Unrenovated

The sculpture exhibition in Salts Mill (see yesterday) is displayed in a relatively unrenovated part of the mill. The far end of the room led into an even more 'raw' area, full of peeling paint, dust and debris. That was barred off for safety but I could see enough to compose a few photos. To be honest, I found this more stimulating than the exhibition. (Maybe I'm odd!) 

These spaces seem to me to be alive with the ghosts of the folk that laboured here over more than a century to produce the fine wool cloth for which the mill was renowned. 

My pareidolia - that uncanny ability to find faces and recognisable shapes in random or chaotic stimuli like clouds - had a field day in here. I can see a pretty good rendition of the world map below! 

 

Textural studies

I always come away from a visit to The Hepworth wanting to make photos. Luckily there is no shortage of subject matter around the gallery, in the gardens and in the surrounding river. 

Glorying in colour, form and texture

Having explored the 'Colours Uncovered' exhibition in Harewood's State Rooms, I continued on the visitor route through the 'below stairs' area where the kitchens and storerooms are. It's a vast area; the household must have had an army of servants at one time. The kitchen is brim full of highly polished copper pans and moulds and, having just been thinking about colour, I was thrilled with the warm, soft reflections, akin to the glow of a fire or candles. 

Then I started noticing texture - the aged, battered wooden table top:

A stoneware jar that perhaps once held oil, judging by the stains on the sides:  

Some old sacking in a box: 

Lastly, a sturdy wicker hamper with a label that declared it had once held Venison, a consignment sent from Balmoral Castle in 1937 by HM the King (George VI, the father of the late Queen Elizabeth II) to his sister Mary, the Princess Royal and Countess of Harewood.

Salts Mill fantasy

(This is better viewed large, on black - click on the image.)  As I said not long ago, I've been trying some blended collages, just for fun. This is a medley of views of the canal side of Salts Mill. I tried a tryptych (which you can see on my other 'Roots and Wings' blog HERE) but I'm not sure if the image on the left on that one quite works, so I removed that for this version. The problem I have with doing these type of creative images is that some days I like them and other days I can pick loads of faults in them. Perhaps it's always like that with the creative process. 

Roberts Park in blossom time

I was inspired by some artwork I saw in a gallery recently to have a play with layering some of my images into collages. It's a new kind of challenge to learn what works and what doesn't and how to blend different images together effectively. These things are always harder than you might think! The image above is by no means perfect. I'm not sure that the scale of the statue and the bandstand work together, although I didn't mean for them to look like one photo. I should maybe leave more of an obvious border between the images... Anyway, there's no such thing as perfection. It's about having fun with the process and stretching myself, both technically and creatively. I shall keep on trying, in the never-ending quest to produce some work that truly expresses my response to my surroundings. 

Texture

My online photo group theme for December was 'texture'. This was my entry - taken when the canal was frozen over. My explorations were sadly curtailed by catching Covid just before Christmas, otherwise I might have found something a bit more exciting for the theme. 

In the potting shed

We had some horrible weather in February - wet and very windy - so that I didn't go out as much as I'd have liked. (Since the Met Office started naming storms, a few years ago, said storms seem to have got a little above themselves!) With the enforced time at home, I spent a bit of time playing with processing. This was a photo I took at Harlow Carr Gardens, in the little potting shed. I felt it needed 'enriching' a bit so I've added a couple of texture layers to it - and a gerbil! (Well, it was either that or a cow.... I find I don't have many 'animal' photos. The jury is out on whether that has helped or hindered! I can never decide, but it's fun playing. 

Ghostly goings-on!

Whilst I was walking at Fewston recently, I took a photo of the attractive little church of St Andrew's. From a distance it reminds me a bit of the churches I saw in Iceland, which often have a boxy spire. I decided it could stand a bit of 'playing' - so here I've removed some of the trees and telegraph wires around it and added a grave, birds and some textures, just for fun. It makes it look a good deal more spooky than the reality. 

Upping the wuthering

Playing about with texture layers now... While we're spending time with the Brontës, here's a photo of the old farmhouse at Top Withins, reputed to be the inspiration for Emily Brontë's novel 'Wuthering Heights'. It's always quite atmospheric up there on the high moor anyway, but a couple of textures add a bit more of a wuthering (turbulent, stormy) feel. 

Textures

Sometimes I think I'm slightly weird in that I can really get attracted to take images like these, of rough textures or rust or patterns and colours. I may go on to use them as overlays on some of the more 'creative' work that I occasionally play around with. I do, however, like these just as they are, particularly that top one. It has some kind of story to tell... 

Salts roof space

You may recall back in June I wrote about an exhibition called 'Felt' by Clare Tindale that was exhibited in Salts Mill's roof space. (See HERE). Well, to my delight it was open again during the recent Saltaire Festival, so I had the opportunity to revisit and enjoy both the art installation and the wonderful roof space of the Mill. It isn't normally open to the public - and this particular room is rarely used. Normally they hold exhibitions in the massive room with the metal roof struts, which used to be a weaving shed. (See HERE). This is an adjacent room, and has wooden beams, with peeling whitewash and slightly rusted metalwork. Texturally and tonally, I find it thrilling.   

I'm not sure what the room was used for originally, though it too may have been a weaving shed or perhaps a packing shed for the cloth that was woven in the next room. There is a large weighing machine sunk into the floor, as well as the piece of machinery below, which looks like it was a bale press of some sort. It has a handle that turns a ratchet attached to a heavy plate that looks as though it would be used to compress whatever they put inside it. If only these places could talk.... 

 

Sunday meditation: Ivy

I spotted a kind of beauty in some rather tatty but tough ivy creeping over a rusty metal door. Perhaps not everyone's cup of tea but I love the colours and textures here. 

'Beauty is a fairy; sometimes she hides herself in a flower-cup, or under a leaf, 

or creeps into the old ivy, and plays hide-and-seek with the sunbeams, 

or haunts some ruined spot, or laughs out of a bright young face.'        George Augustus Henry Sala

'But, like ivy, we grow where there is room for us.'    Miranda July

'I will never leave you nor forsake you.'        Hebrew 13:5