Peter Jon Fowler

Painter

Surreal in Suffolk V: jay-walkers take precedence over vehicles

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Sometime last year a rather surprising, printed bill-board appeared by the cross-roads with the traffic lights on the main southerly approach into Saxmundham (the old A12 before the by-pass was built). The notice was attached to the post carrying the town’s coat of arms. Its somewhat unusual message was that people walked in the road ahead i.e. the main street through this small town, so would you please drive carefully. Unfortunately, I cannot provide the text verbatim since I did not photograph it, though I often thought I should because the message seemed odd; it was at least a change from the usual instruction to pedestrians to keep off the road, or at the very least to warn them of dangerous, moving traffic. In its rather quaint little way, the reversal of roles, warning drivers of pedestrians, was very ‘Suffolk’.

But then disaster struck: either a vehicle clipped the road-side half of the board and snapped it off or, as I suspect happened, a person, perhaps a driver, annoyed by its rather fatuous message, snapped it off manually. ‘I really must photograph it in this state’, I said to myself but of course when I next returned to Sax with camera at the ready, the other half of the board had disappeared too. That must have been the result of deliberate breakage. All I could do was photograph the narrow middle strip of the board which was directly attached to the post. It is still there. It contains various letters and bits of letters but I have so far failed to reconstruct the full message in all its glory (photograph to be downloaded idc). And of course I don’t have a record of the original message: I wonder if anyone else has?

Meanwhile, off the market place on the side road approaching the railway station, a new poster has appeared. In the same black type-face on yellow background as the original it exhorts you to ‘DRIVE SLOWLY PEOPLE WALKING IN ROAD.’ In other words, it delivers the same message as the original but in fewer than half the words.

My guess would be that the original was the result of a well-intentioned initiative by an elderly persons’ organisation but that there were many objections to its odd wording, perhaps even from the police. So it was taken down, recomposed briefly, reprinted and put up again, though off the main street, where it can neither offend nor do much good. The odd thing is that It has never seemed to me, as a frequent motorist in Sax, that people walking in the road here is any worse than in other towns. Indeed, so characteristically unpeopled is the high street, with scarcely anyone on the pavements never mind in the road, that we have often made ‘dead as a dodo’-type remarks about the streetscape as we drive through. Funny place, Sax: it seems to have failed to solve a problem which doesn’t exist.

 

Easel as she goes

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This time last year I identified three big domestic objectives to be targeted in 2021. One was to have the whole of the interior of the house redecorated. This was achieved in October. Don’t ask me about the other two objectives, though one of them is top of the list to be done in 2022.

The redecoration involved making good a lot of nasty little holes in the walls where I had fixed picture hooks. They allowed us to have the little exhibitions in our main rooms which I have discussed and illustrated in previous years. But the finished effect of the redecoration, with smooth off-white surfaces on all walls, made me reluctant to create a new set of damaged areas on them, so for three months no art was displayed while I considered the options – and became accustomed to living in a house with no paintings on the walls. It seemed strange at first but then not unacceptable.

 

Somebody then asked if it would be possible to display some paintings on spare easels; so I brought two over from the studio to experiment, acknowledging that it seemed a pity not to display some at least of the very good works of art I have assembled (almost entirely not by me). I have tried several different combinations but the illustrations show the current position. The room is just big enough not to be dominated by the strange structures, particularly the larger easel which allows me to display a heavy work, framed and glazed, without damaging the wall at all. I like the arrangement.

The two works in this initial step are two of my favourites. The larger (lower) is ‘Loose threads’ by Ross Loveday, drypoint carburundum on paper, undated but bought as new in 2019. The smaller (upper) is ‘Winter fields’ by Chris Dodderidge, oil on board, c 2019.

 

Since publishing this note a reader has drawn my attention to a helpful piece published on line by the Bankside Gallery, London, on precisely this subject. One of its solutions is to do exactly what I have done.

Filed Under: Art

The Sitting Enigma

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Everybody here is standing, but that is not the case in the (proper) version of the well-known carol ‘While shepherds watched …’. What were they watching? – their flocks of course. Over decades of singing this carol, I have always unthinkingly imagined the shepherds were watching their flocks ‘all seated on the ground.’ But were they? Several years’ experience of helping look after sheep has taught me that the shepherd always stands to watch his sheep, thus raising the question whether the carol means that it was the sheep who were ‘seated on the ground.’

A sheep spends up to a third of its day seated on the ground while it ruminates, that is chews and properly digests the grass it has collected in the previous hours. This is the complement to the grazing part of the eating process. So it is distinctly possible, in fact more than likely, that the flocks were sitting down ruminating when an angel dropped in and ‘glory shone around’ in what was almost certainly a disruptive sort of way.

Doubtless others have always assumed that it was the sheep who were lying down in the carol, so cannot see my problem. The parsing of the carol does not help a lot since the adjectival phrase ‘all seated on the ground’ can apply almost equally to either the shepherds or their flocks. That the flocks were plural would sit readily with the single word ‘all’. But the words do not say ‘While shepherds, all seated on the ground, watched their flocks by night’; nor do they say ‘While shepherds watched their flocks, all seated on the ground, by night.’ Either makes the meaning clear, but does not scan. So we are left with the Sitting Enigma, an ambiguity in the opening lines of one of the best-known of carols. Baaaaa…

Have I died?

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I did not send any cards for the Xmas just gone; though I phoned or e-mailed many friends and acquaintances on my card list, but not all. A result is that, by New Year’s Day, I have received a few enquiries from people I did not contact – enquiries in some cases delicately phrased – regarding the state of my health. As a friend said on the phone last evening, it can be significant when one does not receive a card from a regular sender.

I therefore wish to make it quite clear to anyone who wants to know, and who just might read this blog, that I remain of this world. This may or may not be glad tidings to those who did not know, I appreciate that; I would also add that, as far as I recall from my cricketing days, I was never out in the ’80s and always went on to a century. I am 86 in the year just starting today, so keep your diary clear for 14 June 2036.

Surreal in Suffolk IV: on another beach

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A larger than life-size statue of a human figure, made entirely from horshoes, appeared on a Suffolk beach near Covehithe; and then disappeared.

This story, and the image below, are taken from the on-line version of a local newspaper.

 

 

On a Knife Edge

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The message of this exhibition is clear in the writings on this map at the entrance to it. Perhaps surprisingly, it is in the small gallery of the Lettering Arts Trust at Snape Maltings, Suffolk. This short note is rushed on to the world’s stage because the exhibition ends on November 7th, and as many people as possible should see it.

The exhibition is a bold attempt to merge one of the great contemporary issues – ‘the impending loss of the UK’s fragile wildlife, flora and fauna and habitats’, – with the art and craft which it is the Trust’s business to promote. The image below illustrates the message and the medium: