That Monday feeling

Some weeks don't get off to a good start - last week my son's car was rear-butted by a truck and he spent most of the day in A&E, making sure his passenger's "sore neck" got seen to. The car is a write-off but both of them are ok.

My false start this week is totally insignificant compared to that. What's a bit of confusion and timewasting, in comparison to life and limb? 

Even before making coffee I somehow - somehow! - got involved in sorting the bag of scraps that called to me at the Wanstead quilt event on Saturday ... so I unpacked the "treasure" and sorted by colour and purpose...

various little bits - and the doggies that "called to me"

Not sure I'd ever sew anything with brown, but the pale colour and the dark green and a little more red could rescue this

No, not really, not even as a pot holder! ("Life is short...")

pale hand-dyes and strips of yellowy greens (bluey greens are in another heap)

 Then you come to the residuals - fabrics that passeth all understanding -

This exercise brings it home to me that it's time to Freecycle some fabrics and other craft items that no longer interest me. Much as I love a rummage through a scrap bag, I just don't want to rescue scraps any more.

But I do want to use that little doggie scrap in something, for a xmas present.

Back to the moment - the collection of scraps is still spread on my worktable, and another collection has come to light -

Seaglass, or rather, riverglass, and pottery dug up from T&G's garden. And that lovely rounded brick - how long does it take the water to shape it?

Another project for my list is to gather together all my seaglass and pottery bits, some of them very small, and decide what to do with them. Probably not a mosaic! 

Whenever I find a new one, especially a printed pottery shard, I have a vision of drawing it - at large scale - but by the time it gets home and drawing materials are at hand, the vision has faded. Either there's something more urgent to do, or it doesn't seem important any more. And yet the urge keeps on coming back, with each newly found shard. Maybe it's just an excuse for adding to the collection?

Litter training

The seminar room at the Maritime Museum filled up with people eager to help clean up the Thames foreshore. After a day of "the basics" we'll be spending a couple of hours a month helping with litter monitoring and site clearup through Thames21 groups.

Those basics included thinking about how litter (including "sewage-related items") might end up on the foreshore. Thanks to Victorian plumbing, or rather "combined sewers", every time it rains there's an overflow of raw sewage into the Thames. Not nice.

A big tunnel is being built, by Tideway (a funder of Thames21, at least till next year). There's been a lot of controversy in the media over this tunnel project costing £4.2bn or so, but work got underway in 2016. It will reduce "combined sewer" overflows to a maximum of four a year, and the recycled clean water, treated at Beckton, will be released into the Thames.

The Thames has a big catchment area - 16,000 sq km, with 38 tributaries, 16 towns/cities, 200 rowing clubs, and 60 active port facilities -

The grey bit on the right is central London

Litter hotspots come in two sorts - floating, where litter is washed up by the tide, and sinking, where it gets covered by mud at low-tide level. One monitoring project concerned wet wipes, which should NOT be flushed down the loo - they pollute the river. At rear right you can (just about) see the muddy things piled up in a tray; the central picture shows them washed off and laid out -

If you use wet wipes (and who doesn't), put them in the bin, not down the loo.

The big problem with plastic litter is that not only does it look like fish to birds (silvery, shiny), it also smells like something edible, once it's been lying around in the mud or water for a while - the chemicals change and the smell changes to something that the birds recognise as "food". Only it isn't.

Seven million tonnes of plastics are going into the oceans every year, and by 2025 this is set to increase to 70 million tonnes. Clearing up foreshores is "a drop in the ocean" - the main thrust is really to find out where the litter is coming from and stop it at source, and there are all sorts of strands to that, eg if manufacturers didn't print "flushable" on packets of wet wipes, or perhaps the availability of litter bins (regularly emptied). Why do they have to make cotton bud sticks out of plastic, why not paper? And don't get me started on all that styrofoam packaging...

Surveys by Thames21 found that 65% of litter was food related; next category was toiletries, at 19%. Three quarters of the litter was packaging; 20% was food wrappers, which break into small bit quite quickly (and get ingested by fish and birds), and 10% was drinks bottles.

Bottle counts have found that 47% of bottles are bottles for still water - some from as far away as Turkey and Fiji. The organisation is working with councils on the possibility of providing fresh water facilities (remember drinking fountains?) where people can refill their own water bottles.

After lunch, here we are, braving the wintery chill and ready to learn about safety on the foreshore (eg, don't work alone; wear gloves, and wash your hands afterwards; leave sharp items lie) -

before setting out some transects and quadrants -

and picking up all the plastic, etc, in sight -

I was intrigued by the change in the ground at different strand lines -  a smattering of coal high up -

 brick further down towards the water -

 and the many, horribly brown, animal bones near the water (just had to collect a few for the photo) -

An enjoyable and interesting day - though it was chilly inside and out! - with congenial people. I'm looking forward to actually doing some litter-picking. "Every little helps" - ??

"Serves 4 as side salad"

This recipe has been drifting around my desktop for a while now -

At some point I really did intend to make it, but today - it being Saturday, the traditional housework day for women who work outside the home - a frantic ruthlessness has come over me, such that I was about to finally put it in the bin but first had a quick read of it. I'm a sucker for variants on coleslaw, especially if they're not drowning in mayonnaise.


White cabbage salad with bacon and mustard

For the dressing:
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp grated horseradish
3 level Tbsp creme fraiche
1 tsp groundnut oil
salt and pepper

For the salad:
10 dried apple rings
4 dried peach halves
12 prunes
4 Tbsp raisins
12 dried apricots
12 rashers of smoked bacon, cooked crisp
375g hard white cabbage, finely shredded
1 orange, peeled and sliced
12 walnuts, shelled

Mix up the dressing ingredients and marinate the dried fruits in the dressing for 30 minutes.
Chop the bacon into 1" pieces, add to the cabbage, fruits etc and toss gently.
Transfer to a clean dish and serve.
Serves 4 as a side salad.

What! - as side salad a person would be required to consume 3 rashers of bacon, 3 whole walnuts, 2.5 apple rings, a peach half, 3 prunes, 3 dried apricots - not to mention some raisins and a bit of fresh orange - and not to forget several handfuls of shredded cabbage - all moistened by a dab of dressing. No no no no no...

Don't make this at home!

And when you read a recipe, whether in a magazine (does anyone proofread them?) or online (ditto), do keep your wits about you. Obviously I didn't do that, all those years ago when, intrigued by mustard and horseradish as a foil for the fruits, I cut it out and kept it.

At Hornsey Town Hall

The building, despite much local protest, is to become a hotel. In Crouch End, a posh hotel?

 Meanwhile it's an arts centre, including Ply Gallery, which currently (till 28 Nov) has a varied exhibition by members of Crouch End Open Studios.

 Exterior view of the building -

Andrew Thornley

 Other highlights -

Jackie Lewis

Richard Peacock (and Anonymous)

The group's Art Trail is 13-14 May 2018.

Poetry Thursday - The Departure by Denise Levertov

No particular poem has come my way this week, so I pick a book at random from the shelf. It's this one -

purchased, according to my notation, in January 1987 (I used to buy entire books after coming across one poem; sheer greed). It moved with me from the previous abode, and survived a recent bookpurge, but hasn't been opened since. 

This poem is on the first page, and was originally published in With Eyes at the Back of our Heads (1960) -

The Departure

Have you got the moon safe?

Please, tie those strings a little tighter.

This loaf, push it down further

the light is crushing it - such a baguette

golden brown and so white inside

you don't see every day

nowadays. And for God's sake

don't let's leave in the end

without the ocean! Put it

in there among the shoes, and

tie the moon on behind. It's time!

"Born in England in 1923, poet Denise Levertov began writing at a young age, sharing some of her poems with T.S. Eliot when she was 12 years old. Levertov published her first poetry collection, The Double Image, in England in 1940. Seventeen years later, she had her American collection, Here and Now, released. In the 1960s, Levertov was active in the anti-war movement in the United States. Additionally, she worked as a poetry editor for The Nation in the '60s and for Mother Jones in the '70s. Levertov died in 1997."  Read more at biography.com

Japanese woodblock printing - final class

Last woodblock-printing class today, last in the current series that is; more are coming up next term, including one that combines printing with book making ... but it's on Monday evenings, those dark winter Monday evenings... Anyway I shall set aside Weds mornings for continuing with the printing, till xmas. It's rather addictive - I love to do the cutting, and might do just one more ... so many are already on hand. There are all sorts of combinations I want to try, but they do take a while to print.... which is part of the pleasure of the process. Perhaps I can find a way to be more systematic in terms of what to combine; or focussed in terms of what the desired outcome might be. 

Yesterday evening I sorted out papers and prints, in whatever stages, and tried to think about what to concentrate on.

"Double" sheets printed from quickly-cut mdf - it's already showing signs of wear

Getting a glimpse of what the layering might look like

Categorising what's been done so far

Here's the one I prepared earlier - the diptych bound into a book

The cut blocks retain, but don't transfer, the colours of previous printings -

Carol showed us how to stretch a dampened print by taping it to plexiglas/perspex, then rubbing the tape to remove possible air bubbles -

Once the paper is dry the tape is removed  in a practised motion -

 

 This is the mirror image of the one that looks green, above -

 I printed both versions, and then got very confused about which one got the dots, and which way round the paper went! -

The green ones had been printed last week, but show the combination of various blocks; the others were printed this week, and are on their way to becoming "diptych books" - what about the covers... and what about colours, next time ...

To finish, a chance to look at everyone's work -

 ... and the other end of the table -

Drawing Tuesday - Parasol Unit

Out back, a tranquil autumnal scene ...

 Indoors, interesting objects by Martin Puryear (till 8 Dec) -

 I couldn't resist this one -

 and its straight-sided (but oh so irregular!) shapes and negative spaces -

 Two hours of grappling were a learning curve, and I got to wondering how "Brunhilde" was actually built ... steamed wood over a form? -

Carol was on the other side, having a close look at the intersections -

 

Sue caught the autumnal outside view, with that large bronze -

 ... as did Judith -

... and Janet K caught a different angle -

Joyce was upstairs with the prints -

Janet B was outside, elsewhere, happily drawing a warehouse till the cold drove her in to the nearby McDonald's to warm up -

 

 We persuaded her to join us at this jolly cafe (note the painted curtains) -

Extracurricular activities

Janet B, drawing at the veterinary college

Janet K, doing the collage homework from last week

 Also from last week:

Carol's work at the British Museum

 Tool of the week

Judith's  Pentel brush pen was satisfyingly dark, almost like charcoal -