-body pointed out there was no point delaying a haircut any longer:


Then I noticed–with fresh eyes–something else massive: a single orchid bloom on my windowsill, which is growing bigger than my palm. It is quite extraordinary, mesmerising and beautiful:


You can only imagine my surprise when I stepped out of the front door to find this:


I believe the young people would say, "Get in".


{Today's soundtrack: Noah and the Whale}

What's Your Beef?

'A-agony–oh, a-a-a-go-ny,' I sing to myself while waiting for my tiny, cherry tomatoes to turn red! A joyful little song, not to let actual, painful agony get the better, but we're just willing them along.

For the record, today is August 14th, and last year I had my first tomato by August 10th. By this day last year things were looking really juicy. Currently, I'm watching one dark orange cherry tom struggling to make it to this same level of rougeness.

So it seems we're not actually so far off harvest, even though it's been so very chilly these recent days (anyone else found themselves defiant about putting the heating on?) and a little warmth would help ripen things up and get this party started. (And thanks, yes, before you ask I do get out, often.)

Because it's me, and because I'm in a season of patient waiting at the moment, I can't help reading into this and let it shepherd me into greater patience! But I am a bit jealous of my friend Esther's amazing beef tomatoes–pictured. Beef. Isn't that a great word?


{Today's soundtrack: Various film clips as the boys are working up some pitch ideas into a storyboard - Space Odyssey, Armageddon, Monsters Inc etc. That, and my phone ringing: my sister's home from the States!}

Silver Stream

What does this summer bring?

A dark trail into the woods – coming into an empty clearing, a fantastic architectural experience, as when you walk in to a huge cathedral (Grace in San Francisco, for example) and it practically knocks you backwards and pulls the air into your lungs...

Slipping along the rushy river in small boats: a soft, shining, metallic gleam to everything and then the electric flash of a kingfisher charges across your bows – this is a secret worth knowing. Big, chunky, dark branches and their satisfying reflections in the stream, and a discovery: when everyone has turned their backs, this is where all the bees have gone!

It's all very well craving big blue skies and smouldering days lazing around in lush green meadows on soft blankets, but this summer things seem to have turned quite silvery and shining instead. When things emerge differently to how you wanted, consider that want and need are two different things, and mustn't be confused. This doesn't mean you are without your treasures.


{Today's soundtrack: Hem - Half Acre}

Leafy Equality

Remember the Circles of Confusion last May? This view has the same effect, always to arrest those thoughts for a moment and mention that it's worth letting go of your hang-ups and control mechanisms because–no matter now much you try to avoid it–we all overlap, are all connected, and all drink from the same cup. Look at them all, the fragile little leaves. Yep, they're like us again.

Leafy equality, necessarily so. Even with the strongest will in the world, even if you pretend you're in it alone, you're just not.


{Yesterday's soundtrack: the wind}

Wall Hanging

Patience, patience, patience.

If you have a look at my news page you'll find out what the *amazing* thing was that happened over a year ago... a public art commission which came as incredible redemption in the direct wake of having all my kit stolen, which happened slightly more than just over a year ago. It has been an incredible journey through this and back again, though not quite yet out the other side. The original timetable set installation last September, but as things rolled out it has been pushed back, and back, and back again, then once more. Something this big and exciting is very difficult to be patient for, but I think I'm learning...

Waiting is one thing. Being patient is another, and a friend recently pointed out that patience–as opposed to merely waiting–involves wisely applying hope to the thickest disappointment to assert that you know that rubbish is not the final word (my disappointment here being related to the robbery, and also a craving for completion on this redemption story).

The more you practice patience–they say–the more you'll be able to apply a defiant, tenacious insistence for a great outcome – the best. It seems though, sometimes you need an extra big, black-belt lesson in patience via some highly demanding set of circumstances, but you must keep going because without it, nothing will ever change.

I remember saying on the day after the shoot for this project, I felt like I had set out to sea in a massive ship and had sailed so far I couldn't see land in any direction, so just had to keep on going. I don't know what else to say, except that while I patiently wait I could look at this particular photograph for ages, so it has come to help somewhat.


{Today's soundtrack: Lighthouse Family - Gonna Get Lifted, at Bristol's Balloon Fiesta... I know it's bad, but it's tradition.}

Depends on how you look at it

{Today's soundtrack: Lamb - Fear of Fours}

Rhythm

People sometimes ask me, "Oh, are you religious?"

My reply is usually, quietly to myself "Mmmm, not really." Out loud I just say yes.

Lots of people are religious about lots of really regular, quite dull things - facebook, soap operas, football, bowel movements, etc. People are religious about some really important things too, like switching on the national grid in the morning.

That people ask me if I'm religious as if it's an accusation I find ridiculous, want to hold a mirror up and suggest ten different ways you could ask me the question if only I thought you may stick around long enough to hear the answer.

I can't really describe how I understand God because I don't understand. I am not religious in any way, shape or form over a thing that has no shape or form and about which I am always struggling to discern the way. Do I believe God's there? Yes. Do I pursue God? Yes. Do I do anything that could be described as ritual to help me keep up pursuit when words run out, or the spirit is weak? Sometimes. What things? Things that have rhythm and repetition, and probably require me to stick at it longer than five minutes if any kind of breakthrough is to be achieved. Is this religious? No, I don't think so, it's more devotional, and this is why I picked up the guitar again after fifteen years, threw it in the car on Tuesday morning and took it to the menders.

I need to make some devoted rhythm.


{Today's soundtrack: Feist}

Grey Matter

Things, they say, are neither black or white, but shades of grey.

Actually, I think this in-between space is more rainbow-like. And even if it did appear grey, it is never truly, through and through grey. You find yourself looking at small accents of colour and noticing a subtle warmth in the light, or the leftover evidence of someone's presence perhaps.

Apply this theory – that there is colour between black and white – to your liberal, compassionate mind and you'll discover it's alright, you can pin down those ideas and stand up to a raving fundamentalist after all.

By the way, happy birthday to the man I met in a coffee bar this morning who was trying to forget it was his birthday. You are lovely and deserve to be made a fuss of.


{Today's soundtrack: Hem - Half Acre.}

Weston Supermare Pier R.I.P.

Weston Pier burned down this morning.

With regards to a recent visit (see news) I'm wondering if the giant plastic ice-cream has melted (probably) and whether or not the large lady-in-striped-swimsuit-with-hole-cutout-for-face has turned to ashes (almost definitely), and if I will ever get to see the glittery pink, fibre-glass vulture again (certainly not). I already miss the donut counter. Is it tasteless to enjoy our nonsense snaps from the day out, or is it 'what she would have wanted'?

Reality is that the day we three went to Weston, we wandered around a deserted beach resort, lights flashing to attract no one and beach-front trains trundling empty up and down the pier. 'clang, clang, clang!' I can't help thinking we were making the best of a situation - it can be so bleak and sad, like those clichéd echoes of voices in a room long since vacated.

I'm probably drawn to this pier because it reminds me of those I genuinely like - Brighton's West Pier, or Clevedon. And then only because they are old, and stretch out to sea looking fragile but are full of stories. I was a student in Brighton before the West Pier burnt up and fell over and always loved it more than the Grand.

Do you think you can tell a person by the piers they like? and if you were a pier, what pier would you be?

It's a very sad day for lots of people who make their living and find a great, familiar comfort in this structure and all it offers.

Weston Pier R.I.P.


{Today's soundtrack: Steve Lamacq}

Secret

{Today's soundtrack: PJ Harvey - Stories from... }