Girls in the Wind

'Girls in the Wind' may have been on display at The Hepworth for a while but I'd never noticed it before. A small bronze sculpture by Betty Rea (1904-1965), it depicts two young friends, their hair and clothes blown by the wind. I liked the liveliness and movement in it, which contrasted with the heavy feel of the bronze itself. 

Rea studied at the Royal College of Art and stayed faithful to figurative work when others were moving towards abstract modernism. In an art world largely dominated by men, these depictions of women by a female artist have a significant place. 

The ethereal sculpture below attracted me. Called 'Double Vision' and created by Leeds-born artist Caroline Broadbent, it is made of nylon and explores duality and liminal space. The dress is a metaphor for the person, the meeting point for the inside with the rest of the world. 

Wakefield windows

I had a trip to The Hepworth in Wakefield with a friend just before Christmas. I wanted to see an exhibition that included some of David Hockney's early work and, anyway, it's a while since I'd visited, there's a great café and it was chance to catch up on news with a good friend. We enjoyed ourselves, though it's arguable that both of us would have come away with better photos had we not been distracted by chatting!

As always, the building itself excites me as much as the work on show. It's all about light and shadow, with some wonderful views from the windows. In the photo above, I managed to frame the spire of Wakefield Cathedral in one of the characteristic holes in a huge Barbara Hepworth sculpture.

Below is a striking hand-painted bronze sculpture by Rebecca Warren. I think it's a representation of a human form, though to me it just looked lumpy! I liked the colouring and patina though - and I loved its juxtaposition with the glowing golden branches of the willow tree outside.

The sculpture was more attractive in close-up. I could see a face (perhaps an angel) in this bit, though it wasn't meant to be a face.

Wakefield Cathedral's new look

When I last went to Wakefield Cathedral (HERE) it was undergoing a reordering and restoration of the interior, and I promised to go back and see it. That was in 2013. I think the work was finished in 2016, so I'm only a bit late!

The cathedral sits right in the centre of Wakefield and has little around it, no cathedral close or gardens as some have. It was originally a parish church and was designated a cathedral in 1888 when the Diocese of Wakefield was created.

Its external appearance owes much to a Victorian restoration by George Gilbert Scott in the late 1800s. Inside, the recent work saw the pews in the nave removed, to create an open space for worship and public events. The nave was completely refurbished and overhauled and then, in a second phase of work, the East end, chapels, crypt and chapter house were all refurbished.

The end result is light, bright, attractive and welcoming. They have relaunched with a wide ranging programme of worship, concerts and events, aiming to make the cathedral even more a focal point of the city of Wakefield and its regeneration.

The Hepworth Garden

Opposite The Hepworth in Wakefield is a fascinating old red-brick Victorian mill building. I'm not sure what it's used for now (if anything) but the two so different buildings are a wonderful foil for each other, both very strong in their lines and shapes. In between is a large, open space that has hitherto been no more than a strip of grass. They are now in the process of transforming it into 'one of the UK's largest free public gardens' (though how it deserves that title, I'm not exactly sure).

The garden has been designed by Tom Stuart-Smith, an acclaimed landscape designer with eight Gold Medal winning gardens at the Chelsea Flower Show on his CV. He specialises in combining naturalism and modernity, using sweeps of planting within a defined framework. 

The hard landscaping is well underway, some large trees have been installed and the first small area appeared ready for planting. It's all supposed to be finished by summer 2019, so I look forward to watching it as it develops and matures.

Shown right is an artists' impression of what the garden will look like when complete.

Hepworth light and shade series

I absolutely adore the main stairwell within The Hepworth gallery in Wakefield. It has hidden skylights and slate cladding, which emphasise all the angles and lines, giving wonderful highlights and shadows. I always stop to take photos of it; the subtle differences in light really interest me.

Even the lockers along the corridor (where people can leave their bags if they're too big to carry around the galleries) make for an interesting study in the right light.

Beautiful things

Here are a few more precious and beautiful objects from the Magdalene Odundo exhibition that I liked:

a reworked linen ruff,

a cute little gold alloy duck, that would have been a finial for a staff, dated between AD 500-1600, from the Sinú culture in Colombia,

a small Barbara Hepworth sculpture made of pink stone, called 'Mother and Child'.  It was made in 1934, when Hepworth was expecting her own triplets.

Magdalene Odundo

Kenyan-born Magdalene Odundo OBE is one of the world's most esteemed ceramic artists. I went along to The Hepworth in Wakefield to catch her exhibition 'The Journey of Things', and what a treat it was. There were a number of her own pieces, alongside other historic and contemporary objects that she has chosen to illustrate the influences on her work. There's a good review HERE.

I loved the burnished terracotta vases above. She builds the pots, not on a wheel but by constantly walking around them and shaping them by hand. Then she adds a slip glaze and fires them, with subtle and unpredictable results.
"I work very slowly. I think a lot. I work on pieces like a sculptor. I form, I model, I remodel."

The porcelain 'Three Ashed Bottles' below are by Gwyn Hanssen Pigott (1935-2013), an acclaimed Australian ceramic artist. I adored their simple lines and the crackled glaze.

The pot above is by Odundo, whereas the one below, dated to about 1900, is a traditional pot made and used by the Nupe people of Nigeria, whom she cites as one of her greatest inspirations. She explores the connection between pottery and womanhood in many African cultures; women make and use the pots, and there are associations with the fertility of earth and the female body's ability to serve as a vessel for a child.

I'm not always wildly excited about ceramics, but I did like these very much - such simple, strong shapes. It was also very interesting to see the other objects she had chosen to display and to trace connections and her 'journey' as an artist.

The Hepworth (again)

I made another visit to The Hepworth gallery in Wakefield to see an exhibition. After being a little unsure at first as to whether I liked its architecture, over the years I've come to view it as a most exciting building, uncompromising in its starkness and yet full of subtle light and shade, both within and without. For once, it was quite a decent day for photos, though the brightest light is always behind its 'best side'. Somehow, it always manages to look more like an architect's drawing than an actual, real building. (Click the 'Hepworth' label below for posts I've done about it in the past.)

Paper marbling

At Nostell, in collaboration with The Hepworth Wakefield, there was a demonstration of paper marbling techniques by the artist Giles Round's Obelisk Marbling team. They were taking inspiration from the beautifully marbled paper that Thomas Chippendale used to line drawers in his furniture, and the endpapers of some of the precious books in the library.  

The process involves a bath of carrageen seaweed, a thick gluey substance, which is then delicately splattered with pigments. The surface is often combed or dragged to produce swirling effects.  A sheet of paper is laid on top to pick up the pigments and then lifted out to dry. Each sheet is unique. The bath is cleaned between each page, by soaking up the remaining pigment with newspaper before starting again. It was quite time-consuming but the young lady demonstrating it when I visited seemed to be enjoying the creative process. 

Inside Nostell

The State Dining Room, designed by James Paine

Sitting room lined with tapestries

Bedroom with tester bed, most likely designed by James Paine

The interior of Nostell Priory is jam-packed with fine architectural details, priceless furniture and objects, utterly breath-taking. Of particular interest is the plasterwork, crafted by two generations of the Rose family of plasterers: Rococo designs by James Paine and later the Neo-Classical designs made famous by Robert Adam.

Plaster ceiling by James Paine in the State Bedroom.

Plasterwork in the Top Hall by Robert Adam

Robert Adam ceiling in the Top Hall

It is likely that Robert Adam introduced the Winns to Thomas Chippendale, a Yorkshireman (born in Otley) who made his name as a furniture maker and designer, largely by producing the innovative "The Gentleman and Cabinet-Makers Director", a luxurious catalogue of furniture designs. With this judicious advertising and by making connections to some of the wealthy elite, he became one of the most celebrated furniture makers Britain has ever produced - a kind of 'Shakespeare' of the furniture world. He not only supplied individual items but designed whole room schemes. His relationship with the Winns was not always straightforward and there were arguments over unpaid bills and unfinished work. When Rowland Winn was killed in a coach accident in 1785, Chippendale was left with huge unpaid fees.

Nostell is home to some of Chippendale's best pieces and last year (2018), being the 300th anniversary of his birth, there was a special exhibition exploring his life, work and relationship with Nostell.

Chippendale cabinet

Nostell Priory

I've just returned from a holiday, so I need a few days to sort out my photos. In the meantime, I've just realised that I never shared any photos of one of the expeditions I made last autumn, to Nostell Priory near Wakefield. I'll remedy that now. It gives us an excuse to enjoy those lovely autumn colours, so different from the current bright spring shades.

Nostell, a Georgian mansion built between 1727 and 1785, was the home of the Winn family, who had originally made their money from the London textile trade in Tudor times and then added to it by investment in property and land. They bought the Nostell estate in 1654. By the 18th century, as a high status family and now with a knighthood, they wanted to replace the original house with a new one that would demonstrate (and increase) their status and wealth. Over two generations, they employed James Paine (who was only 19 when he began the work) to create an imposing and fashionable Palladian mansion, and craftsmen like Robert Adam and Thomas Chippendale to create and furnish the interior. Waning family fortunes and early deaths meant the project was never completely finished, until the discovery of ironstone and coal on the family's various estates revived their wealth. By the late 19th century, Nostell was finally fulfilling the grand vision for which it had been conceived. It was given to the National Trust in 1953 and is hailed as one of the great houses of the North of England.

There is plenty to explore inside the house and also a huge estate of gardens, lakes and parkland for visitors to enjoy.

The forge

One of the buildings at the National Coal Mining Museum is used as a working forge by Nicholson-Harris Blacksmiths. It's a happy arrangement whereby the buildings and tools are used and the blacksmiths are able to carry out conservation work on some of the museum's objects, as well as producing items for sale and for commissions. You can also book a 'Be a Blacksmith for a Day' experience course, to learn the basic skills and create a few hand-forged items yourself. That sounds great fun!

Life in the mines

Most of the men now greeting and educating visitors at the National Coal Mining Museum are ex-miners. It makes it very interesting as they have real stories to tell and real expertise to share. On the day I visited, Alex was stationed in the Hope Pit Store, which holds much of the museum's archive of heavy machinery and tools. It is situated at the far side of the museum site, and you can either ride over there on a little train (that used to carry miners to their work stations) or walk along a nature trail. It was fairly quiet when I was there, so he kindly agreed to pose for a photo.

Canaries were used in mines right up until the 1980s, to detect dangerous gases like carbon monoxide. The birds would react much more quickly than people to the presence of toxic fumes, and acted as an early warning system. Eventually the use of 'electronic noses' meant the birds were phased out, but many miners felt this was a loss as they treated the birds as pets. Caphouse has an aviary full of the pretty yellow birds.

Pit ponies were once used extensively underground as well as above ground, to haul coal and equipment. At the peak in 1913, 70,000 were employed underground but by 1978, thanks to mechanisation, there were only 149 underground and the last of them retired in the 1990s. The sturdy, hardy little ponies lived underground for many months at a time, enjoying occasional holidays above ground. They were a vital part of the mine's operation and as such were well-cared for, and much loved by the miners.

Capstone has this model (below) showing how they would have pulled the coal tubs along rails, but there are also four real horses, including a couple of little Welsh ponies and a lovely Clydesdale heavy horse. They do a short 'day shift' in the stables to delight and educate visitors to the museum and are then led out to fields to graze and rest.

Our coal heritage

The last deep coal mine in the UK, Kellingley in Yorkshire, closed in December 2015, bringing to an end an industry that had sustained many communities since the 17th century. (There are a few open-cast mines still working.)                                                                                                               I've been doing some research on my family tree, and I know that my maternal grandfather and his father were miners in the Nottinghamshire/Derbyshire coalfields. I was interested therefore to revisit the National Coal Mining Museum for England, near Wakefield. I last went there in 2014 (see here) but it has expanded quite a lot since then. Colliery headstocks and buildings were a familiar sight in my childhood and have now mostly disappeared, so to see the preserved remains of Caphouse Colliery and Hope Pit is quite nostalgic. The big wheels and cables operate the lift cages taking men up and down the shaft at the start and end of their shift and bringing the coal out. 

Mining ceased at Caphouse in 1985 but the mine workings have been made safe for tours, so you can get a hard hat and a lamp and go down in a cage to walk through the excavated tunnels and see some of the machinery still down there. It is truly fascinating. Tours are led by ex-miners who have a fund of stories to tell, both funny and poignant. No photos are allowed underground (things with batteries: cameras, phones etc are confiscated because of the risk of explosion from sparks). The tours operate as if you were a miner. You are issued a numbered metal check (see below for a collection of them), which miners used to have to hand in in exchange for a safety lamp before they went underground. In that way, they could tell exactly who was down in the mine, crucial information in the event of an accident. 

Rhubarb rhubarb

I finally achieved a small tick off my 'bucket list' by visiting the Rhubarb Triangle. It's a small (9 sq mile) area between Leeds and Wakefield that is celebrated for growing the tender, sweet, bright pink forced rhubarb. It is grown in long, low, dark, heated sheds and harvested, between January and March, only by candlelight to prevent the stems going green and hard due to photosynthesis. All the work is still done by hand, a back-breaking and labour-intensive process (which explains why it is relatively expensive to buy).

Many gardens and allotments still grow rhubarb. It's technically a vegetable, but used as a fruit. My dad grew it and the stems were thick and green, needing gentle stewing and lots of sugar, but I grew up rather liking the flavour (and the peculiar way the oxalic acid 'coats' your teeth!). The Yorkshire Forced Rhubarb (now an EU protected designation of origin - PDO - like Parma Ham or Champagne) is sought after by top restaurants and stores in the UK and abroad. It's very different from the outdoor kind, having thin stems with a delightful colour, very tender and flavourful.















We visited E Oldroyd and Sons farm. Their website (HERE) has lots of fascinating information about the history, cultivation and uses of rhubarb, a plant native to Siberia (which is why it likes Yorkshire's climate!) We were given a talk and then taken into the rhubarb sheds to look. We had my granddaughters with us, and I have to say they got rather bored as the talk went on for over an hour and was not aimed at children. They were very well-behaved, however, and it is good to give them new experiences.  We bought some stems and I'm going to try gently cooking it in orange juice, as recommended. Yum.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Here are a few more photos from my early October visit to Yorkshire Sculpture Park. As well as the indoor galleries, there is a huge estate to explore, its rolling grasslands kept cropped by sheep, who are not in the least interested in the numerous Henry Moore sculptures on permanent display. There are many works by other noted artists like Barbara Hepworth, Ai Weiwei, Andy Goldsworthy, Anthony Gormley, David Nash, Jaume Plensa and James Turrell - in fact, too many to list. It's quite a feast and a very pleasurable journey, meandering around and seeing what you come across.  The estate stretches as far as the eye can see, right up to the Longside Gallery which you can perhaps just make out on the hill in the far background of the photo above. There's far too much to see in a day, added to which it is easy to get diverted by nature's beauty: the trees, lakes and wildlife around. I'm glad I live reasonably near and can keep going back.

There was an exhibition, 'Inside Outside' by the Irish artist Sean Scully, featuring 'Crate of Air' made out of Corten steel and an immense work called 'Wall Dale Cubed', three huge blocks of stones that reference Yorkshire's dry stone walls and other ancient structures in Mexico, Egypt and the Irish Aran Islands.