THE RISE AND FALL OF THE NEEDLE.

Stitchery of Pictures. “Tent-work, Raised-work, Laid-work, Net-work, Most curious Purples or rare Italian Cut-work, Fine Fern-stitch, Finny-stitch, New-stitch and Chain-stitch, Brave Bread-stitch, Fisher-stitch, Irish-stitch, and Queen-stitch, The Spanish-stitch, Rosemary-stitch, and Morose-stitch, The Smarting Whip-stitch, Back-stitch, and the Cross-stitch, All these are good, and these we must allow, And these are everywhere in practise now.” The Needles Excellency.—John Taylor Once the structure of wool, hemp, cotton, flax or silk are dyed spun and woven it has been the final accomplished place of needlework to embellish and decorate, from the Turkish cushions embroidered with pearl or the fine traditional Breton waistcoat to the early stump-work and samplers of our own ancestry. As a child I watched with fascination and admiration at the skill of my great aunt and the patience she possessed in creating the most delicate silk pictures of thatched cottages with fabulous herbaceous floral displays. I decided this summers wet Sunday’s creative occupation would be a needlework picture. Given my love of the naïve I thought my first attempt at painting in wool should be kept simple, start at the top and work down maybe? During my days in the antique trade I had sold many long-stitch pictures and they didn’t look very complicated. Making it up as I went along seemed the easiest choice and soon I lost myself in the creative process. An adaptation of the French knot stitch produced billowing clouds and two other tighter stitches served as the sheep.

SUSTAINABLE FUEL

At first sight it may look like a massacre, well that’s what I thought when I first saw the way the Bretons cut their trees. Then when I moved across the channel to live in Central Finistere I began to understand that the hedgerows or talus were as valuable as the crops in the fields. Pollarding a tree every ten years gave wood for warmth and cooking while the mass of small branches were tied into faggots and used for heating the bread oven. This is the domestication of trees, no longer growing wild in ancient forests but managed as a crop between field separations. My first impression of central Brittany was as a forgotten land of sleeping beauty, abandoned, peaceful, a step back to my childhood and yet full of myths and mystery.

Pierre Le Lay sat almost invisible in the dung dark of the cowshed, his head pressed deep into Marguerite's flanks, Marguerite being one of seven slow moving beasts with whom he prefers to hold his council. He and his sister Eléen had hand milked their cows for decades, and never in all those years had they once thought of taking a holiday. The silence between them could be put down to the daily habitual tasks they methodically undertook, or one could mistake the peace for that of an old married couple who had long since said everything there was to say. One of the two new calves stood blinking at the doorway into the sparkle of a dew-light morning that held the certainty of another still hot day. An arrogant male sparrow wiped his beak on the weather beaten spigot hung door his rhythmical action as if sharpening a knife in preparation to carve the Sunday joint. His mate threw herself with great gusto into the dust dry hollow at the roadside and a powder-puff cloud enveloped her as she fluffed herself up to twice her normal sparrow like self. The fast growing brood of multi-coloured young chickens roamed the yard unfinished in their juvenile feathered form, moving with measured gate, their precise pecking and expert concentration belying their youth as they worked their way around the lower slopes of the oozing midden. On the top side of the five acre field the oak trees stand naked and armless stripped of their branches after the ten year cut. Hundreds of dormant shoots now burst from the pollard trunks and over the following years the trees will take on the familiar shape of the farmed French oaks, locally known as the têtards, or tadpoles. The barn is stacked high with logged wood and in the yard the oak harvest stands drying in neat walls of logs, from small limbs to brushwood bundled nothing is wasted.

The hedgerow harvest leaves the massive lumpy forms trimmed back in what seems like a brutal fashion but which allows the trees to re-grow from at times a centuries old trunk. This method of cutting makes it possible to obtain a greater quantity of wood in a sustainable way as the already well established tree will put on growth far quicker than a newly planted tree. These were my first impressions which over the past twenty years have been shattered by the brutal hand of progress, where trees are cut at ground level with the greed of a final harvest before the hedgerow is removed completely. Têtards have been a particularly local feature of this region for centuries but in recent years the once familiar skeletal winter hedgerow form has changed. After the passing of the remembrement, where small parcels of land were regrouped to form more economic use of land the government also encouraged massive demolition of hedgerows. This destructive process set in a continuing cycle of destruction with ever larger machines able to destroy in minutes what their ancestors had taken centuries to create. This land was so rich in wood that it was not uncommon to see the front door left open while a blazing fire filled the chimney. Now when the old farm house and fields were sold off practically every tree was removed in a final harvest and many an English buyer arrived horrified to take possession of their denuded fields. The closing years of the eighties saw the end of a way of life as the peasant farmers moved into retirement and their children who had abandoned this land showed no signs of wanting to return. This led to evident change and a tremendous loss of charm as a worn out generation could no longer maintain the required upkeep by hand. Thankfully there are a few who understand the wisdom of the old ways and in my hamlet of Lezele we are trying to re-establish the remaining tetrads. To pollard a tree after many years of neglect requires leaving one or two branches to help draw the sap up to enable re-growth and after a couple of years those branches can also be removed leaving the tree ready to continue its ten year cycle trim.

There would seem no possible similarity with this method of gathering fuel and that found in the Outer Hebrides since trees are extremely rare and the only cutting is that of peat. However the traditional use of this sustainable resource of fuel is also at risk of changing with the introduction of machines to do the cutting and fewer young people prepared to take on this exhausting work, and yet when the drying and bringing in is over there is that same satisfaction of admiring ones peat stack as there is in a well made stack of firewood that gives a glow of warmth way before any fire is lit. A well maintained talus and well cut peat bank are both a beauty to behold. There is however one big bonus with cutting peat in that it is silent with no ear splitting chainsaw wining against the chorus of spring birdsong. Now that March is drawing to a close and the sap begins to rise the wood cutting comes to a close but out on the Scottish Isles the harvesting of peat will not start for another month or more.

CREATIVE HIBERNATION

During the depths of this very soggy winter I have undergone a self enforced hibernation. It started with a candlelit Christmas very romantic but none the less rather dim as a working light, after four days when the electricity was eventually restored I marvelled at just how bright even a forty watt bulb was. Having retrieved the contents of my freezer from friends who had retained power a few miles away I had all I required to close down the outside world, no phone or internet connection and I let friends know that Mondays would be visiting days should they wish to check on my progress. 

Upholstery was to be my indoor occupation and during the first few days it was finishing off the re-covering of a late 19^th century easy chair that I had acquired from a pile of discarded furniture at the back of a West Country saleroom.

 A double drop ended Chesterfield settee that came from the same free source will this summer be going up to my house on Lewis and miraculously will match the parlour curtains. To cover the chair I used the “Gothic Arches” fabric printed by Stothert and Miles back in the late eighties copied from a rather ragged old quilt I had purchased for the outrageous price of £20. Having got into the rhythm of upholstery I pressed ahead with a few more jobs I had put aside for a couple of decades. The first was a wreck of an elm armchair that had during its heyday been the pride of someone’s parlour but for many a year suffered in silence in the corner of my bedroom beneath layers of rotting rexine. The seat had been stuffed with any and everything; hay and straw, newspapers, old invoices and an ancient pair of bloomers. The remains of a rather fine pineapple pattern single early Victorian curtain proved ideal in returning this fine old chair to its former glory. In the swing of it now and having had my sowing machine serviced I set to making new covers for the mattress cushions of an iron fold out chair that had for many years served in my studio to recline the occasional nude model. Fourth on the list came a chair that had been given to me twenty years ago and which even back then require serous attention. Now its prolapsed seat showed springs protruding through rotten webbing and the entire back had slumped into a very unflattering sagging posterior. From the outset this was always going to be an entire rebuild as the lumpy back stuffing revealed itself to be little more than a rats nest of kapok and hay. I knew one day I would find a use for the old kelim carpet but when it came to chopping it up I discovered even that required some repair.

The exterior faces were done in old 19^th century linen; an entire unused roll found on the tip, and although it took well over a week to complete the end result was very pleasing. I find that variety is always a good thing and so interspersed with upholstery I continued my shell work with the biggest arrangement of shell flowers under dome to date. There are well over a hundred flowers and many of these flowers consist of between forty to eighty shells, so one could say it’s a labour of love and in the way that love can often resemble madness by an observer so this work seems to send me a little strange simply with the concentration required. Other objects d’art were two obelisks, one shell encrusted and the other clad entirely in old mercury mirror.

And during these long dark TV free evenings I sort through the many sketch books I’ve filled from the Outer Hebrides and piece together a travel diary in the hopes of getting funding later this year to go into print. Drifting through the islands I meet and observe many fascinating people but those who impress and stay close to the surface of my memory are often the elderly.

There amongst all the modern supermarket shelves I see him, a great lumbering fossil of a man, something prized out from between the pages of my youth, and I wait for the smell of oily sheep's wool to waft past. He examines a plastic bag of mixed chopped veg and I wonder does he know about stir fry, wasn't it just tatties and swede in his time? His Harris Tweed jacket is almost shiny at collar and cuffs as he slumps forward on the bar of his trolley for support. His glasses are half way down his nose, a nose that sprouts hair externally as well as internally, white stubble powders his leathery sunken cheeks speaking of ages past, of evenings sipping peaty whiskey in smoke filled rooms, and his gnarled oversized hands that attained such grandeur with professional skill of shearing sheep during long summer days. Now they grip the bar of the trolley like two great claws of a perching raptor long since extinct. This is a man of my youth from Tarbert market that lent heavily on the iron gates as he tipped his head to the auctioneer and twitched his mouth in a silent bid. The man that held at arms length an ash crook with rams horn handle to catch a young lamb by the neck. The man from endless summer afternoons who walked the stubble fields behind a clanking binder standing oat sheaves into stooks. The man who took my tiny smooth white hand in his and shook it with a grip both firm and tender leaving me confident that in his presence I would always be safe. I pulled myself back from another age and century with the strangeness and abruptness of an unexpected moon landing, as I stared at my own short shopping list; fruit, bread and cheese.

Hebridean Dreaming: A peep inside this years Hebrides sketchbook.

Hebridean Dreaming: A peep inside this years Hebrides sketchbook.: A peep inside this years Hebrides sketchbook. In the deep mid winter I often dream of that perfect studio, warm, bright and roomy such a c...

A peep inside this years Hebrides sketchbook.

A peep inside this years Hebrides sketchbook. In the deep mid winter I often dream of that perfect studio, warm, bright and roomy such a contrast to the reality of the small but cosy if you keep the wood-burner going. However when I look through my sketch books there is no replacement for being out there in the glory of it all whatever the weather. As I flick through the images I recall what a packed year it has been, hello to new ideas and fresh faces, goodbye to old memories and friends departing, savouring life’s constant mix of salty tears and raucous laughter. These sketches of the Outer Hebrides are a sample of the summer months which I now set to working up into oil paintings. After the successful sell out of “Un monde qui s’en va”, my book on Breton vernacular architecture there has been talk of another “Hebridean Dreaming” the sketchbook of an itinerant artist. For those of you who have already visited the islands I hope you enjoy planning your return and for those who have not been the welcome awaits.

Around the world on a blue and white plate

Blue and White china can be looked upon as the ceramic equivalent to DNA within the British Isles as centuries of pottery shards now appear scattered throughout the entire length and breadth of these islands from my vegetable garden on the top end of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides to my brother's garden down in Cornwall I am constantly stooping to pick up and rub clear the

soil from fragments of china and more often than not these are blue and white transfer ware. Cornwall became extremely important during the Napoleonic wars to the potteries in supplying the ore that gave the wonderful rich cobalt blue. During the 18th century blue and white porcelain became immensely popular arriving from the east stowed at the bottom of the ship's hold keeping the more precious tea out of the bilge water. However towards the end of the 18th century when the tranfer printing of cobalt blue was perfected it soon became available to every house in the land. The blue and whiye pottery from the early part of the 19th century today remains a comprehensive and historical social record of the period illustrating like the newsprint of the day the pastimes and passions of the people. During this period the Grand Tours of Europe were popular with all young gentlemen and ladies who could afford it, while fascination in the orient and all that was coloured red on the map also served as inspiration for the adventurous artist and engravers, the vissual bloggers of their day. From the domestic views of the country estate, from celebratios of victory to the commemorations of loss, from flowers and fruit to strange new species of mammals all was to be discovered on your dinner plate. In the summer of 1968 while French students were manifesting their grievances on the streets of Paris my father and I pawed enthusiastically over china pl;ates in Chalky White's shop down in St Agnes, Cornwall and there made our first purchase of blue and white transfer ware.The adventure lasted over 40 years and after my father's death it is now coming up for sale at David Lays Auction House in Penzance on December 12th 2013. The entire collection of over 400 lots can be viewed on line at www.the-saleroom.com

Swimming in cold waters.

Swimming during the summer months was not what I had in mind when planning to live in the Outer Hebrides remembering from my childhood days on the Mull of Kintyre that anything more than paddling was seriously painful, but just recently I have been taking that daily dip. True this isn’t a leisurely floating around in the briny but more of a vigorous splashing and relatively brief episode but during the hot spell we’ve been having there is nothing like it for toning up the aging skin. For us fellows it can be rather alarming at first however reassuring to discover that given time everything does return to normal. So as Sunday promises to live up to its name once more people load up the car with all the plastic kit and head for the best beaches lugging boogie boards, bucket and spade and bags of beachwear. I sling water, camera an extra tea shirt and some fruit into the back pack and head due north taking the short cut over the moor crossing to Garry avoiding traffic and people. Crossing Leigasdail burn and following the ridge out to the high point between Traigh Mhor and Garry I take a first skinny dip in the wee loch my very own natural infinity pool. Swimming in lochs at this time of year can be dangerous given that some are surprisingly deep and can remain bitterly cold at depth.
 The ground drops steeply to Garry beach and I can already see from the crammed car park that the world and his wife have made it this far. There are times when I watch in horror as holiday makers drive all the way up to The Bridge to Nowhere above the beach and turn round slowing occasionally to take a snap shot then off, the boxed ticked, “Yes we’ve been there”.  At times like that I see a case for seriously increasing the price of petrol or giving people an annual quota.

 

The tide is well out and the crowds spread evenly across the beach with children, the only ones braving the water as their parent’s lie beached and roasting amongst colourful trimmings on dry sand. I walk purposefully, barefoot across the rippled sand heading straight for the water, drop my backpack and this time strip to underwear, drop dark glasses and hat and stroll in with hardly a flinch as I take the wave head on. While young children try valiantly to ride the small waves with boogie boards I shoot past in the foam and as I stand to hitch my drooping jocks they look puzzled as to how I with no board could have travelled so far. Simplicity is the name of the game travel light when it comes to playing with nature. I mop myself down with the second T-shirt (an essential when it comes to walking at this time of year to keep flies and clegs away) then off up to inspect my peat bank and climbing higher to Seabhal past the abandoned rusting and rotting hulk that now serves as a convenient support for spider webs to sketch amongst the butterflies, then southward and home a very pleasant solitary afternoon stroll having spoken to no one.