For Julian is an antiquary, that is a person who studies the past through looking at historical artefacts. And it is his lifetime’s collection of the stuff (and still counting), that I am delighted to have been invited to see today.
For so detailed and realistic are the flowers, fruits and foliage carved around the border that they seem as if they are still sprouting and suffused with life, so rounded and realistic that you might feel inclined to reach out and pluck them for the table.
Once inside you are immediately transported into a painted ivy clad walled garden, set in the English countryside with summer skies and well-tended flowerbeds. The architecture of the windows, doors and vaulted ceiling are cleverly incorporated into the pictorial rich scheme, white arched recesses framing the colourful narrative of Mary’s life. Here is portrayed her birth to elderly parents, her betrothal to Joseph, the Annunciation, the Nativity, as well as the family’s flight to Egypt, her crowning as Queen of Mercy, and her Dormition, the ‘falling asleep’ or leaving of her earthly life.
I’d tagged along with photographer John Milnes, who has been following the local sculptor, Alex Wenham in the two year process it has taken to create from commission to completion. Who will it represent? Why was it ordered? And how was the finished piece achieved? Here in a series of pictures and John’s photographs, we tell the story.
I was delighted to be invited to meet Chris Raworth at his workshop in Middle Barton, catching him just after he had assembled his set of gallopers. A tall man with a shock of white hair he can barely contain his excitement as he opens the door into a long garage lined with benches overflowing with mechanical parts and crammed with boxes painted with brightly coloured signwriting instantly recognisable as that of the fairground.
They are hidden all over Oxford and beyond. Outside, amongst the trees of parks and gardens, positioned in courtyards and parking lots. Huge ancient, crowned heads, features blackened with time, hair interlaced with lichen, lips softened by moss, some so weathered it is hard to see there ever was a face shaped out of the blocks of stone.
I have long been enchanted by Cecily Peele’s “MAP OF OXFORD’S HISTORY; WITH SOME OF HER WORTHIES”, (above) published in the 1930’s. A cursory glance at this funny, colourful pictorial depiction of the city is to do it an injustice, for you will be sure to discover something new with every fresh look.
Don’t make the mistake I made, and call it tapestry. That is woven on a loom. This is canvas work, beautifully designed, meticulously hand stitched on to church furnishings, vestments, banners and the like. There’s a lot of gold. The old stuff: real gold leaf wrapped around a central thread, its modern equivalent synthetic, shinier, a touch more bling maybe but just as handsome.