Installing rocks

Installing Newfoundland Fissure 2010 Photo courtesy of Art Affairs Gallery

Summer has arrived in disguise; the greying clouds and bursting rain falls feel more autumnal than weather for July. Things are quieter now the Mapping the Art exhibition has been installed and opened in Amsterdam (it continues until the 27th of August at Art Affairs Gallery, Veemkade 354). It was my first show I had co-curated and I was priviledged to have the help of Antoinette de Stigter the gallerist with this. 

It was so easy to persuade me to take a few days off afterwards and I had a "busman's holiday" in Brittany. I returned to the rocks I drew early in the Coastlines Project. There is nothing like stunning pink granite to really cheer me up.   

Pink Granite Coast, Brittany

Rock structure

For the first time we drove from the Netherlands. It is a very long journey with challenging traffic en route. We went via the coast of the Somme Valley. It is an incredibly powerful landscape because of its recent history. We both have great-uncles who were here, mine returned to South Africa but two of his remained buried in France amongst other Australians and the very many others who were lost. This landscape of loss is so very beautiful it is almost bewildering. The soil is so productive and the earth folds in gentle hills before slipping towards the water. On the lip with the sea a medieval town remains: Joan of Arc was imprisoned here, William the Conquer left from this region. It is a place of remembering and we stopped.

On the road with dimming evening light