The last days…

This weekend sees the final days of the exhibition of Nathan Ford paintings and Patricia Shone ceramics.
The natural elements have laid on the bunting…..or  Life is an astonishment, and it behoves us to be astonished   -John Donne

 

I wanted to stay as I was
still as the world is never still,
not in midsummer but the moment before
the first flower forms, the moment
nothing is as yet past-

not midsummer, the intoxicant,
but late spring, the grass not yet
high at the edge of the garden, the early tulips
beginning to open-

like a child hovering in a doorway, watching the others,
the ones who go first,
a tense cluster of limbs, alert to
the failures of others, the public falterings

with a child’s fierce confidence of imminent power
preparing to defeat
these weaknesses, to succumb
to nothing, the time directly

prior to flowering, the epoch of mastery

before the appearance of the gift,
before possession.

Louise Gluck The Doorway

 

In the coming week we will be placing the beautiful work of Lara Scobie round the gallery. Lara is a graduate of Camberwell Art College in London, she has exhibited extensively including exhibitions in Japan and in the U.S.A. She is the recipient of numerous awards for her work including Premier winner of The Fletcher Challenge in New Zealand and Honourable Mention at Mino Ceramics, Japan. Her work is held in museum collections in places as far afield as Kansas, Glasgow, Aukland and Dundee.  Lara is a fellow of the Craft Potters Association of Great Britain and a professional member of Contemporary Applied Arts, London.

 

 

And, on all things bright and beautiful and yellow, and as I may have bored on about previously, in his West country days, William Wordsworth lived for a while about 50 yards to the right of the rainbow image above, on North Parade.  Were he there now he would see Parade Gardens bedecked in his beloved daffs, and the River Avon in spate under Pulteney Bridge (see below). His daughter was married in a church which is now a branch of M&S.

 

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed’and gazed’but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

The complete collection of Lara’s work for the exhibition will be on the gallery website by close of play Wednesday 29 March.  Please let me know if you would like to be informed when the website goes live.

 

Pulteney Bridge and Weir in a state of Cappucinno

 

Alongside Lara’s wonderful Parian Clay pots will be hung an exhibition of landscape paintings ‘From the Mountains to the Sea’.
Like the darkness to the back of the rainbow, it features some angry rain-filled clouds….

 

 

Also on display for the first time, and already proving popular, are the works of Nichola Theakston.

 

 

And finally,

Funny to think of Milton lamenting the passing of his 23rd year on earth. All is relative I guess.

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth,
Stol’n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year!
My hasting days fly on with full career,
But my late spring no bud or blossom shew’th.
Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth
That I to manhood am arriv’d so near;
And inward ripeness doth much less appear,
That some more timely-happy spirits endu’th.
Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,
It shall be still in strictest measure ev’n
To that same lot, however mean or high,
Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heav’n:
All is, if I have grace to use it so
As ever in my great Task-Master’s eye.

How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth  by John Milton

Click on the images above for links to the relevant pages on the website.
Lara Scobie’s webpage will be updated fully by next Thursday 30 March. Please let me know if you would like to be alerted when the work goes live on the website.

Please message, email or call for more information.

Thank you for reading,

Aidan