“You are so young, so before all beginning, and I want to beg you, as much as I can, dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.” – Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
I recently came across a used copy of Letters to a Young Poet, which I’ve been meaning to read for a long time now. As I was leafing through it in the book store, I noticed that there was…
Here is a photograph from about 1956 or thereabouts. There are only a few local telephones and so Crimson Tours are St Ives 45. This is taken right opposite the slipway just beside what was Hart’s ice-cream parlour and Doble’s Wall. The ladies are clearly waiting to go out on a trip in a charabanc -no longer just a “carriage with wooden benches” but a small motor coach. They are probably a chapel group heading off maybe as far away as Truro. Everyone is clearly looking forward to the prospect including the gentleman side on to the camera. Television is evolving as a flickering bluish device to be seen on small screens in Hollow’s window and too expensive for most people. The coach will actually come down to downalong which is a thriving community about to excercise some folk with the challenge of providing “Bed and Breakfast.
A year or two later day-dreaming on Smeaton’s Pier I was rather suddenly surprised by the arrival from the Bay of troops, probably Marines in DUCKS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DUKW .
These were approaching the harbour and as the first vessel rounded the end of the pier I managed to get a closer photograph. Just what they were actually doing, I never discovered.
Commandos, however, were often to be seen in the district-they trained at Commando Ridge on the North Coast near St Just- where they trained during the War. The next time that service personnel were in evidence was after the Torrey Canyon Disaster. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Torrey_Canyon.
It is only in the last few years I learned more of the various occupations of the town and incursions into the Bay:- The Parliamentry Army,a Slave Ship, The Duke of Monmouth, The Hessians of to the American War of Indepence. Indeed, records from the St Ives Archive Centre furnish an encampment on the Island after a military parade. It was actually a recruiting rally for the DCLI, and they must have gone around the county. It was called Flag Day and took place on Whit Monday, 1899. The photograph is of the 2nd Battalion. Further information available from http://www.stivesarchive.co.uk/
Contrary to popular stereotype, the majority of advertising in Stalin’s USSR were associated not with party and ideological propaganda, but rather with what we might today call ‘social advertising’. If during Tsarist times, ‘education of the populace’ was a role of the church, in the Soviet Union, this role was taken by the state, and the extent of educational works were magnified manifold: it was necessary to create a consciousness in the ‘new man’, to form a new way of life, a new quotidian, and to eliminate illiteracy.
Many directions of social enlightenment were first begun in early Soviet period. For example, in 1930 already there were anti-smoking posters.
And the posters already look completely professional, not only in the artistic but also in the informational sphere. Below is another poster from 1930:
As far as I am concerned, we don’t have nearly enough of such posters as the wonderful…
Danielle Spera was one of Austria’s most popular television personalities before becoming director of the Viennese Jewish Museum (JMW, http://www.jmw.at). Read here what Spera thinks about her very special farewell at national broadcaster ORF and if she misses working as anchorwoman.
What was your happiest moment being in charge at the Jewish Museum of Vienna – and what was the hardest?
Luckily there are so many happy moments and very few hard ones. I feel content whenever we are successfully opening a show, which always is a great teamwork. It is a wonderful experience to be able to work with a great group of curators, who support the new positioning of the museum now wholeheartedly. I also was very glad when we managed to get a budget to renovate the Jewish Museum’s main building, which was left to me in a devastating state – concerning the technical and logistical equipment…
Having just returned from the International Art Fair http://www.20-21intartfair.com/ in Kensington Gore, where I was particularly taken, indeed entranced by the Artists of Russia stand, it was great to see the quality exhibition of Nancy Pickard’s work together with that of Simon Turner at the Cornwall Contemporary here in Penzance. The Art Fair in London was great fun where I not only saw for the first time work of the German Expressionist, Käthe Kollwitz (July 8, 1867 – April 22, 1945) but also discovered the lovely paintings of Olga Oreshnikov. (http://www.artistsofrussia.com/olga-oreshnikov)
Whispered Aside by Olga OreshnikovKathy KollwitzB rother_Love/ VerbrüderungCountry Girl Olga Oreshnikov
As Julian Ravest has written, “In 1990, Olga immigrated to Israel. She works in oil, tempera, watercolour, and gouache in a unique style. Her paintings are humorous, symbolic, and yet serious in content, meticulously executed and with a fresh and dreamlike quality. Her assured drawing, elaborate composition and rich use of colour are in the tradition of European painting. Her images and landscapes seem to be from a different timeless world, telling stories that are tender, dreamy, overpowering and seductive.” I was particularly taken by a work, an acrylic, called “Whispered Aside” which has a theatrical and magical quality about it. The expression on the face of the aging sailor and the slightly astonished young actress transported me to some imaginary dramatic venue in St Petersburg. The quality of execution in this painting too was quite extraordinary and delightful.
In “Garden Light”, Orishnikov has depicted an ingenue, endearingly innocent amongst a cavern of leaves, peering into the distance under her straw bonnet and surrounded by blossoming mauve flowerheads. She clasps her hands in a gesture that reinforces her distance as an observer and suggests her naivety. Tragicomedy, flora and contemplation combine in her work to embody an elegant exuberance. This is repeated in “Country Girl” where the girl cherishes a crimson sweet pea and beholds the blossom on the spindling stem.
The Anatomist by Simon Turner
Arriving this sunny morning at Sarah Brittain’s delightful gallery in Parade Street Penzance, my attention was drawn to Simon Turner’s bearded “Landlady” painted on found panel. Many of these pictures seem to have a Victorian or Edwardian quality, perhaps a little reminiscent of Monty Python. These reminded me a little of Adam Birtwistle’s portraits which I had recently seen displayed at King’s Place, http://whosjack.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/adam.png especially in relation to the horizontal structuring of the composition. Simon’s surreal playfulness shown in several zany mosaics are a nostalgic investigation into time, dream and reminiscence. I particularly liked “Man sending an e-mail”.
Nancy Pickard, Black Tulips oil on canvas 50 x 50cm
The exuberant compositions of Nancy Pickard, however, made the visit. Nancy, who has been in Cornwall for over ten years now is clearly influenced by the landscape and the sea. It is the blue luminescence of her inspiring canvases that drew my attention. It is the domestic peace of these compositions which attract the eye, which is echoed in her ceramics. Her delightful work may be viewed at http://www.nancypickard.co.uk/gallery.html
Our brand new cook book was finally unveiled at a party at the restaurant on Friday 17th May. Regular diners celebrated alongside journalists and leading figures from the Cornish hospitality industry, hosted by Executive Chef Michael Smith and the team.
As well as a Foreword written by Nathan Outlaw, whose restaurant in Rock holds two Michelin Stars, the book has been further endorsed by Heston Blumenthal. Heston, whose restaurant The Fat Duck consistently receives the highest accolades in the whole of the UK, was pleased to recommend Porthminster as a “favourite holiday eating spot of mine,” going on to praise “inventive cooking and a gorgeous location.”
We would like to thank Champagne Louis Roederer, Polgoon and Matthew Stevens & Son Fish for their sponsorship on the night.
The book is now available to buy from the restaurant and online.
Guests were served a taste of various recipes from the book, as well…
Since moving to Cornwall collecting seaglass has been a passion of mine and a hobby that can be enjoyed by the whole family. For those of you that don’t know, seaglass is otherwise known as beach glass or ‘mermaids tears’. It is old pieces of glass that have been discarded into the sea and have been broken and moulded by the sea tossing and turning them over the years turning the shards into frosted gems of glass. Cornwall has some of the best beaches in the world for searching for these hidden gems and can reveal a surprising array of different colours, shapes, sizes and types, many well over 100 years old. These can range from the rarest colours , orange , yellow and turquoise generally from tableware of the early 1900’s, to the more common greens and brown of the early wine and beer bottles and a huge range…
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