Spring tides, spring tidings; oars and ores

 

Many thanks to everyone who visted our stand at the recent Battersea Art Fair.
With early morning walks along the path next to the Thames, you could see the mighty river warming up to a spring tide. The constant screech of parrots in the park was an ideal musical accompaniment to the nodding newly flowering daffodils. Lovely bit of choreography. Thanks London.

‘Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3rd, 1802’ by William Wordsworth

 

Only a few miles upstream…..

‘Tellisford Weir’ by Ruth Sharman

‘We’ve swum in this river before,
though no one steps
in the same river twice.

The glassy shock, four or five frantic strokes
before we glide downstream
as if we could go on for ever:

these are familiar; what’s new
is you reciting the poem about plums
as we lounge in the grass

and me wondering how many
she’d saved for breakfast, and why
the plums should matter anyway.

You say a poem can’t cheat time,
but look how much you learn by heart —
to stop the slippage of brain cells

or for the sheer pleasure
of feeling words rolling off your tongue
like water tumbling over the weir.

And you want the detail too:
is this the River Frome, you ask,
and what’s the name of that bird?

The river never stays the same
and nor have we: just look how far
we’ve come … Wagtail, I say,

and we watch it flit from rock
to rock, at eye level
a scattering of buttercups

wavering in the wind:
little dishes of sunlight
balanced against the dark water.’

Whilst on the south coast….

 

 

Meanwhile, this vessel in all its glory sailed into the gallery on Monday, casting its shadows and stopping passers-by in their tracks from its perch in the window.

 

 

Alongside the Stewart Emdondson paintings on the wall we have the wonderful moon jars of Adam Buick.  A student of geology, Adam’s work contains the influence of the Pembrokeshire coast he now calls home, with inclusions on the works including local quartz, beach pebbles, seaweed, clays and ores..

 

 

 

And finally…

‘Otters wrap themselves in seaweed’ by Teddy Macker

‘This is what you need to know:
you need to know that otters wrap themselves
in seaweed so they won’t,

while sleeping at night, float out to sea . . .
Are you imagining this?
Can you see the otters actually doing this?

Does it break your heart a little?
Does it seduce you just a bit
into loving more

this odd hard world?
Oh otters, wrap yourselves tight! And sleep,
exactly like you do, floating but seaweed-held

in our salty living waters! Oh otters,
wrap yourselves tight! And you,
the one who doesn’t, the one who doesn’t

tether himself down right,
we are with you as you float away,
we are with you as you sleep

and lose yourself in the night.’

Please click on the images above to view further work.
The exhibition with Adam Buick and Stewart Edmondson will be on display until 6 April.

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Thank you for reading.

Aidan