I'll take your part

[pensnest]

Petrol shortages notwithstanding, I hauled Beast out yesterday to navigate the route between various artists' studios yesterday morning. We drove through the little lanes—Norfolk really is a wild county, by and large, with lots of tiny villages with cool names. I have no idea where I went, as there were no landmarks at all except the large TV mast at one point, just a lot of fields and hedged or tree-lined back roads.

Still, we got to our studios all right (and even got very efficient mileage, up to 75mpg at times). The first was, I think, the best: a glass artist with a daughter who dyes yarn. As you may imagine, I could not resist buying some yarn, and went for a change of colour, a blue-purple. Very strokeable merino/nylon. The glass artist's work was lovely, and I seriously toyed with the idea of buying one of her hare pictures as a housewarming present for my daughter, who used to live in 'Bunnyhold' and now lives in 'The Warren'. But we will consult first, I think.

Next we found our way to a place where the husband did some very precise and clever work with glass in geometric patterns (mostly), and the wife created really excellent quilts. It was interesting to talk to them both—they obviously both share an ability to be technically precise, which I quite lack. I cannot do patchwork, I'd just make a mess!

The final studio was a lot closer to home, and again, a glass artist. Many pictures, some vases and 'slumped' vases sitting in wooden cages, which were quite tempting but not quite tempting enough. But it was very interesting to see the work of three different artists using the same medium in quite different ways. They all knew one another, of course, and the first one had tutored the second.

I'm quite surprised at the prevalence of people working in glass, which requires at least one kiln and cannot come cheap. I mean, I've spent quite a bit on my own Habit, but not kiln-level money! But the houses with the studios attached were all rather fabulous. It's basically for middle-class people who have probably retired on good pensions, or have a partner making loadsamoney. They do sell their wares, and what they create is worth having, but it's a bit like my late FIL's boats and his 'free fish'; must take a heck of a lot of sales to pay for a kiln! However, like me, they are probably doing it for the fun of the thing. And that's nice.

*

Today was our mixed chorus's first full-day rehearsal since COVID burst upon us last year. We've had shorter get-togethers, but our usual pattern is to spend several hours together once every six weeks or so.

I was a bit worried about it to start with, but we began to gel properly after a little bit, and actually sounded rather good. Astonishingly, we kept on pitch all day! This is unprecedented! (We'll have to keep an ear on the absentees when they come back next time, and blame them if the pitch drops!)

I took along the remaining Macmillan cakes, which are now all gone, and it was a lovely day. And I spent it singing Tenor....

Comments

[shipperslist]

Your art tour sounds quite lovely. I've once sat in a glass blower's show and it was simply fascinating. How you get liquid from sand and then you can blow it into shapes and then it cools and it's solid and beautiful... it's witchcraft. Truly.

[pensnest]

There's a place not too far from here called Langham Glass, we've been there twice, and watching them blow all kinds of things is quite fascinating. (Noisy, too!) And many years back we went with our kids to a cut crystal factory near Edinburgh, watched a craftsman casually carve fish, sharks and seaweed into a tumbler (I still have that glass), and had a go at cutting our own tumblers.

It's a fascinating medium with so many possibilities, and so beautiful.

[minoanmiss]

Oooh, glass art!

[pensnest]

And so much variety of it, too!

[ephemera]

That sounds like a wonderful creative weekend!

[pensnest]

It was a lovely morning touring round the studios, and today's singing really cheered me up.

[corvidology]

Sounds like a glorious weekend to me! \o/

[pensnest]

It was very agreeable indeed. Relevant to my interests!

[watervole]

I think Norfolk isn't so much 'wild' as very low population density.

The natural vegetation is a long way from open fields. a lot of that region would be bog if it didn't have very active drainage.

[pensnest]

It's so different to Hertfordshire, a very 'tame' county by comparison! Very much Landrover territory, I think. I'm glad to live in the city, because having to drive everywhere (down narrow lanes) is not my thing at all. It feels to me as though there are plenty of settlements dotted about, but they are mostly very tiny, whereas Hertfordshire, being commuter country, had bigger villages. You're quite right about the population density, though—Hertfordshire has a lot more people in a much smaller area.

I don't suppose there is much of England still in its original state.

[watervole]

Hardly any. All those National Parks are mostly very degraded landscapes. The need for timber, followed up by sheep farming on cleared ground has removed most of our native vegetation.

[pensnest]

And Capability Brown & co gave us a quite different image of what an English landscape *should* look like.

[watervole]

At least his schemes had small woodlands dotted around. But I know what you mean.

[pensnest]

I've been watching quite a lot of programmes about gardens, variously - Monty did one about the history of English gardens, which was very interesting.

[turps]

Your weekend sounds so nice.

But yeah, kilns must be mega amounts of money.

I enjoy going to The Glass Centre at Sunderland, glasswork is so beautiful, and I think people must have nerves of steel to handle molten glass.

[pensnest]

It was quite a soul-food weekend, really.

I mean, I have spent quite a bit on Stuff for my crafts, what with one thing and another, but investing in a kiln...! Mind you, I don't invest myself fully in any one of my crafts, so it's probably just as well I haven't gone for that level of equipment. When you have a *kiln*, you'd jolly well better do things with glass!

It is quite fascinating watching people work with glass, in so many different ways.

[turlough]

It sounds like you'd a wonderful weekend!

All the artists you visited sounds really interesting. Fascinating that so many worked with glass. Does Norfolk maybe have a tradition of glass working? I live right in the middle of the traditional glass working district in Sweden. Even though far too many of the old glass works are closed now there are still some left, both large and small, and several independent glass artists.

[pensnest]

I don't know if there's a tradition hereabouts of glass working, but they established a collective of some kind, which seems very sensible. The Open Studios thing is also a collective, I suppose.

[sperrywink]

Sounds like a great time! ANd it is so interesting that there are so many glassworks artists nearby and they all do different stuff.

Glad your choir rehearsal went well!

[pensnest]

For all I know there are more glass artists too - I think one of them said they have a collective. The booklet for the Open Studios has around 250 artists in the county, of one kind or another - it's amazing!

[frausorge]

That sounds like very interesting art to view!

And congrats on such a good rehearsal. Staying on pitch that long is an admirable feat!

[pensnest]

It would have been lovely to spend the whole day touring studios, but it wouldn't have been fair to Beast or to our petrol tank(!). And navigating through lots of tiny, anonymous lanes would have been impossible on my own. But at any rate, I'm glad we went.

Staying on pitch that long is *extremely* unusual!