Here in Bath there is sunlight slanting into York Street but jackets and unbrellas and cagoules presage more late summer rain to come. The buskers play on in Abbey Square regardless, their repertoire novel for the latest coach-load of arrivals. We are enjoying the last week of our summer show where ceramicist Tricia Thom has gone down a storm.
Tricia Thom 44. Mini Moon Jar, splash Porcelain 13 x 12 cm. £130
Tricia Thom 27. Red Teapot Porcelain 20 x 16 cm. £190
September is on the way and the thought of a freind's small, beautiful child starting school brings to mind this extract....
cf. 'Three Songs at the End of Summer' by Jane Kenyon:
'In my childhood
I stood under a dripping oak,
while autumnal fog eddied around my feet,
waiting for the school bus
with a dread that took my breath away.
The damp dirt road gave off
this same complex organic scent.
I had the new books—words, numbers,
and operations with numbers I did not
comprehend—and crayons, unspoiled
by use, in a blue canvas satchel
with red leather straps.
Spruce, inadequate, and alien
I stood at the side of the road.
It was the only life I had.'
Bobbie Russon Memory Oil on Panel 20 x 254 cm. £1,600
I think of Andrew Crocker's paintings as quintessentially English, and similarly Patrick Kavanagh's as Irish, both romantic, pastoral, autumnal...
Andrew Crocker As My Heart Beats Oil on Panel 100 x 75 cm. £POA
Patrick Kavanagh ' On an Apple Ripe September Morning'
On an apple-ripe September morning
Through the mist-chill fields I went
With a pitch-fork on my shoulder
Less for use than for devilment.
The threshing mill was set-up, I knew,
In Cassidy's haggard last night,
And we owed them a day at the threshing
Since last year. O it was delight
To be paying bills of laughter
And chaffy gossip in kind
With work thrown in to ballast
The fantasy-soaring mind.
As I crossed the wooden bridge I wondered
As I looked into the drain
If ever a summer morning should find me
Shovelling up eels again.
And I thought of the wasps' nest in the bank
And how I got chased one day
Leaving the drag and the scraw-knife behind,
How I covered my face with hay.
The wet leaves of the cocksfoot
Polished my boots as I
Went round by the glistening bog-holes
Lost in unthinking joy.
I'll be carrying bags to-day, I mused,
The best job at the mill
With plenty of time to talk of our loves
As we wait for the bags to fill.
Maybe Mary might call round…
And then I came to the haggard gate,
And I knew as I entered that I had come
Through fields that were part of no earthly estate.
Beth Carter Faun, Bronze, Ed. of 10 Oil on Panel 70 x 30 x 35 cm. POA
And finally...
'Nostos' by Louise Gluck
There was an apple tree in the yard —
this would have been
forty years ago — behind,
only meadows. Drifts
off crocus in the damp grass.
I stood at that window:
late April. Spring
flowers in the neighbor’s yard.
How many times, really, did the tree
flower on my birthday,
the exact day, not
before, not after? Substitution
of the immutable
for the shifting, the evolving.
Substitution of the image
for relentless earth. What
do I know of this place,
the role of the tree for decades
taken by a bonsai, voices
rising from tennis courts —
Fields. Smell of the tall grass, new cut.
As one expects of a lyric poet.
We look at the world once, in childhood.
The rest is memory.
Nathan Ford Self 1.24 Oil on Canvas 40 x 28 cm. £2,750
Click on the images above to take you to the relevant webpages. Our summer show continues until the end of August.
We are open 10-5 Monday to Saturday or by appointment on Sunday. Any questions, queries, or for further information please phone or email.
We can take payment by phone, transfer, paypal as well as diectly on the website. We ship worldwide.
Thank you as always for reading.
Aidan
Beth Carter Minotaur Holding Horn, Bronze, Ed. of 10 50 x 50 x 36 cm. POA
