Ring out the old....

What a tremendous year 2012 has been. With so many celebrations, especially here in the UK with the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics and Paralympics, it seemed appropriate then, in a year when bells literally did ring out all over Britain to end the year with more bells. Tennyson was to the fore in the summer when one of his lines from 'Ulysses' was writ large in the  Olympic athletes' village..... 'to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield'. It may be old fashioned to choose another Tennyson poem  to record the year's end but I think it carries a message of hope and decency for a better world and I am all for that in the year ahead. Have a good one everyone.

Ring Out Wild Bells

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,

   The flying cloud, the frosty light:

 The year is dying in the night:

Ring out wild bells, and let him die

Ring out the old, ring in the new,

           Ring, happy bells, across the snow:

 The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,

            For those that here we see no more;

        Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in to redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

   And ancient forms of party strife;

   Ring in the nobler modes of life,

With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,

   The faithless coldness of the times;

   Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,

   The civic slander and the spite;

   Ring in the love of truth and right,

Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out the shapes of foul disease;

   Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;

   Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

   The larger heart, the kindlier hand;

  Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Merry Christmas to all

Last month there was a Christmas card idea in a magazine involving paint chart strips so I picked up a few on my travels and made some. They looked naff. So I cut the paint strips lengthwise, made rings of them and created  a paper chain with them. Friends who saw them gave me the clear impression they also thought these were naff too. So, here am I today, trying to tidy up for Christmas and I come across the few of these charts I have left. About to throw them in the bin I stop.... because last week, Jane posted about some little gift boxes her friend made for her and I made a couple and thought it was a great idea to mentally 'park' for the future... but it suddenly occurred to me this morning that if I made some small boxes with the strips they might look like Christmas trees.... well, ta da! here they are, small but perfectly formed and ready to put on a tree as an eco friendly (i.e. free) idea. Jane had chocolates in hers but I'm afraid these might only hold a few Smarties or a malteser or two but it's the thought that counts... right? Thank you Jane for passing on a fab idea.

Thanks also to  you all for your comments on the last post and all of my ramblings throughout the year. I appreciate all of them and wish you all every best wish for the season. Merry Christmas! God Bless us, every one!

On whichever day of Christmas....

I don't want to be accused of bird feeder 'one-upmanship' but surely a pheasant in a hawthorn tree must trump a partridge in a pear tree.... doesn't it?

Glass Act

 When I went to a John Piper exhibition in St Davids recently I bought a DVD of his work which reminded me about the volume of stained glass work he designed, most notably Coventry Cathedral and Oundle School. I've written before about the interest I have in the iconography of churches and churchyards so it will be no surprise that when we went to the Made by Hand exhibition in Newport a few weeks ago and saw the work of architectural stained glass artist Christian Ryan that my interest was piqued further. So much so that my Christmas present this year was a stained glass taster day with Christian yesterday. Have a look at Christian's panels and other work, especially his blog, via the link. I love the graphic nature of them and they are beautiful to see with light streaming through them.It was a 'full on' day with three others and we each completed an A4 size panel using the most beautiful glass in all shades and textures. I kept mine simple but I adore the colours of it and will treasure it especially as I managed a day of cutting glass and using a soldering iron without fatal injury! A new passion has been born.....

Life's a circus

 It's nearly a year ago that I posted here about a book saved for me by a lady in the local charity shop.Although I go in there regularly, she and I must have missed each other until yesterday when she produced a book she'd been keeping for me for a while. She doesn't know that I'm interested in  particular illustrators but she must have a keen sense of the type of work that appeals to me. The last book she gave me was Brian Wildsmith's 'The Circus' and my latest lucky find is 'The Wasteland Circus' illustrated by Charles Keeping. Perhaps she thinks I just like circuses ? In so much as I love the image of circus horses that is true. Look at these two wonderful spotted chaps.I think they are magnificent. My photos may not do justice to what is a fabulous book but I have others by Charles Keeping and he is worth a detailed look. If you want to see more, dive in here.

Upcycling? Maybe not....

The recent installation of a new heating system has caused lots of upheaval. The necessary subsequent tidy up led to a major clearing out, leaving us with a few empty storage boxes. I was about to send them to the recycling bin when I thought 'surely I can make something from that?'  I seem incapable of knowing when something really should be thrown away and thought I'd make one of my annual recycled Christmas decorations.....

 The idea seemed sound when it was in my head but it hasn't quite translated into a finished product. I think there is a good idea in there but the scale is wrong. I won't be making another however because once it was completed I decided to get on with my Christmas cards. Ideas have been in short supply this year so as a warm up exercise I set myself the challenge of making them with things to hand in my little office.....slide mounts, old books and a big box of old stamps I was given last year were within reach and pressed into service. I quite like them and they've got me in the festive mood to make some more. I've started to see other festive posts creep in elsewhere and shall look forward to seeing what everyone else is up to creatively!

Whitesands

Well we went for that walk to Whitesands beach but stopped in St Davids first, where I bumped into some people I knew and you know how it is.... we got chatting... and by the time we got to the beach it was getting to be late afternoon. It was bitterly cold and although it doesn't look like it here, the beach was full of dogs, their owners and even some hardy swimmers in the sea. I was too beguiled by the light and the reflections to walk too far. I was rooted to the spot watching stripes of colour, light and shade emerge. How I wish I could capture the essence of those moments in paint or words.......

Normal service resumes

 For the first weekend in what seems like ages my husband is at home with just one more week of the oil refinery shutdown to get through. He has been working so many hours that I started to ask to see his pass when he came home just to verify it was really him! When writing a couple of e mails to fellow bloggers last week it suddenly hit me how long it has been since I wrote a post of any description. My absence has not been a conscious one but I've been so busy with things that keeping up with other people's writings was about all I could manage. The garden maintainance that usually falls to the head gardener came to rest on my shoulders in his absence so I have been clearing leaves like nobody's business. First to go were the leaves on my favourite tree in the garden, the huge ash that grows right on the boundary and it didn't help that ash die back was all over the news. I spent ages checking all of the trees for things but luckily all seems OK so far. I've lost count of the number of trips I've made up the garden with a wheelbarrow full of leaves or swept my drive to remove piles of them. I think I may have developed biceps like Popeye from all that lifting and tipping.It would be putting it mildly to say I am 'knackered'. I've also been doing lots of print experiments and painting too so I'll share some of the results soon when I get back into a rhythm. I've just taken these photos this morning as we walked the garden and made notes of the outstanding jobs we have to do before winter. There is now a load of cherry tree and acer leaves to deal with and seedheads to cut down (or not)but the sun is shining, it's a glorious autumn day and I think my husband deserves a rest rather than a load more work so I think we might just get out for a good walk.... and I'll carry on with the leaf picking and tipping next week..let joy be unconfined!

Gifted

The appearance of beautiful book sculptures left anonymously in a series of Edinburgh libraries has been well documented online. Whoever the artist is, she, or he, remains unknown whilst their work now tours the country for a wider audience to enjoy these imaginatively crafted works of art. Sadly they are not coming south of the border but I came across this trailer for the event and think 'Gifted' is an absolutely perfect title for it. It makes me want to do something along similar lines. Anybody out there game to join in.......

Woodland Walking

 A couple of miles up the road are two large woodland spaces managed by the Forestry Commission and the National Park. Yesterday's glorious weather inspired us to get out for a few hours walking the trails within them. It's a huge area and we only saw three or four other people, one of whom stopped and asked me if I was doing an 'autumn' project. I was carrying broken larch twigs and cones and some fallen oak leaves. She was doing the same. She was only about five years old but the 50+ years age gap between us was immaterial as we were both inspired by the shapes of the trees and the beginnings of the autumn shades. It reminded me of a quote I found recently. Sadly I cannot remember the blog I found it on so cannot attribute it other than to say these are the words of 18th century visionary poet William Blake:

"The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity and some scarcely see nature at all, but to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself "

Shadow Play

Every Thursday, Fiona at Paper Ponderings shares a quote with us accompanied by her observations, ruminations and always illustrated with a wonderful photograph. This week the quote (I'm paraphrasing here) was how we are always drawn to the light, yet the shadows are far more interesting and have more to say to us. In my comment I confessed to being a serial shadow photographer, often of the ones cast in the hallway through my old front door. So, when we woke up to a glorious late summer/early autumn day when the sun has a certain sharpness to it, I was caught, yet again, by the flickering movements on the wall. Something in me wants to get into Photoshop and play with these photos but I know less is more and so I will just let them speak for themselves.