Beautiful summer day made entirely perfect by a visit to George Szirtes and
Clarissa Upchurch in Wymondham (pronounced Windam) Norfolk.- I'm running out of
superlatives, I can't keep saying beautiful etc. but it really was,
start to finish. Here's George's Facebook post about it.
First of all the view out of the train window from
Cambridge onwards - the flawless geometry of the Norfolk Fens - endless flat
horizontals broken by shorter verticals and then suddenly these
absolutely outlandishly perfect circles equally spaced over the ochre
flatness. Rationally I knew they were
hay bales, not made by human hands, but it was all really BauHaus. I
haven't been to this part of the country before and I was mesmerised, amazed that the wooded clumps of trees here and there on the flat
ochre or green carpet were all exactly the same height so that they
looked like hedges, carefully trimmed by a hedge-barber. (instead of a
hedge-funder, heh heh). And no human beings in that perfect geometrical
landscape, no figurative olde worlde peasants tilling the soil. I
thought it would be an idea to insert some life-size statues of said
peasants in those fields, you know, just to surprise people looking out
of train windows.
But never mind all that. The real point of the day was
the connection with two exceptional individuals, Clarissa and George,
and the inspiring environment in which they live. Unlike George, I'm not
good at describing a day's progress with its many significant details
so I'm not even going to try. Both of them are multi-talented,
multi-faceted, impossible to summarise such richness, visual, verbal,
personal. The time flew by, lunch and conversation were delicious,
stunning artwork in portfolios and on the walls (the walls too,
especially that silky aquamarine one!). Here are a few images. Others
remain in my mind and heart.
4 comments:
Ahh, there is always the 'comfort' connections to homely safety.
The british Normans have always built forts against the Saxons.Meh.
Aaargh .. beware the Vikings ..
Davoh, What are you talking about?
I envy you the marvelous trains across the pond. And your friends look like a very happy couple.
Bruce, well, the trains may be marvellous but the various companies who run them are not always so great! Fortunately I don't have to commute but people who do are frequently held up by all sorts of delays. And train fares have gone up hugely! So nothing's perfect, either side of the pond!
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