Newsletter

Ashraf Hanna’s stunning collection of ceramics is well worth a visit to the gallery alone. It runs until 27 August. It is cool in the gallery with the fans and the air-flow in these old Georgian buildings….The sun throws interesting patterns across the grains of Ashraf’s contented vessels.

6. Yellow Vessel with Undulating Rim, Ashraf Hanna Clay, 45 x 19 x 19 cm. £2,800

What we want
is never simple.
We move among the things
we thought we wanted:
a face, a room, an open book
and these things bear our names—
now they want us.
But what we want appears
in dreams, wearing disguises.
We fall past,
holding out our arms
and in the morning
our arms ache.
We don’t remember the dream,
but the dream remembers us.
It is there all day
as an animal is there
under the table,
as the stars are there
even in full sun.

Linda Pastan

 

Kate Sherman’s work has drawn praise from visitors. The landscape below hangs opposite my desk – I can smell the sap of the cypress and walk in the cool of the woods with the dog exploring the undergrowth for sensational smells. He is so easily enlivened, constantly snuffling… being in a woods with the dog can transport a person (all the way to Santiago)

The dog is asking me a question
and I have no answer.
He dashes through the countryside and asks me
wordlessly,
and his eyes
are two moist question marks, two wet
inquiring flames,
but I do not answer
because I haven’t got the answer.
I have nothing to say.
Dog and man: together we roam
the open countryside.
Leaves shine as
if someone
had kissed them
one by one,
orange trees
rise up from the earth
raising
minute planetariums
in trees that are as rounded
and green as the night,
while we roam together, dog and man
sniffling everything, jostling clover
in the countryside of Chile,
cradled by the bright fingers of September
The dog makes stops,
chases bees,
leaps over restless water,
listens to far-off
barking,
pees on a rock,
and presents me the tip of his snout
as if it were a gift:
it is the freshness of his love,
his message of love.
And he asks me
with both eyes:
why is it daytime? why does night always fall?
why does spring bring
nothing
in its basket
for wandering dogs
but useless flowers,
flowers and more flowers?
This is how the dog
asks questions
and I do not reply.
Together we roam,
man and dog bound together again
by the bright green morning,
by the provocative empty solitude
in which we alone,
exist,
this union of dog and dew
or poet and woods,
For these two companions,
for these fellow-hunters,
there is no lurking fowl
or secret berry
but only birdsong and sweet smells,
a world moistened
by night’s distillations,
a green tunnel and then
a meadow,
a gust of orangey air,
the murmurings of roots,
life on the move,
breathing and growing,
and the ancient friendship,
the joy
of being dog or being man
fused in a single beast
that pads along on
six feet,
wagging
its dew-wet tail.

– Pablo Neruda, ‘Ode to the Dog’

 

Meanwhile in a garden far away Anna Gillespie’s little ‘Strong Man’ has settled in to new surroundings….

Anna Gillespie Strong Man II Bronze Ht. 68 cm. x w 20 x D 17 cm. £12,950

And finally. A giant minotaur taking it easy in the back of the van, on the way to his new home. I had to confiscate his book for the journey- didn’t want him to feel queasy….

Beth Carter Giant Minotaur Reading Bronze Resin 147 x 55 x 45 cm.

It will soon be time for this….

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer’s blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full,
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s.

We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn’t fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they would not.

Seamus Heaney ‘Blackberry Picking’

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Thank you for reading.
Aidan