Tuesday 11 May 2021

Is it the same space or the same place?


Dear Widdy, sitting on a half-made pillar in my old workshop which is now somebody's living room. The workshop used to be a stable for a draught horse I never met, and many hundreds of people (including Prince Charles and the Garrys Lineker and Glitter) briefly occupied the little bit of space and time before the walls were dismantled and it was delineated by new brick and concrete. It - like Widdy - still occupies my dreams.

The thing behind the cat with the weight-lifter's belt on it later became the object below.


39 comments:

  1. That is STONE?? My gosh. It looks so fragile. PS: Widdy looks to be an agreeable cat.

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  2. I love that - it resembles my Gryphaea - devil's toenail fossil.

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    1. That's what it is. There is a seam of Devil's Toenails near here, and I found this beauty and scaled it up in Portland stone. It now belongs to a Guardian journalist.

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    2. Very lucky Guardian journalist.

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    3. She stole the original fossil and hid it when I last visited in case I stole it back. I am quite angry with her.

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  3. What a lovely space. I hope the current occupants occasionally wonder why they can hear scraping and tapping echoes from the past.

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  4. Widdy looks more thickset than my cats.

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    1. Yes, he was. A gentle giant, unlike his twin brother.

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  5. I, too, can hardly believe that this is stone! Just look at all the irregular little wrinkles and ripples - just like nature made it or one really talented person we all know (cough, cough).

    Space and place - so many places exist in just my memory the way they used to be.

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    1. I believe that fairies were made extinct by modern developments.

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  6. The shell is absolutely beautiful …. So delicate. Widdy was a lovely cat. XXXX

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  7. Widdy looks a good workshop supervisor.
    Beautiful work.

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  8. I love black cats. Apparently they are less popular than all other cats because they don't show up well in Instagram photos and consequently they are less likely to be rescued.
    The object is beautiful, as is Widdy.

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    1. To hell with Instagram. I was warned to keep a good lookout for him because gangs were going around looking for pure black cats in the illegal fur trade.

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  9. A space with history is always preferred. Widdy looks quite comfortable in his/your workshop space. That object is to die for. I'll take one if you have another one looking for a good home.

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  10. Black cats always have a special look in their eyes.

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    1. Yes, they do. Widdy had wonderful eyes. I really know that he loved me and I loved him.

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  11. I just looked at Widdy close up and he's covered in dust.

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    1. What you can see is the dust from me which settled on the photo of him which I scanned from a hard print. The dust on him would not show up on that photo.

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    2. I wondered but it was nice to think Widdy might have been so close to you working he got dusty from your chisel.

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    3. He didn't like noise, so he scarpered when I was working loudly.

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  12. Special cats are once in a lifetime, if at all.

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    1. Yes, he was special. He just turned up one day asking for food and stayed on.

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  13. Gary Glitter and Prince Charles in the same lineup? In person or poster-form? Widdy no doubt took them all in his stride.

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    1. They weren't there at the same time - thankfully - and yes, in person. Widdy was out at the time.

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  14. Devil's toenail fossil, medieval in term but what a lovely carving. It reminds me of the ammonite at the entrance to Stoney Littleton barrow. Awe and respect for something unexplainable.

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    1. Someone stole the ammonite from the Stoney Littleton barrow entrance. It had been there for thousands of years, and some lost soul thought they could sell it for a few quid.

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    2. April 1st has gone!.. But the stones did get daubed with red paint hand prints, vandals!

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    3. Well how can you steal a solid large stone holding up the roof of the barrow?

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  15. I have some Devil´s toe nails I collected on the beach in Hornsea, Yorkshire. They are rather ugly actually, unlike your beautiful piece.

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    1. Mine came from the bank of a river in Wiltshire. They varied enormously in shape.

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