Blog Posts

It's Blog Monday - New work

10/4/2017

Time is getting tight. With an Inside Out exhibition coming next week I still fighting with a new piece. Initially working on the idea of Mourning into Dancing the subject has morphed into something slightly more complex. It's been a struggle but there is hope. I'm by no means there yet and there has been a great deal of layering, obliterating and re-building. If finished it will hang alongside 'Wing' which is also on exhibit for the first time next week. All very exciting.

Wing Ready

3/4/2017

I suppose I've spent some time working on 'Wing'. It took a good while to get it to the point where I am happy to have it exhibited. I stopped for a good month or so knowing it wasn't finished but waiting for the drive to risk destruction to push it neared to where it needed to be.
It's first public outing will be at the Gardens Gallery, Montpellier, Cheltenham (19th-25th April 2017) as part of Inside Out's contribution to Cheltenham's Christian Arts Festival. Immediately after it will be at Gloucester Cathedral for a few days - 29th April to 1st May)

It's been a while

3/4/2017

How time flies. One minute it's August then it's now. Somewhere inbetween Christmas happened. Maybe I hibernated? I find winter harder and harder to endure as the years go by. Maybe it's because I have been fairly slow in therms of creativity and then I have nothing I want to write about. Maybe I just don't know how to be an up to the minute, down with the kids, technophile blogging dude.
I shall try harder. If I say "Monday is Blog day!" and repeat it to myself often enough then something will happen on a more regular basis.

Just a thought - Maybe Trump winning the US elections melted my soul and left me incapacitated until this new spring awakening. But that doesn't explain September and October. I supposed they went missing due to delayed Brexit shock.

Taking flight

18/8/2016

I managed to get some work done yesterday. I went off early morning to a friend's rented workshop. Amidst the stone carving dust I got some sketching done. Inspired by evening prayer 'In the shadow of your wings...' and various other biblical references to eagles wings.

It's just a pastel exploration at the moment but I hope to paint it onto four separate canvasses that will then make up the whole. In similar style to my four storm pictures.

Too much like work

18/8/2016

My sabbatical Blog came to a sudden halt. Not that it really got going. It all seemed a bit to much like work. Instead of just writing stuff I kept adapting what I was saying because I was thinking about who was reading it. Which I appreciate isn't many.
Here is my desk now I'm back...

I didn't set that up. It's just what my desk looks like at the moment.

Proceedings interrupted

16/6/2016

I was having difficulty keeping up with this blog when he appeared...

Alec Marshall Childs, my first Grandchild.

So all plans have gone out of the window as he was born three and a half weeks early. Since then we have turned our schedule upside down, spent most of the time in Hereford and certainly haven't got around to any blogging.
He is spectacularly cute though. I think I've always been prepared for being a Grandpa. Inspired by my own, I shall be a bundle of joy, great fun and always a bit odd. I hope I can be as inspirational to Alec as my Grandpa was to me.

There is much going on in his world that he is totally unaware of... the EU debate, which gets more depressing by the minute, the football (European Championships) which may well get more depressing by this afternoon, the refugee crisis in the middle east and north Africa, the now sadly routine mass shootings in the USA, and the scarily right wing rise across Europe and the US shown most clearly in peoples love of Trump and Boris.

Dear child, I hope the world is a better place by the time you realise what's around you but at the moment I don't hold out much hope. We will surround you with love and let that be your protection and your guide.

In the town where I was born

31/5/2016

Spent a really great day in Settle, or what was left accessible. The market square was filled with V.I.P. Areas and winners roast rums and to outside broadcast vans... All in aid of the first stage of this year's Tour De Yorkshire.
First off, after a pleasant walk in from the campsite at Langcliffe, was our usual cup of coffee at 'Car and Kitchen', somewhere we've been going to since our honeymoon. Then on to Preston's Folly where, alongside their fixed exhibits of North Craven life, was a special display from the members of 'Back in Settle', an informal local history/memories group. We had wonderful conversations about Nuttal's and 'Tommy Preston' etc.. I was invited to join the FB group where they have 1,000's of photographs and comments. Someone said there'd seen one of my Grandpa and maybe Uncle Norman. I shall post what we have at home once we get back. Hopefully it's a connection we can keep up.
After lunch at Poppies and a quick diversion through a long remembered Ginnel to avoid the crowds, we took up a place at the barriers across from Settle Social Club by the old Police Station. We were just a hundred meters from the finish line outside Ye Olde Naked Man. The crowds quickly grew and with thunderous thumping of the advertising hoardings so did the excitement. A flurry of bikes and a flash of colour and it was all over.

Trouble at ' Mill

31/5/2016

We packed up the van and set off. On our way out of Sedburgh we spent the morning at Farfield Mill. This Craft Center and local historical sight would be very similar to the Mills many of my ancestors worked in (without the craft and the coffee shop). We were thrilled to find a giant photo of the workers from 1909 with a list of names. One woman was just called 'Dinsdale' and seated at the front was Billy Dinsdale. We checked the dates and how old these people looked and wondered if this was my Great, great uncle and his sister. After a while we worked out that an older man named 'Unknown' may well be my Great, Great Grandfather Nathan Dinsdale. We took photos of the big picture and will be able to check against photos we have at home. All very exciting.

N.B. having got home and checked the man is indeed Nathan form the picture we have of his Golden Wedding celebration taken ten years later in 1919.

But not quite as exciting as popping into the grounds of the Methodist Chapel at Frostrow just the other side of Hallbank. There we found the graves of Nathan and many other direct family members all of which were deeply committed to the building and ongoing mission of this local Methodist Church. Jo was delighted and quite moved having studied these names for the past few years.
As we set of the rain turned to sleet and then as we turned from Hawes to head across Blea Moor it became snow and out on the whitening moor we wondered if we had made the right decision heading across Ribblehead. All was well as we dropped off the tops to the more shelters and slightly warmer Ribblesdale. Mind you we did our bit as just before we got to Ribblehead we saw two snow clad walkers stood by the side of the road with a look of weariness and frustration. They were very glad off the lift and we were able to carry them the last mile to the pub.
Campsite in Langcliffe is big. And the showers rooms are warm, plentiful and free. All set up as the snows came again...

Way behind

31/5/2016

So this blog idea is not as easy as it first seems. Getting around to actually posting anything is difficult when there has been so much going on. As the TV programmes all seem to do nowadays, here's what's coming up: more family history from up north, some painting and praying, a golfing retreat and an exhibition in Gloucester...

More Northern than Grit

11/5/2016

After a couple of days exploring my family heritage in Cumbria I have discovered that my forebears worked in a textile mill, went to bed four hours after they had to get up again, lived in a small hamlet on a freezing hillside, ate gravel, founded and built a Methodist Chapel. I realise, on my mother's side at least I'm more Northern than I had previously understood.

We set off walking into Sedburgh, first having to walk away up the dale to reach a footbridge across the river to pick up the footpath back in. A lovely walk even if it did start with sleet and snow. About three and a half miles in all, after which we fell into a bookshop to grab a cup of coffee.

Off into Sedbergh. We went and had a brief look along Main Street (where my Grandmother was born) and made our way to the parish church. Here it was that my Grandma (Eleanor Hall Dinsdale) and Grandpa (Thomas Preston) got married. I have a photo of them standing outside the church entrance on their wedding day so Jo took one of me standing in the same place. Lovely church inside, very warm and welcoming. I can see how it would have been a bit upmarket for a simple Settle Methodist like my Grandpa not to mention being a little too 'high' for Grandma's own Dinsdale family who were Methodist through and through.

Grandma and Grandpa are the couple on the right

Main Street, Sedbergh

Sedbergh Parish Church

Off to the pub

After the church it was across the road to the Red Lion for lunch. I've often stopped whilst driving past on journey's through Sedbergh to glance at this pub. Here it was that Eleanor Dinsdale (Grandma) grew up. Pretty much being adopted by the Hall's who ran the then 'Hotel'. Here she became Eleanor Hall Dinsdale. It was great to go inside especially since it was still very basic, no corporate redevelopment. Maybe a new bar, maybe not; certainly many coats of paint over the years but here was the low ceiling and rustic rafters under which my Grandma would have grown. On the wall were many old photos, the usual local views but one from 1910 had a picture of the Red Lion with the name of W.Hall above the door, amazing.

After lunch we went down to the cemetery but had little luck in finding names we recognised, although there seemed to be many cousins. A cup of tea later we made the track home for evening prayer and an early night.