The Old Lighthouse

The small seaside town of Dovercourt in Essex has two fine old cast iron lighthouses, one on the beach, and this one, just a few yards out to sea. Disused since 1917, but restored in the ’80s it now makes a great place to jump off into the sea; never done it myself but It does look great fun. Er, another thing, Hi-de-Hi!, which I confess I have a soft spot for, was filmed here in the ’80’s at Maplin’s holiay camp.

Had to go out an buy some more Naples Yellow yesterday what with all these summery pictures. The recent blanket of snow was quite beautiful, but it did reduce just about everything to black and white under the grey clouds so feeling starved of a bit of colour. Not sure about where I’m going style-wise; recent pics are getting more detailed and I think I want to keep things a bit more bold and graphic with the collages and save the detail for my painting. Anyway, i’ll see where things go from here, I’m wanting to do some figures or portraits after this exhibition is over, so things may change in a bit.

Derek Jarman’s Garden

The shingle beach of Dungeness is the second largest in the world, only Cape Canaveral in Florida is bigger apparently. It has a unique atmosphere you can’t really describe, it feels like you’re a very long way away from anywhere else  in the UK. The wide expanses of shingle, dotted with tumble-down shacks, refuse, fisherman’s paraphernalia, power lines and the looming bulk of Dungeness B nuclear power station give the landcape a shambolic, post-apocalyptic feel and if you go there on a bleak winter’s day it can put a bit of a dent in your mood if you’re not prepared for the empty, blasted look of the place. In spring or summer sunshine, though, with the light bouncing of the pale shingle, the wild flowers in bloom and the sky and sea bright blue, it can be lovely.

Derek Jarman bought a cottage here in the late ’80s after he visited Dungeness. I’m not such a big fan of his films but I love his writing and the wonderful garden he created here. He spent much of his final years at Prospect Cottage before he finally succumbed to an AIDS-related illness in 1994. He was one of the few people in the public eye at the time who disclosed his HIV-status and discussed his illness in public. It’s undertandable that so many others hid their battle with the virus; AIDS hysteria was rampant in the late ’80s, and it was bad enough dealing with the terrifying realities of such a dreadful, terminal illness (as it still was at that time)  without exposing oneself to the hostilities which back then were particularly vicious. Derek, though, made the brave decision to talk about what he was going through, in part to show support for others who were suffering in isolation and lonliness. I can understand the draw of this wild margin of the world for somebody who was thrown into such uncertainty by a serious diagnosis. Life can seem pared back to the bare bones out here, but Derek, while his own health was failing, brought something miraculous to life, a garden that flourished in a scrap of land right on the edge, a garden that, in spite of everything, pushed it’s green shoots up into the sunlight and blossomed.

Zitadelle Spandau

You don’t go to Berlin to look at old buildings really, it’s pretty much 19th century onwards and much of it got bombed to bits during the war. I do like some of the early modernist building in the city, and particularly the ‘expressionist’ architecture such as the Kirche am Hohenzollernplatz which you don’t really see at all in the UK. Out on the outskirts of the city, though, is something quite old and intact, the Zitadelle Spandau. It’s one of the best-preserved Renaissance forts in Europe, but curiously off the tourist trail in Berlin. I guess most tourists go to Berlin to see the more recent war history sites, or do the nightlife, so the Zitadelle is often quiet and tranquil. I love the old, weathered bricks of the structures and the weed-grown walls which you can walk on. Unfortunately, when I tried to photograph the collage it was on a wintery morning and the weak light led to a rather sickly yellow cast over the image. Just made it back to the Uk earlier last week before the bad weather wreaked such havoc with the transport.

To France

The English Channel, only 21 miles wide in the Strait of Dover is, amazingly, still the busiest shipping route in the world. Even though you can swim across, as Captain Webb first demonstrated in 1875, it has proved one of the most enduring phsycical and psychological barriers for little ol’ island Britain.

The title for the collage is from a Mike Oldfield song I like, To France, released in the mid-’80’s I think. Here’s a link to a YouTube video of it, classic ’80s video but I do like the song.

The North Sea 1

Oops, posted this without the image yesterday, here it is with the pic.

Ok, the North Sea might not often be like this but it’s the middle of winter and I’m longing for some warmth, sunshine and swimming in the sea – one of life’s great pleasures!

The little exhibition i’ve got coming up in February is themed loosely around the Thames and Dover shipping areas, so this pretty much means the North Sea, the English Channel and the adjacent coasts. These are places that have had tremendous strategic importance over the centuries and they’re steeped in history and fascinating stories. This picture, however, is just about the simple magic of wading out into a limpid, warm sea on a long summer’s evening, with the sun going down over the horizon…

Orford Ness 1

Firstly, happy new year, and many thanks to everybody who dropped by Hedgecrows in 2012 to have a look, it’s greatly appreciated, all the very best for 2013.

I’m currently working on a series of paintings about the coast around the South East of England. It’s a funny old place, on the one hand it’s home to the busiest shipping lane in the world, through the Straits of Dover, and on the other, you can find some of the strangest, emptiest looking landscapes in the whole of the UK, with wide, lonely expanses of salt marsh off the coast of Essex, and desert-like beaches of shingle at Dungeness and Orford Ness. The shingle spit of Orford Ness (off the Suffolk coast)  has also gathered something of a myserious reputation due to the area being used by the Ministry of Defense for secret military tests during the Cold War. The place is littered with debris, spooky derelict buildings and signs saying things like ‘danger, unexploded ordnance’ . I think there’s even an old sign saying ‘prohibited area, sketching forbidden’ – crickey! it’s attracted it’s fair share of conspiracy theories of course, and has been linked to UFO activity, but when you look at some photos of the place it does look very ‘Area 51’, although in the great tradition of British tweeness, it’s now managed by the National Trust and you can visit the place during open days.

After the indulgences of Christmas this subject suited my mood as the wide open space of the Ness is just what I fancy at the moment. It might not be pretty, but when the sun comes out after a rain shower and the shingle is sparkling I think these places have a beauty all their own.