Sunday's Spotlight - The Jewel of the Crown

BY GUEST BLOGGER PETE.

In last week's blog I wrote about the secular attractions of Malmesbury as experienced during a visit there with Pam, Ruth and John. This week I'd like to introduce you to its real jewel; the ecclesiastical side of the town.

 

Malmesbury Abbey is at the centre of the town and can be seen from miles around. However, the bit you can see now is about one third of the size of the monastic Abbey built in the seventh century. That early Abbey contained the second largest library in Europe and was one of the leading seats of learning in that continent.

The Abbey was completed in the 12th century and one of its outstanding features, which can still be seen today, is the carving on and in the entrance porch illustrating various Bible stories.

The spire of the Abbey was taller than that of Salisbury Cathedral but in 1500 it was destroyed by a violent storm, along with two thirds of the nave and transit. Then in 1550 the tower also fell, destroying the three Western Bays of the nave. In all about half of the building was lost.

Henry VIII dissolved the monastery there but a rich merchant bought the building from him and gave it to the town as its parish church. The destroyed part of the building was demolished with the nave being given an altar and the damage part walled off.

 

The flying monk, who built himself a primitive hand glider, has a memorial window in the building. The story has it that in the 11th century he jumped from the tower, glided for a few yards and landed roughly breaking both legs. He's lucky it wasn't his neck!  There is a window in the Abbey depicting this foolish fellow but it's not easy to find and you may have to seek directions from one of the friendly voluntary guides on duty there.

 

The first person to be killed by a tiger in England is also buried in Malmesbury Abbey churchyard and her grave can still be seen today. We kept a wary eye out for Tigers but it must have been a bit too cold for them because we didn't spot any.

 

Today in the main nave, up in the arches, you can see an observation box; the sort of thing that the BBC might put in place if it was broadcasting a service there. I was as puzzled by this as I was by the townhouse with its three-storey tower but I did discover the answer for the existence of this rather strange addition.  It was for visiting relatives of the monks, who were not permitted to take part in the service from the nave.

I'm still trying to discover why that town house has this three-storey tower built into its roof. Please, any ideas you may have for its usage -- even if they're absolute guesses and not the right reason -- then do submit them into the comments for this blog.

The town also has a small Roman Catholic church, situated in its centre. A nice quiet building, tastefully decorated and very peaceful. Another church well worth visiting, even if you only want to spend a few minutes of peace and quiet.

Weekly Bird in the Hand

Here's my weekly bird in the hand - the things I am grateful for:

I'm still in England and yesterday was the "celebration of life" service for my mother in law who passed away recently.  This week's gratitude therefore extends to:

• Family. We've seen lots of family this week - both mine and John's and it's been great to reconnect - even if in some cases, it was under sad circumstances :- from all the family who came to the service, to the meals out with Craig, Adam and Michael, to time with my parents, to a fun day today with my sister and nephews....  It's been a great week for family with some reminiscing of old memories and creating new memories too.
• Friends.  We've had fun times with friends this week and they have all be so supportive of us too.  And it's also been lovely to see that support from many of my "online" friends. 

It's been a wonderful week to feel the love and support of family and friends. Thank you.

New Medicine Cabinet

A retired Doctor friend of mine, just sent me some photos of his new medicine cabinet that he built in his home. Thought you might like to see it!!!

His philosophy is that wine cures everything! What a wise doc!

My Google reader - Daily Art Muse

I'm sure a lot of readers will be familiar with the Daily Art Muse blog - but if you aren't - I bet you soon will be!  DAM is a wonderful addition to my google reader -   a daily dose of inspiration and awe. In DAM, Susan Lumoto shows us contemporary fine craft - all different media - with new things to see everyday.

You will find a wonderful collection of artists and their art and craft there. Just last week she introduced me to Cornel Schneider. Cornel is an amazing wood carver - and just look at the detail in this lizard:

You amaze at the craftsmanship of these intricate carvings and then you see the size of some of them, like this violin!

Then yesterday Susan showed us the work of Margaret Neher - who works in glass. Just look at her "autumn bounty":

And then there is Mindy Hawkins' gourd sculptures:

Daily Art Muse is just a wonderful way to see the work of a great number of artists.  Susan includes information about the artist and also links you to their website or gallery for more info. And the range is amazing - so different - and even if something doesn't appeal to you one day, you can be sure in the next couple of days you'll see something that amazes you.

Well done Susan on putting together a wonderful collection at  Daily Art Muse

My Google Reader - Studio ArtOcrat

By now, you may be noticing a theme in the blogs that I follow - they are all pretty colorful!  And today's blog is no different - it is Studio ArtOcrat.

Pragya, the blog author, describes her blog as "all about pretty birdscapes and beautiful things" - and it is indeed.

Here's one my favorite of her prints, which I've just purchased.  And in my style, her titles add so much more to the pieces too. I love this sentiment:

It's raining love, why keep dry?

She is a beautiful illustrator and I love the uniqueness of her one of a kind bird pictures with their own "bunting" that drapes outside of the frame.  Here's a couple of  examples:

Celebrate Love

Grassland

Isn't it a great idea?  It makes the picture seem interactive and you can position the bunting how you like.

And yes, she does flowers too and other animals - but of course, the birds are my favorite!

Rainbow Magnolias

Curly Sheep

You can see her full portfolio of her work on Colorflot.com and also her Etsy store.

I'm looking forward to putting up my birdie print from her in my studio and then getting one with bunting too!!  How happy that will look!

Hope you enjoy having a little stroll through her bird garden...

And don't forget - please leave comment with the url of one of your favorite blogs so that I can take a look at it...

My Google Reader - La Tartine Gourmande

Continuing with sharing the blogs that I follow on my google reader - today's recommendation is La Tartine Gourmandehttp://www.latartinegourmande.com.  This is a relatively newly discovered addition to my blog roll that is a feast for the eyes as well as the stomach. The author writes about food and her life in France, illustrating it all with  stunning photos of both food and scenery, and often including her little daughter Lulu.

Her colors in every post are just stunning.  And the recipes will make you want to jump to the kitchen straight away. She includes lots of gluten free recipes too - which I like - and has a wonderful search function to find the type of recipe you'd like.

But her blog is soooooo much more than recipes.  Her tales of her life in France make you want to fly to France tomorrow - as does her photography.

She has just found a wonderful balance in her blog.  And I love. Hope you'll go and take a look:
La Tartine Gourmande.

Oh - and she's writing a cookbook too - so I'm sure that will be just as beautiful.

Monday's movie - Bird song quiz

When I was living in New Hampshire, I volunteered at the Squam Lakes Science center.  I loved it.  If you are ever up in that area - around Meredith - make sure you go to the Science center - whatever age you are. You are sure to love it. 

Soon after I began there, I met Dave Erler and went on some of his birdsong walks. He can identify so many birds by their call and it was fascinating to learn from him - and amazing just to walk with him and listen.  I did learn a few, but then we moved out of New Hampshire and had loads of different birds around us and I was lost again!!

Anyhow, todays "Monday's movie" is a little bird song quiz.  Listen in and see how many bird songs you can recognise.  I understand this will be a lot more challenging for those of you who don't live in the US - but maybe the written clues will help!

Sunday's spotlight - An autumnal day out

BY GUEST BLOGGER PETE

Last week I went down to Cheltenham for a couple of days to meet up with Ruth and John. It was great seeing them both again and we had fun that first evening deciding where we would go on the following day.

In the end we decided that our first visit would be to Malmesbury and then, in the afternoon, the Arboretum, whose name is, possibly Westonbirt or something similar. In the end we restricted our visit to Malmesbury.

For over seven years we lived in the county of Wiltshire but I can't remember, during that time, ever making a trip to Malmesbury. That was our loss because, once there, we decided to spend the day rather than go on to Westonbirt, which we had visited a couple of times before any way.

If you've never been to Malmesbury then it is a place I can definitely recommend. It is rich in architecture covering a number of centuries. It has a few steep hills but if I can manage them then I'm pretty sure most of the readers of this blog could as well.

In some ways Malmesbury reminded me of Gold Hill in Shaftesbury, -- although the hill wasn't as steep in Malmesbury as it is in Shaftesbury. The whole town was a blaze of colour -- natural colour.

We have had an extremely good autumn this year and only moderate rain and reasonable winds has resulted in the trees producing a wonderful array of colour. At one time Ruth and John lived in New Hampshire and, on couple of occasions, we visited them during the American fall season and became "LEAF PEEPERS". England, this year, had most of the variety of colour that New Hampshire displayed but the big difference is that we don't have the density of trees that are found there.

Each autumn Pam attempts, not always successfully, to catch a falling leaf. This year, in Cheltenham whilst walking home one evening, proved to be a success in the leaf catching challenge. The next challenge will be to eat 12 mince pies between December 1 and Christmas Eve. If you want to join her in this challenge then you've got to remember that each mince pie has come from a different source. Try it!

The colour of the leaves set off the architectural beauty of the old houses in Malmesbury. One house that really caught my attention was a comparatively ordinary building but rising from its roof was a three-storey stone tower. There was nothing on the outside of the building to tell what the significance of this was. Guess I'll have to go on the Internet to find out -- unless, that is, one of you, dear readers, knows the answer.

I have enclosed a photo of this house, complete with its tower, plus some other shots I took during our visit to Malmesbury.

Weekly Bird in the hand

Here is this week's bird in the hand - the things I'm grateful for:

• Meeting friends whom you haven't seen for a year but instantly reconnecting like you saw each other just a few days ago
• Bumping into people you haven't seen in 15 years and seeing the joy in their faces
• Being able to laugh about death and funerals!
• The beauty of architecture - we went to Malmesbury this week and saw Malmesbury Abbey which is a wonderful alchemy of Norman and Gothic Architecture. Fascinating to see the changes over the hundreds of years.

•  British foods that we have missed in a few months (like all the pork pie John has been eating this past week and all the gooseberry and rhubarb yoghurt I've been eating!!!).
• Umbrellas!

Hope your week has been a good one!

My Google Reader - Gennine's Art Blog

My second recommendation for blogs from my blog reader is Gennine's Art Blog.

Gennine creates beautiful art - mainly of birds and nature - through painting and drawing.  Her blog also shows many photos of her "space" and covers other interesting topics including tutorials on carving your own stamps.

I love her use of color and of course, having birds as one of her main inspirations naturally draws me to her work.

And I especially like how she shows you her creations in progress...how she begins to paint, what she leaves to the end...things like that. It's fascinating to see the development of a piece as she is working on it.

Her blog is just delightful.  Happy birds everywhere....I hope you'll stop by to visit: http://blogdelanine.blogspot.com/

My google reader - Color me Katie

As I am in England at the moment, without my camera, and not having time to create, I thought I'd take a few blog posts to show you behind the scenes of my "google reader" and introduce you to some of the non-jewelry blogs that I follow. If you don't know what google reader is, it is a single place where you can read all the blogs you want to follow - without having to type in all the different urls etc.  I love it.  It is easy to subscribe to blogs, then any posts you haven't read will show up - and it just saves moving from one url to another.  If you haven't tried google reader - I'd highly recommend it.

So first up as one of the more colorful blogs that I follow is "Color me Katie".

Katie is quite a few things - including a photographer,  actress, street artist, and a lover of color.

I love to watch her little movies of her street improvisations - you need to see her blog to understand what she does!

It's just basically happy stuff.  If you've had a sad day - just looking at her blogs will brighten it for you!

She has a great spirit and really captures it in her photos.  Keep being colorful Katie! Let me know what you think and I'd love it if you recommend another blog to me too....

Dawanda's Christmas Market

Dawanda have opened their Christmas market this week and it runs for the month of November.

They feature lots of gift ideas for all the people in your life.

And once a day they have a raffle to win a Dawanda product, for anyone who creates a wishlist and sends it to a friend.

I was asked to include an item for the raffle, so one day this month you can win a pair of "The earth laughs in flowers" ear thread earrings I've made.

I won't tell you which day they are up as a prize - so you'll have to go back and keep checking.  Actually I don't know what day it is so I can't tell you!!!  :-D

It looks like there are some great prizes so worth checking it out.  Happy Christmas shopping!

Tartan bracelet!

My mother-in-law died on Saturday morning.  I had the privilege of sitting at her bedside for her last few days.

While there, I chatted to her, I sang to her, we listened to music and I also did some coloring of anodised aluminum. 

Here is one of the pieces I made that was inspired by her - a tartan (plaid) design bangle.  Lavinia was Scottish and, as a Baillie, the family has its own tartan -  Baillie Tartan - shown below:

Although my bangle doesn't depict the Baillie tartan -  I did use the same green, blue and orange in it!

Excuse the quality of the photos as I only have my phone and no lighting set up here in the UK!

Loving Quick Fire Bronze and Copper Clay

BY GUEST BLOGGER MARLY FROM STUDIO 28

Angie and I have hidden ourselves away in the studio this week getting ready for some upcoming Christmas shows and our studio show and open house which will take place on the first weekend of December! Very exciting!

I finally had a chance to mix up some of Hadar's Quick Fire Bronze and Copper powders and I must say I was really impressed with the texture and workability of the clay. Earlier versions of metal and copper clay were hard to dome, didn't hold texture detail like silver clay, and curled up (like potato chips) when they were drying. The quick fire clay took texture detail well, domed beautifully, and kept it's shape through the drying process. Hooray! Much better! Here are some pictures of domes that we did in bronze and copper clay this week.

Angie's dragonfly pendant comes out of the kiln with beautiful colours!

Marly's Bronze and Copper Domed Pendant

Hadar has a great instruction manual for firing base metal clays on her blog which we have found to be fool-proof (so far anyway) in sintering copper and bronze consistently. It involves firing twice which is well worth it for the consistent results. We are both really excited about the improvements made in bronze and copper clays over the past year and look forward to experimenting and creating more with the quick fire versions of base metal clays.