Wednesday 14 March 2012

Summer revisited

You'd think I would have run out of things to post about from last year, but no here's a little blog of odds and ends that cropped up in the Summer between arts and crafts trails and sculpure parks and symposiums.

Just a couple of miles to the north east of Creetown is this rather unusual stone circle of low lying boulders with one standing stone in the middle - easily missed, it's two fields off the road and no proper parking to speak of. I had spotted it on the map - it's the sort of road where you have to watch for things coming in the other direction - it's quite thin! It's known as the Glenquicken stone circle.



This sculpture is known as the Creetown Baby - not surprisingly it is just outside Creetown. It was created by Alex Rigg who along with Trevor Leat create the Wickerman that is burned every year at the Wickerman festival locally (for a better idea of that, best to pay Kim a visit here or here). This one though is made from steel.


Apparently there's a door in the back that you can get inside from - I didn't realise that while I was there. 


It was only unveiled in April of last year - in a few years time these climbing roses planted around it's base should cover the sculpture and it will look very different indeed (a good reason to keep popping back I think)



Some roads are a bit more rural than others - this one is verging on stopping being a road and becoming a field.


When the prehistoric Gallovidians put up their standing stones, I don't suppose they knew they'd be so far from a proper road - Maybe they did. This one certainly had a grand view over the Solway.



What could be further from the last picture than this rather brutalist block of flats in Barnsley - what a world of difference though the rainbow widows make in cheering it up.


I dropped into Halifax minster on my way through the town. Quite the loveliest thing in the church in my opinion was this alter with mosaic panels.



All in the nations churches is not as Christian as you might think. The most commonly occuring pagan symbol occurring in our churches is the green man, this one spotted amongst the choir seating.


While I was in Halifax, some of the Piece Hall was bedecked in bits of knitting of which this was typical.



There was an excellent exhibition in the Tolbooth in Kirkcudbright of arts and crafts from the Glasgow School. The pieces are from the earlier half of the 20th century and were on loan from a private collection. At this exact moment I cannot say much about the pieces, but once I get home, I have the catalogue for the exhibition and will update this blog with what details I can.




The next two pieces are by Jessie M King, who was one of the best known figures in the Kirkcudbright art scene, living in the town from 1915 till 1949, when she died.



I'll finish here with a couple of little wild life moments. This was a close thing, this lapwings nest was spotted just before I arrived at it. They normally lay clutches of 4 eggs and the camoflage obviously works, as I've often seen lapwings but this is the first time I've seen their nest.


This hare was spotted one evening as I was leaving my sister's house.


8 comments:

John @ Beans and I on the Loose said...

We recently bought a granite boulder (who would thought one day people would be paying money for a rock, bag of dirt, a bottle of water or air to pump up your automobile tire) for our yard. It is about the size of those in the foreground in the second photo, maybe a wee bit smaller. It weighed right at 900 pounds and was set in place by a mini forklift. You have to hand it to those ancients.

Crafty Green Poet said...

Lovely selection of photos! I love stone circles! The hare is beautiful! I'm never sure what i think of knitting wrapped round drainpipes, though

John "By Stargoose And Hanglands" said...

What a wonderfully diverse collection of photos> And apart from the last ones all of man-made (or perhaps woman-made) artefacts. What strange things we've turned our hands to over the centuries.

Shundo said...

Lovely selection again - your comments about stones and roads reminds me of my aunt flying into Heathrow from the States one time, and supposedly hearing a couple loking down on Windsor castle and saying,"But why did they build it so close to the airport?"

Sandy's witterings said...

It's marvelous some of the things that the ancients have managed to make John - Not only before the times of fork lifts or diggers but before you could even buy a decent shovel of spade, so chopping down a tree of digging a hole would be much more difficult.

So I can be fairly sure if I see and knitted graffiti in Edinburgh, it's not you the Juliet.

John, we certainly have found some odd things to do once we stopped putting all our effort into surviving.

I see you Aunts point of view Shundo - If the ancients can build the Avebury stone circle right next to the nearest pub, then you'd think a king could put his castle futher from the airport :)

sam21 said...

I was brought up, by my Grandparents, in Creetown in the late 60/70s - love it there. Haven't been to the stone circle in years - you forget its there. Lovely memories.

sam21 said...

I was brought up, by my Grandparents, in Creetown in the late 60/70s - love it there. Haven't been to the stone circle in years - you forget its there. Lovely memories.

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