Sunday 13 January 2008

Crackers


Well, what a cracking start to the year. Read four books, including the rather wonderful and very illuminating one by Martin Eidelberg et al about Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany girls - turns out they produced many of the designs Tiffany took credit for! Re-read lots of articles, finished Tiffany and Manaton notes apart from fine tuning and polishing, spent some time in Photoshop tweaking images for the catalogue, visited Hurstmonceaux to look at a Brangwyn, the RA to check on sketchbook images, saw Tim Wilcox when working at the V&A Library (another contributor to the Brangwyn book 2006) - he's putting together what sounds to be a super exhibition about Laura Knight at the Lowry and Nottingham Castle - the circus and all the fun of the fair.
Thinking about books did you see the article in the Grodian Thursday - apparently 1/4 people in the UK haven't read a single book in the past year. I just cannot credit the fact - what are they doing instead? Wallowing in soaps? Sounds like intellectual poverty.
Anyway, back to work after that quick aside - examining the Manaton window in detail and describing the wildlife and vegetation involved much work with the Observer's books saved from my childhood days plus other references, but I cannot decide what this red four petalled flower is, nor the white bird with blue crest. One of the problems is that FB's nature and animals frequently became generic and the bright orange fruit in the window are actually apples (I have a letter from FB himself to prove it) so one cannot necessarily go by colour either!
Any sensible suggestions as to identification gratefully accepted.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The white bird looks like a swan to me, albeit one with a blue crest!
(or could it be a Swanee Whistle?)