@mclees-fiona
Paper conservator in Wales. Manuscripts, drawings, artists’ materials, studios, sideline interests in holy wells, roodscreens, and all manner of heritage at the end of long country lanes. Colour-related Instagram posts @chromatic_dispatches
My amazing colleagues created this wonderful short film in my conservation studio, featuring me talking about Gwen John’s use of colour and her strategies for remembering and calculating colour relationships. All the “umms” in my speech have been edited out! m.youtube.com/watch?v=5GvQ...
Umms have a way of forcing their existence into this world
My amazing colleagues created this wonderful short film in my conservation studio, featuring me talking about Gwen John’s use of colour and her strategies for remembering and calculating colour relationships. All the “umms” in my speech have been edited out! m.youtube.com/watch?v=5GvQ...
Over 100 works of art being put up for auction by (cash strapped) Reform-run Kent County Council.
Kent Greens: "While the total financial value of the art is only around £35k, the historic and social value of the art, most of which depicts Kent, is far higher."
Aren’t they great!
They are very inter-linked!
…and astronomy, building a stone observatory for his daughter Thereza to use. She became an astronomer and pioneer in scientific photography, collaborating with her father to produce some of the earliest photos of the moon in the mid-1850s, and to photograph snow crystals.
Amgueddfa Cymru holds many of their works, somewhat perversely in the “Industry” collections. John Dillwyn Llewelyn’s other interests included experiments in sub-marine telegraphy; developing an orchid house to replicate the South American jungle (complete with heated waterfall);…
A black and white glass plate negative of daffodils, ferns, and grasses, set amongst craggy rocks
St David’s Day/Dydd Gŵyl Dewi Sant: Ferns & Daffodils (c.1850s) by Welsh botanist & photography pioneer, John Dillwyn Llewelyn. His sister Mary Dillwyn was also drawn to photography & was probably the 1st female photographer in Wales. They produced many images of flowers, animals, people, & places.
I’ve strayed from writing about conservation / technical art history and have produced a non-fiction essay about watching excavations in Trinity College Oxford / a buried maze / the loss of a friend / repairing manuscripts at the Bodleian. Advice welcome on where I might place such an essay.
Gosh that’s extraordinary. I’ll have to go take a look…
Indeed! I still remember by father many years ago declaiming upon Gloucester cathedral’s voluted crockets. Some phrases are too pleasing to be subdued into the chatter of daily language.
Gosh that framer needs to calm down a little.
But the trolley has a Pringles tube AND a tied up baggy of dog poo….?
A lane with wooden fence. In the foreground, a large tyre encircles a concrete bollard. In the background, an abandoned shopping trolley with rubbish: Pringles tube and tied up baggy of dog poo (presumably)
Quintessential urban lane aesthetic
Ah no!
Me too!
In or near Abergavenny (or want an excuse to visit)? Augustus & Gwen John biographer @judithmackrell.bsky.social, curator Lucy Wood and I will be in discussion with @peterwakelin.bsky.social on Thursday 26th March. Talking about Gwen John, of course artshopandgallery.co.uk/events/conve...
In or near Abergavenny (or want an excuse to visit)? Augustus & Gwen John biographer @judithmackrell.bsky.social, curator Lucy Wood and I will be in discussion with @peterwakelin.bsky.social on Thursday 26th March. Talking about Gwen John, of course artshopandgallery.co.uk/events/conve...
Amazing!
I have the Ackroyd! But not that Moore… one to add to my list…
I must look properly at the Sutherland ones at Amgueddfa Cymru - some are rather piecemeal, I suspect Tate got the more complete ones. I worked on some when I worked at Tate, studies for the Origins of the Land, brilliant acid greens and boot prints and stuck together pages
That’s interesting, the crossed knees are facing one way in the sketches and the other in the painting…?
A portrait painting of Somerset Maugham sitting on a chair with his arms folded and with one leg crossed over the other. Around this are five pencil sketches of such cross legs.
Graham Sutherland
From the Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales sketchbooks
Somerset Maugham (The Tate)
And also, this. I do love sketchbooks. shop.kettlesyard.co.uk/products/alf...
I like to buy facsimiles of sketchbooks; there are some nice Turner ones, and Henry Moore’s sheep, & various other things one can pick up cheaply to gain a modicum of the experience of handling the real thing. This is my next purchase, it looks beautifully done: www.davidzwirner.com/collect/anni...
A Path in the Woods
A Path in the Woods https://www.wikiart.org/en/graham-sutherland/a-path-in-the-woods-1958
A Canaletto painting of Venice. In the foreground in front of it stands a tool troller with piles of blue rope, a bucket full of equipment, a plastic bottle a third full of clear liquid….
Canaletto with accessories - a somehow arresting sight in a closed gallery today
