Beaux Arts Bath

The summer evenings are closing in…

 

One consolation of the gradually shortening day are the fruits of harvest. As in the poem below, I learned about fermentation in a similar way…. well before discovering the joys of the self-same process.

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.Blackberry Picking by Seamus Heaney
Anna Gillespie Man of Leaves, Bronze ed of 9 h51 x 30 x 22cm
Man of Leaves, Bronze Ed. of 9, 51 x 30 x 22 cm. £9,000

 

Meanwhile Bath throngs with visitors and the weather holds up….for now.  I wonder if anyone had any luck spotting any Perseid meteors recently?  I didn’t, but have had good views of them in the past.August arrives in the darkwe are not even asleep and it is herewith a gust of rain rustling before ithow can it be so late all at oncesomewhere the Perseids are fallingtoward us already at a speed that wouldburn us alive if we could believe itbut in the stillness after the rain endsnothing is to be heard but the drops fallingone at a time from the tips of the leavesinto the night and I lie in the darklistening to what I rememberwhile the night flies on with us into itselfWS Merwin, Nocturne II

 

Lit the Night, Egg Tempura on Board 16 x 20 cm. £750

 

I love getting images of works of artworks in situ, especially if they come from far far flung locations.The sculpture below made it all the way to its perch in a garden in Quebec.If you click on the image it will take you to our instagram account, and you can see a very short snippet of a ruby throated hummingbird feeding on some Lobelia Cardinalis. They are incredible little creatures, wintering in Central America.  Their nest is barely bigger than a large coin.

 

To the Limit III, Bronze, Ed. 2/9, 100 x 200 x 40 cm. £40,000

 

A Route of Evanescence,
With a revolving Wheel –
A Resonance of Emerald
A Rush of Cochineal –
And every Blossom on the Bush
Adjusts it’s tumbled Head –
The Mail from Tunis – probably,
An easy Morning’s Ride –-Emily Dickinson
Anemones, Tile and Cup, Oil on Board 25.5 x 20 cm.

 

And finally…Why should I have been surprised?Hunters walk the forestwithout a sound.The hunter, strapped to his rifle,the fox on his feet of silk,the serpent on his empire of muscles—all move in a stillness,hungry, careful, intent.Just as the cancerentered the forest of my body,without a sound.2.The question is,what will it be likeafter the last day?Will I floatinto the skyor will I fraywithin the earth or a river—remembering nothing?How desperate I would beif I couldn’t rememberthe sun rising, if I couldn’tremember trees, rivers; if I couldn’teven remember, beloved,your beloved name.3.I know, you never intended to be in this world.But you’re in it all the same.so why not get started immediately.I mean, belonging to it.There is so much to admire, to weep over.And to write music or poems about.Bless the feet that take you to and fro.Bless the eyes and the listening ears.Bless the tongue, the marvel of taste.Bless touching.You could live a hundred years, it’s happened.Or not.I am speaking from the fortunate platformof many years,none of which, I think, I ever wasted.Do you need a prod?Do you need a little darkness to get you going?Let me be urgent as a knife, then,and remind you of Keats,so single of purpose and thinking, for a while,he had a lifetime.4.Late yesterday afternoon, in the heat,all the fragile blue flowers in bloomin the shrubs in the yard next door hadtumbled from the shrubs and laywrinkled and fading in the grass. Butthis morning the shrubs were full ofthe blue flowers again. There wasn’ta single one on the grass. How, Iwondered, did they roll back up tothe branches, that fiercely wanting,as we all do, just a little more oflife? The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac by Mary Oliver

 

 

Thank you again for reading. Please click on the images above for links to webpages.Contact the gallery by phone or email to purchase, or for any further information.We ship worldwide.Best wishes,Aidan