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| Pretty Windy Then? Sennen, February, 2014 |
I haven’t managed
much in the way of proper holidays away from the Midlands over the last couple
of years. Generally, I’ve devoted my free
time to trying to progress my artwork or investigating environments relatively
close at hand. However, as 2013
unfolded, I did have had the sense of being a bit stuck or maybe just too
thinly spread, creatively. My activities
never actually stopped but I’ve had a sense of blundering around without making
any significant breakthroughs for much of the year.
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| Jubilee Pool, Penzance, February 2014 |
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| Jubilee Pool, Penzance, February 2014 |
Consequently, as
the year turned, I planned the trip to Cornwall from which I recently returned,
if only to gain a fresh perspective on a slightly stale situation from a location
not obviously connected with my current work.
I’ve visited the village of Mousehole, (‘Mowzle’), repeatedly
over decades, and witnessed the changes that have gradually overtaken it since
the mid 1980s. It still has plenty to
recommend it for a short break, and offered a proven, easily achievable
opportunity to relax and clear my head, (and lungs, - after all those hours breathing
exhaust fumes under Leicester flyovers).
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| Penzance Harbour, February 2014 |
For a while, it
looked like the heavy-duty weather of recent weeks might jeapordise my travel
plans, and when I came down with a virus just before my departure day, I felt events
conspiring against me. In the event, I
made it there, albeit a couple of days late, and after driving down in wind and
heavy rain, was delighted when the clouds parted to bathe the last few miles of
my journey in glistening sunlight. The
rest of the week saw a perfectly tolerable mix of sun, showers and much calmer
seas than those that battered the Cornish coast in recent weeks.
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| Mousehole Harbour, February 2014 |
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| Mousehole Harbour, February 2014 |
It might have
been exciting to capture some of that action on camera, but the legacy of
closed roads, smashed sea walls and scattered debris between Penzance and
Newlyn demonstrated that this winter’s storms had been no joke. Footage of waves overwhelming Newlyn Bridge
are pretty chastening too, given that I leant on the parapet to chew a pasty
just a few days later. A mile or two
down the coast, Mousehole’s small harbour had fared slightly better but it was
alarming to discover three of the massive wooden beams that barricade the
harbor mouth, discarded on the beach after being broken in the turmoil.
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| Newlyn, February 2014 |
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| Wherrytown, Penzance, February 2014 |
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| Penzance Harbour, February 2014 |
The long-term climatic
implications of this winter’s weather feel all too real but, in the short term,
the disruption is perhaps easier for phlegmatic Cornish locals to rationalise
than for the outraged middle class victims of Thames Valley flooding, (to whom
bad things aren’t supposed to happen, - let’s face it). Remote from the rest of England and thrusting
into the Atlantic, geography and an industrial heritage of fishing, mining and
small-scale agriculture mean that life there was always lived out in the face
of the elements. Of course, it could be
argued that, of late, the real jeopardy for locals has lain in the realities of
scraping a living in England’s poorest county now that those old industries are
so denuded.
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| Penzance, February 2014 |
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| Jubilee Pool, Penzance, February 2014 |
As my artistic
concerns are mainly urban these days, Cornwall no longer provides a source of
primary subject matter as it once might have.
However, even on the level of routine photographic image harvesting,
(which really is just an ongoing habit wherever I go), it seems important to
make some account of the intrinsic precariousness of existence there. The documentary recording of the storm
damage, and the repairs now getting under way, were an obvious response to
that. Perhaps most poignant is the
damage to the charming old lido at Penzance whose future is now clearly under
threat due to the expense of securing it.
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| Jubilee Pool, Penzance, February 2014 |
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| Wherrytown, Penzance, February 2014 |
More oblique, are
the shots that deal with the routine processes of entropy and dilapidation to
which I’m always drawn in the city, but which inevitably become even more
picturesque in a wet and salt-laden, maritime environment. Related to this are the visual delights
associated with routine commercial activities in still-working harbours. Having taken the camera around the Newlyn quays repeatedly in the past, this time I explored the Penzance dockside where,
amongst other things, I found pleasing allusions to the functional role of paint in
battling the elements.
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| Penzance Harbour, February 2014 |
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| Penzance Harbour, February 2014 |
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| Wherrytown, Penzance, February 2014 |
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| Biological Insights, Sand On Painted Panel, Wherrytown, Penzance, February 2014 |
Further along, the dilapidated blue-painted
façade of an abandoned building provided an opportunity for geometric
formalism, (and some inventive, if offensive, sand graffitti), while out in the
sticks, a sub-theme of elderly or retired petrol stations emerged. The later might be seen to allude to one’s
dependence on, (and the attendant running costs of), reliable vehicular
transport in such an environment, or to the carbon-fuelled climatic changes
responsible for this winter’s weather.
In the interests of balance though, I should also mention the number of
times on my trip I sat behind slow moving buses on narrow roads. It seems that public transport still struggles
on in West Cornwall, (for now), along with an apparent determination to patch
up the storm damage and get on with life.
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| Newbridge, February 2014 |
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| Pendeen, February 2014 |
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| Penzance Harbour, February 2014 |
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