Film review – Still Alice

Posted on March 17, 2015 by Judy

There are a lot of films out there about Alzheimer’s disease. Since my father was diagnosed with the disease I’ve been advised not to see several. The trailer for Still Alice, in which Julianne Moore’s character explains to her daughter (played by Kristen Stewart) how having the disease feels, intrigued me. But I wasn’t sure I had the nerve to watch it.

Having a parent, or any loved one, with Alzheimer’s, is like watching a gradual, unstoppable erosion. Sometimes it’s difficult to see what’s been lost, and other times it’s hard to remember what was once there. This film is an excellent reminder to live in the moment – because that’s all you can do.

I occasionally find postcards or emails from Dad that I’ve saved and recall suddenly his wit, his intelligence, his humour and emotional grace. He’s still here, and still full of passion for life, but he’s old in a way I never thought possible. He can’t always understand what’s said to him, and is often confused.

I think of the enormous conversations we used to have, the flights of fancy and the moral conundrums we’d explore, and realise how much I miss him. I think that’s important. I can give the him that remains all the love in the world, but I need to mourn the man already lost to us. And that’s hard, I think, for most people to understand.

Still Alice explains it far, far better than I can. My sister (who happens to be called Alice) suggested we go together, which deepened the experience and also opened up our shared but generally uncommented on experience of what’s happening to Dad, and, in reflection, to us.

We sat in the dark cinema and watched the on-screen Alice, only a decade or so older than us, begin to disintegrate. We saw her fear, and the dread of her husband and children. We watched her find moments of comfort and humour against lovely scenery, and we cried (quietly so as not to disturb other viewers around us) as she travelled the journey our father is still in the early stages of.

Regardless of whether you have any personal connection to the film, it’s a heart-rending, sensitively portrayed story well worth watching. Human beings are frail, but we’re also resilient, and Julianne Moore, in her Oscar-winning performance, gave the character a sense of realism that made me feel I knew her, and understood on some small level what she was going through.

There are many moving scenes in the film, including some instances I recognised from my father’s behaviour, such as when she and her husband (played brilliantly by Alec Baldwin) go for ice cream and she echoes his order rather than ask for what she really wants. My dad does that, not always, but occasionally. It makes me realise how important it is that I try to remember what he likes, for the times when he doesn’t.

The standout scene for me, however (the one that made me sob onto my sister’s shoulder) was the one when she gives a talk at a meeting of the Alzheimer’s Association and, using a highlighter pen to follow her words, talks eloquently about her condition. She’s not suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, she corrects us, she’s struggling with it. It’s a delicate distinction, but a crucial one, and a reminder of the exhaustion that comes with each unfamiliar day.

Still Alice was a beautiful experience to share my sister. I’m glad to have seen such a powerful film, filled with stunning acting and cinematography, but more than that I’m glad we watched it together, because at the heart of it, this is a film about family, and about love.

Director Wash Westmoreland
Screenplay Wash Westmoreland, Richard Glatzer
Starring Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, Kristen Stewart

Still Alice is available to watch at Watershed, who kindly supplied the images for this post, and cinemas across the UK

Book review – The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Judy

They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, and while it isn’t why I decided to read Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane, there’s no denying the shiver of pleasure I felt whenever I glimpsed it. Featuring the silhouette of a skinny boy swimming in a fathomless ocean, it led me to expect a protagonist with the bravado and wildness of JM Barrie’s Peter Pan.

Far from it. Gaiman’s hero is an ordinary man remembering being an ordinary boy, and that, without doubt, is part of the beauty of this tale. When a lodger his parents take in dies, the boy, who remains nameless throughout, meets the three Hempstock women for the first time – Old Mrs Hempstock, Ginnie and Lettie, marvellous, resourceful Lettie who seems to be eleven years old, but answers only with a smile when asked “How long have you been eleven for?”

Gaiman weaves magic into the story with deft matter-of-factness. The boy takes it in his stride, with a child’s acceptance that the world is, of course, filled with things he doesn’t understand. He reads voraciously, mainly his mother’s old novels crammed with children foiling spies and criminals, and relishes simple details such as sleeping with the windows open so he can listen to the wind and pretend he is at sea.

When the lodger commits suicide something is stirred into wakefulness and needs to be bound to its place. Lettie takes the task on, and brings the boy with her into a place with a sky “the dull orange of a warning light.” It’s a journey which leads a mass of horrors that Gaiman refers to subtly enough to require us to do some of the imagining, the neatest way possible to ensure we take on the boy’s terror as our own.

A bold thread to the tale reminds us that being scared is something that comes with age, with knowledge, so that only the very young are truly unafraid. “I was no longer a small boy,” says our protagonist, ruefully. “I was seven. I had been fearless, but now I was such a frightened child.”

There’s a skill to perfectly balancing dread, suspense and beauty in a fairytale. Gaiman manages it with enviable ease, often offering comfort in the form of food from the Hempstocks – paper-thin pancakes blobbed with plum jam, honeycomb “with an aftertaste of wild flowers”, drizzled with cream from a jug. It’s at once utterly, earthily bucolic, and curiously reminiscent of the meals eaten by fairies in the stories I read as a child.

The horror comes in the form of the unnamed creature who hangs in the sky like “some kind of tent,” with a ripped place “where the face should have been.” Cleverly though, that’s far from the worst of it, as Gaiman gives her human form, then lets her get the boy’s father to do terrible things.

“You made my daddy hurt me,” the boy says, and she laughs, then declares that she never made any of them “made any of them do anything.”

It’s a chilling revelation, this idea that however much she may have encouraged, or even cajoled, the deeds committed came from some dark place deep inside the boy’s father, not from the monster’s will.

And then there’s the ocean, at the end of the lane, that resembles a duck pond yet contains all the depths of the universe, and, it seems, all its possibilities too.

A beautiful book – grotesque and magical – that every adult should read, if only to remember the brave, frightened children they once were.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman is published by Headline and is available to buy from Amazon.

To submit or suggest a book review, please send an email to Judy(at)socketcreative.com.

Book review – The Man Who Planted Trees by Jean Giono

Posted on February 24, 2015 by Judy

This beautiful little book turned up in my Christmas stocking this year. As slim as it is, with wood engravings by Harry Brockway and an illuminating afterword by the author’s daughter, it really is a book to be savoured.

The story tells of a chance encounter the narrator has in a desolate, mostly treeless, landscape with a solitary shepherd. He watches the gentle man sort a pile of acorns. “As he did so he discarded those that were too small or had a tiny split; he examined them minutely.”

He then took his chosen acorns, dipped them in water and set out into the wilderness.

And so begins a slow, unfurling tale of a man who plants trees in their hundreds over the span of a lifetime. As the narrator gazes on in wonder, the man covers acres of arid land with seedlings that become saplings that gradually become a forest, altering the landscape, the climate and the temperament of the people who reside there.

Yes, a fable, and one to warm the heart, but, as the author’s daughter Aline reveals in her afterword, one that also gained life of its own. Apparently, readers of this story all over the world have believed it to the extent that wooded areas in countries from Finland to New Zealand have been attributed to a lone shepherd with a quiet, but steadfast, ambition. Continue reading →

This week I’m reading…

Posted on February 17, 2015 by Judy

Three truly beautiful books – The Shock of the Fall by Nathan Filer, The Children’s Book by AS Byatt and Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at The End of the Lane. And I am in bookworm heaven. Here’s why.

These three books, while utterly exquisite reads in their own right, meld together in extraordinarily flavoursome ways. Think of the fresh deliciousness of ice-cold tonic, then imagine adding in a generous splash of gin followed by a fat wedge of lime. See what I mean?

For starters, they each have a glorious cover in shades of blue, just the thing to lift me out of February’s traditional gloom. The glints of gold and light enhance the blue, and the fact AS Byatt’s tome features a gorgeous yet monstrous dragonfly woman makes me immediately want to know more.

Secondly, they each weave fairytales into their narratives – or at last otherworldly elements, some imagined, and some apparently real, at least in the world of their narratives.

Thirdly, each tale centres on a strong, introverted protagonist with a rich inner life – whether they’re the narrator themselves or simply one of the many characters, but each offering a sharp-sighted gaze on the events unfolding.

And finally, for now at least, each of these skilfully written novels intersperses passages of sheer, startling beauty with moments of fear and dread, bringing together poetry and horror fit to take your breath away. Wonderful.

Book review Things That Are by Amy Leach

Posted on January 27, 2015 by Judy

A beautiful book crammed with exquisite details about our universe and everything in it. The subtitle is Encounters with Plants, Stars and Animals, and in this collection of poetically observed scientific essays, Stars really do seem like just another bobbling entity, not that dissimilar to a whirligig beetle, a baby penguin (which she describes as a “pear-shaped bit of fluff”) or a biscuit starfish.

I found myself entranced by the juxtapositions Leach throws together – drawing unexpected connections between tomato frogs and bears and grass (they all prefer to live in light) or between man-of-war jellyfish and Leo Tolstoy (both resembling, she asserts, a single entity while actually being made up of many).

Moments of surrealism gather you in – there’s a whole section on sirens, were “free like thunder, and dangerous like tornadoes, and enchanting like fire” and who used to sing songs “people would follow to the other side of life” and now forced into service as Emergency Warning Sirens sounding the alarm.

There’s a whole chapter marvelling on the efforts of the hapless water lily, and another on the delight of peas (which Leach describes pleasingly as “clocky children who become spoony adults”). Continue reading →

A vivid morning with Amy Vans

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Judy

Green Circle © Amy Vans

Welcome to 2015! How are you feeling today? In case you’re still a bit groggy after your New Year’s Eve shenanigans I thought it would be good to start the day, indeed the year, with some of Amy Vans’ colour-saturated paintings.

I encountered Amy’s artwork in a basement flat on an art trail and was blown away by their dazzling intensity.

The one shown at the top of this post – Bristol View – immediately caught my eye, but Amy’s initial ideas took root far further afield, when she was journeying across the world.

“My travels took me to Melbourne where I met Mirabela Varga, an emerging Australian Artist who inspired me with her free style and use of colour,” Amy says. “I then worked as studio assistant for Mirabela in Barcelona whilst she was exhibiting. Working with Mirabela provided me with a fantastic source of knowledge and learning both technically and creatively.”

After a year soaking up Mirabela’s influence, Amy returned to England where she set to work, allowing her own style to evolve.

“I’ve broken free into new forms of expression,” she enthuses. “I work very spontaneously, regularly changing my palette and experimenting with different processes.”

Much of Amy’s work “reflects the different countries I have been to and the people I have met. Most notably, living in Barcelona amongst the vibrant art scene, and the intensities and richness of India, fuelled my passion for colour. Over the years my process has evolved but the thing that has stayed consistent is my strong use of colour.”

The brightness of Gaudi’s work had a big impact on Amy’s work during her year in Barcelona. Amy admits to “having always been slightly nocturnal”, which she says has had an impact on her pieces – “a lot of my work tends to offer an impression of the lights of city streets at night.”

Mirage 1 © Amy Vans

Back at home in England, Amy is influenced by the music she immerses herself in. “I tend to paint only to familiar music, feeling most comfortable in my studio listening to bands such as Portishead and Massive Attack.”

When painting, Amy is enviably absorbed in what she’s creating. “I’m wholly focused on the image I am creating and where the next swipe of the palette knife is going to take me,” she says. “I enjoy the technical side, moving the paint on the canvas. Generally I work straight from the tube and mixing is done on the canvas. Choosing which colours is a massive part of my process.”

Amy also enjoys experimenting with different textures, dragging her palette knife through paint “and seeing what marks can be created using different tools. I like the plastic qualities of acrylic paint the most but I’ve also explored a range of mixed media as seen in ‘Fractured Image’ (shown below) – if you look closely you can see the newspaper print coming through the paint.”

She adds: “It’s only occasionally that I set out to do anything representational. Mostly I’m interested in exploring the colours, textures and depths that I can create. The image develops as part of the creative process.”

Find Amy’s art at www.saatchiart.com, www.londonart.co.uk and facebook.com/AmyVansPaintings.

Are you an artist or do you know an artist who would like to be showcased on SkyLightRain.com? Get in touch at judydarley (at) iCloud.com. I’m also happy to receive reviews of books, exhibitions, theatre and film. To submit or suggest a review, please send an email to judydarley (at) iCloud.com.

Budapest – 10 Top Experiences

Posted on November 14, 2014 by Judy

There’s so much to enjoy about the Hungarian capital! For starters, the River Danube flows fatly through it, necessitating, of course, a number of glorious bridges. The landscape here boasts an abundance of thermal springs resulting in countless elegant spas to choose between. Dinky yellow trams rumble through streets lined with extraordinary architecture and artwork, from statues honouring playwrights, artists and musicians to pop-up sculptures by the likes of Ervin Loránth Hervé, (see below). And, perhaps best of all, what we know as Budapest is in fact Buda and Pest, twin cities laid out on either side of the Danube, with two very distinct personalities.

Then there are the cafés, the ruin bars, the antique shops, and so much more. We flew in late on Tuesday and left halfway through Saturday, and in that time saw, walked, ate, drank, and experienced as much as we possibly could.

Here are my top ten recommendations for Budapest.

1 Sample the public transport

A bit of an unlikely one, this, but truly, the public transport is a joy. Even getting from the airport into Pest was a joyful adventure, and the beautiful elderly Millennium metro line added a happy dollop of vintage gorgeousness into the mix. Look at the wood panelling! Admire the ceramic titles! It’s the second oldest in Europe (London wins), and certainly the most elegant I’ve experienced.

2 Take a walking tour of Buda

This is the ideal way to find out all about the city’s history, take in some beautiful scenery, glean some local knowledge (our guide’s told us that when Hungarian children talk back, their parents say their mouths are as wide as the Vienna Gate, (shown left), and work off a fraction of the cake you’ve eaten/are about to eat.

If, as we did, you get a Budapest Card, there are free walking tours leaving daily from daily from Szentháromság Square (just opposite St Matthias church) in the Castle District at 2pm.

3 Eat cake

Coffee and cake are cultural staples here, and every street you walk down will offer a few options. This is definitely not a city for the weight- or waist-conscious, though we found a mid-morning cake saw us through to late afternoon. The Hungarians are no doubt preparing for the cold winter ahead. Our excuse? We were on holiday!

We peeked in at famous confectionary Gerbeaud on Vorosmarty Ter, but thought the prices were high and the portions small, so we walked onwards along the riverside to Fővám tér, where we discovered Anna Café. The spectacular wedge of cake, shown left cost around £3 with a coffee.

4 Explore Budapest Central Market

The best place for buying paprika, sausages, and yes, yet more cake. It’s a beautiful building, and also has a number of excellent little eateries on the mezzanine floor, including Fakanal Restaurant, where you can lunch on hearty goulash and watch all the activity unfolding in the market below. The market closes at around 6pm, though, so don’t bank on eating your evening meal there too.

Oh, and by the by, CNN named Budapest’s Central Market Hall as the greatest one in Europe, better than Mercat de San Josep de la Boqueira in Barcelona, The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, Portobello Road market in London and Les Puces in Paris. Quite an accolade!

5 Stroll over the Danube

There are several divinely strung bridges to choose from, but the grandest is the green-painted Liberty Bridge, close to the Central Market. Choose a sunny day and you’ll be in for fabulous views of Buda and Pest, the river, the boats and the other bridges.

And yes, that is the famed Hungarian Statue of Liberty poised on the hillside in the above image – we’re just getting to that.

6 Hike up Gellért Hill

This rural oasis hill is on the Buda side of the river, and is topped by Hungary’s very own Statue of Liberty, the Szabadság Szobor.

At 14 metres tall, perched atop a 26-metre pedestal, the statue is undeniably impressive, wafting her palm leaf over both sides of the capital. She was installed in 1947 to commemorate the Soviet liberation of Hungary from Nazi forces – ironic really, given the years of terror that would follow under socialism.

7 Discover The Whale

Where better to spend a rainy afternoon than in the belly of a whale? This glimmering building, known locally as the Bálna, rests between Petőfi Bridge and Szabadság Bridge.

It houses exhibition spaces, dinky shops, bars and cafés, and is a great place to meander while waiting for the sun to reappear.

8 Visit Liszt

Budapest is a city of music, not least because composer Franz Liszt hailed from here – you may have noticed that the airport you flew into is named after him. If you catch the Millennium Metro to Octagon, you can stroll to Liszt Ferenc Ter (Franz Liszt Square). Take a stroll around this area and you’ll discover the Liszt Academy of Music, and the Hungarian State opera house (daily tours offer a glimpse into this gorgeous building), as well as an exuberant statue of the man himself, surrounded by lovely street cafés, and, um, Hooters. Something for everyone, then.

9 Step inside the basilica

St Stephen’s Basilica is a Roman Catholic marvel of domes and turrets, named after Hungary’s first Christian king. You can enter this religious edifice in exchange for a 200 forint donation (less than £1), and gawp at the statues, candelabras and an opulent embarrassment of paintings and ornamentation by famous Hungarian artists.

10 Wallow at Gell ért Baths

Opened in 1918, this is the ideal place to wallow, dream and relax, and was the highlight of my visit to Budapest.

We started in the outdoor adventure pool, a thermal bath around which trees waft their leaves and classical statues add to the ambiance. As the warm mineral-rich water and bubbles eased away every trace of travel-tension, the sight of people emerging from the nearby sauna to submit themselves to an icy plunge pool kept us endlessly entertained.

Image supplied by Gellért Baths

Inside, more pools await, as well as saunas and Turkish baths, with art nouveau tiling, stained glass recesses and sculptures adding to the sense of having slipped into the faded grandeur of a bygone, far more civilised age. Along with tourists like ourselves, we encountered locals enjoying their regular soak and steam. There’s clearly nowhere better to enjoy a morning gossiping with friends and setting the world to rights. An absolute pleasure.

Find more Budapest highlights at uk.gotohungary.com.

Karen George’s stormy seascapes

Posted on November 6, 2014 by Judy

Autumn’s rain and wind are definitely enhanced by a coastal backdrop. That raw, reckless energy smashing itself against the rocks – extraordinary.

Karen George manages to capture the feel of this in her seascapes. Far from tranquil, these beach and headland scenes are moody and wild – and I love them.

Unexpectedly, Karen’s interest in art began in far more academic and scientific grounding, as she studied architecture before moving onto product design.

“At school I enjoyed Biology and Art in equal measure,” she explains, “When I was looking at courses to study I found a ‘Landscape Design and Plant Science’ course at Sheffield University, which then led me to an MA in Landscape Architecture.”

The leap into product design came about from a practical prompt when she had her second daughter, and began taking her baby with her to the allotment. “I was inspired by necessity to create a sunshade that met my needs,” she recalls. “I was always making things at home so it seemed a natural thing to do. It was only when people stopped me in the street to ask where they could buy one that I decided to launch the BuggySail – so the move into product design was accidental.”

With the product an instant success, Karen embraced product design for a time, before realising she relished “the creating’ more than the marketing. After attending an ‘Experimental painting’ workshop I spent more and more time painting.”

These two elements of Karen’s experience feed into her fine art in subtle but far-reaching ways.

“It’s not something I’ve really thought about before, but with Landscape Architecture you have to be able to imagine the end design and transpose that onto paper,” she says. “This really helped with the product design – creating a mock up of the product to create a pattern. How my painting has been influenced is a little more ambiguous. I enjoy leading the eye through a painting with the use of light and capturing an energy into a painting – both aspects of which are important in design.”

I think that may be why and how Karen’s paintings offer up an almost visceral sense of being close to the power of waves and tides. “In any environment it’s good to give a space a sense of belonging – being a place you enjoy being in and travelling through,” she says. “I hope people enjoy my paintings much the same way.”

For Karen, however, the perfect day at the beach is a lot more serene than you might think from gazing at her paintings. “Not many people. Not too windy. Not too hot. A bit of rock pooling and a good book with the sound of the waves in the background.”

Karen will be exhibiting her artwork at in the Jarman Hall of Totterdown Baptist Church as part of Totterdown Front Room Art Trail 2014.

Find more of Karen’s art at www.trenjorydesigns.co.uk.

Carol Peace – a quiet space

Posted on October 30, 2014 by Judy

There’s an unexpected sense of lightness to Carol Peace’s work. Her figures float, soar, skim – sometimes suspended from giant fish, occasionally riding personal balloons, or just gazing outwards – mind apparently occupied elsewhere.

Yet her materials are decidedly solid in nature – gleaming bronze or earthy clay – fixing her sculptures well and truly to the ground. It’s a juxtaposition I enjoy, and connects in a way to Carol’s thoughts about herself.

“I don’t remember much from early childhood,” she says. “I know I also liked cooking and horse riding so it could have been either of those instead of art. Sometimes I think I should have been a farmer, being out in nature all the time. My granddad and uncle were farmers and I did work on a farm after college and went from rougher (basically wedding in a massive field) to ploughing in one job… Perhaps I’ve missed my vocation!”

However, it was art that eventually stole her heart. “I remember copying drawings out of books a lot when I was little – I was always drawing,” she comments. “Later I spent a lot of time in the art room at school – it may have been because the teacher was good and very encouraging and the fact that is was a quiet space. I don’t remember feeling lonely or bored as a child so that’s probably a sign that I was quite self sufficient.”

She continues to relish the psychological aspects of sculpting, painting and drawing,

“There is quietness and space,” she says. “It can be fairly tough on the emotions – I always work honestly so it’s brutally direct sometimes, but I don’t mind. People often think the work is very calm and peaceful – I think they see the feeling I experience when making, but not the difficult starting points.”

On a tactile level, it’s the clay that Carol loves, “together with the process of changing something so fluid and fragile into bronze, something that will last forever. I am quite practical so I like the physical nature of sculpture, but I have a growing lust for painting as well.”

Carol draws inspiration from a wide range of sources, including travel, which she says helps her see things far more clearly. “It’s like when you start looking, your receptors open up. You can’t expect to make art unless you are really looking all the time. You can’t make art in isolation. To live life as a tourist, even at home, enables you to see things. Through time, familiarity and repetition a new place can become home but it’s good to keep wide-eyed.”

Nature plays a distinct role in this, particularly trees and leaves. “There’s that moment when the first red is coming into the trees and the lime green is leaving. You can’t just be busy, busy, busy all the time. You need moments in normal days to appreciate things.”

Carol continually seeks the stimulus beyond the habits of everyday life. “I’m not very good a routine,” she says. “I find no comfort in it at all, I like contrast. At the moment we (Carol and husband Graham) are experimenting by living half urban with the hub of traffic and distant train noises and the sound of screeching skips being dragged across yards and half in the middle of nowhere on a hill, in a field…it’s magic. Each time I go to the other place it is new and exciting, and I can see it afresh.”

Increasingly, Carol has been finding herself creating art with family at its core. “I see my ‘Family Tree’ painting (above) and realise its not a family tree at all its just about parents and me. The orange pair of leaves is them, as strong and intense in colour as the land. But I am a leaf. They are leaves.”

When asked to define her style, Carol says: “I work clay like I would a charcoal drawing, the texture is often defined by the pace of working, there are areas of focus and areas that fade or are less detailed. I put bits on and take them off all the time. I could never be a stone carver.”

She adds: “Sometimes there are marks over the work from the tools I use – they show direction of movement, and sometimes they are like deep scars. The way I work is a response to being alive, from the basics of the blood pumping round inside you. Like drawing form observation it is a direct and intuitive response so I don’t feel it’s a style its just how it comes out!”

Carol is opening up her artist’s studio (Unit 5.3 Paintworks, Bath Road, Bristol, BS4 3EH) to the public from 6-16th November 2014, with a Private View on Thursday 6th November 6-9pm. On Friday 7th November, her studio will be the setting of a special literary night, ‘Travel, Identity and Home’. Find out more here.

The writing workshop Writing From Art takes place in Carol’s studio on Wednesday 12 November. Find details here.

Theatre review – MINE

Posted on September 23, 2014 by Judy

Beneath the serene elegance of Goldney Hall’s gardens, a savage catacomb awaits – a mine filled with gods, lions and bleeding crystals, where seeping damp reminds imprisoned shells of what they’ve lost.

This is the place Holly Corfield Carr leads her audience into, with a powerful piece of immersive theatre riddled through with poetry.

Written to fit and reflect its setting, the piece begins in warm September sunlight as Holly talks of time and hands each of us a pebble that represents it. We’ve given small glowing lanterns to carry, and follow her across the emerald lawns into the shadowy shell grotto.

It’s a wonderful opportunity to glimpse a place seldom seen, with Holly’s visually evocative poetry adding resonance to the enchantments of the crystal-crowded caves, a thundering unexpected waterfall – a “strange heavenly halfway.”

With only six audience-members, or rather, guests, at each performance, the feel is distinctly intimate, and Holly addresses us each in turn as she tells tales that bring in myth, history, botany, and the wonderings of the human heart. She invites us to choose cards and read fragments of verse aloud, entrenching us deep in the language of the grotto.

“molars,
memories
of when we
were young,
his smell
amongst
the moss,”

There are so many words, pouring from Holly’s mouth, and from our own, whilst surrounded by the glimmering roars of coral, water and sculpture, that it’s impossible to take in every scrap. Thankfully Holly has produced a beautiful pamphlet, published by Spike Island, to take away from the performance, and savour in your own time.

Fortunate, really, as Holly makes us relinquish the pebbles she’s given us:

“Because, even now, time is up.
The stone you hold is moving, is sand at your hand.”

This is a performance about the past, both human and geological, and how it hides, hushed, in the ground beneath our feet.

MINE is part of Bristol Biennial, a festival of art.

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