Gareth

I couldn't resist a run along the beach this morning - and it was joyful, so clean, fabulous rock formations, seaweed strewn as if by hand evenly across the rolling outcrops and between rockpools. After a stroll down Mumbles pier and along Newton Street we drive to Carmarthen area to film Gareth, and Charles has already spotted his lunch - a fish and chip shop by the name of Dick Barton - unfortunately we drove past before it opened so much grumps from himself.

Gareth has produced a truly beautiful sensitive cartoon from the scruffy photocopy I sent him of Girl with a Bowl, and has made a great start on cutting and putting together the glass pieces. We filmed him drawing on the cartoon and then he did his 'here's one I made earlier' routine, and also explained about different sorts of glass, colour balance, lead calmes - all highly successful. I'm hugely excited about my Bing/Tiffany/Brangwyn panel! The next episode will be sometime January 2009. Photos show work in progress.

Dick Barton was open on the return journey so CM INSISTED on stopping, buying a bag of chips, and being photographed with same. Unfortunately he was SO excited by the quality of the produce that he wouldn't stay still, which explains the slight blur (that's my story and I'm sticking to it). Actually, I'm not a chip lover by any stretch of the imagination, but have to admit they were truly scrummy - in fact I ate 2!

Superb evening meal in the hotel.

Andrea

Since all the filming we'll be doing this week is indoors, the weather promises to be glorious. An uneventful drive down to Clevedon - I don't think Charles made more than a couple of navigational errors - apart from the horrendous hold up on the Avon bridge where they appeared to be putting down a red carpet - presumably prior to some dignitary's arrival. This delayed us by something like 1/2 hour which was a shame because Andrea had kindly fitted us in between the various piano and languages lessons she gives. Anyway we needn't have worried about time because Andrea didn't need any prompting whatsoever - she was brilliant, a natural, chattering merrily away, some tinkling of the piano, all delivered with a cheery smile and much hilarity - watch out for the dong with the luminous nose.
Having already had sandwiches for elevenses and a pork pie for lunch, Charles' appetite was assuaged by Andrea's lovely fruit cake (getting up at 7.30 does CM's constitution no good at all).
Thence a drive down to Langland, staying at Little Langland, a beautifully appointed small hotel near the coast. We walked along the beach to Langland's Brasserie for a meal and actually sat outdoors, the weather was so balmy - what bliss.

Film Farm

Arrived at Film Farm to find Charles deep in the midst of editing his recording of the King's Cross poet Aidan Dun (with one N) which was required urgently. We watched it together, had a discussion, then he squirreled away again completing same until about 9pm - so a late evening meal - and we've got to leave at 9am tomorrow to drive to Clevedon to interview Andrea Argent - who you will recall is leader of the most wonderful Miscellany who sang for us last autumn (see entry 18 November 2007). We want to get her take on the difficulties of performing Mike's music as a companion piece to Mike's interview.

glass faces

The final piece of the jigsaw hopefully - a quick dash to Castle Loppem just outside Bruges to examine 3 faces of saints painted on glass which relate to the saints depicted in the Chapter Hall of St Andrei's Abbey, Zevenkerken (also just round the corner so to speak). Unfortunately one of the faces was broken, anyway we did our level best to photograph them against the light without too much of my hands showing and without dropping them. Castle itself designed by Jean-Baptiste de Bethune who was a chum of Frank's dad, but we thought it was rather an ugly pile.
En route back to England for some Piper filming we had to stop at City Europe of course to enable Charles to stock up on wines, mayonnaise, mustard and pate - and buy something for a late lunch - which turned out to be the largest crevettes we have EVER seen!

BSMGP

British Society of Master Glass Painters to you. They held their Conference on Aspects of 20th Century Glass at the Glaziers Hall 30 July/1 August and very good it was too. Some super lectures, interesting slides, lively audience, much more varied than the usual art historical crowd because many of these people were hands on artists and practitioners/craftspeople. And I learnt so much! I gave a lecture about FB's stained glass based on my current research which seemed to be well received (I hope they weren't just being polite!) - the first time I've used digital and I have to admit that it has convinced me that this is the way to go - it was wonderful being able to take small details of the stained glass and show them together with related works.
The 2 day conference did make me think about the responsibilities of a lecturer, especially a paid lecturer, so for what it's worth:
1) have good images
2) prepare well, work out the logistics of the speech, the forward motion, think about what you want to say and how to say it
3) engage with the audience in some way - show enthusiasm, add some humour, emphasise words - don't drone
4) don't um and ah every few seconds - if you can't ad lib successfully then write a script
5) keep to the alloted time scale, don't over-run, especially in a conference situation

Gareth's Glass

Brilliant news! I rang Gareth today, dreading that family problems and ill health may have delayed the Brangwyn/Tiffany panel further and, not only was he writing me a note at that very moment, but he has started work on the cartoon, and he sounded his old enthusiastic self. I am just so relieved. Unfortunately August is now booked solid for both Charles and me, so we've tentatively agreed to visit and film the first part of the glass making process in September. YIPPEE!

Meanwhile Piper has taken up most of my waking hours!

old hats

Dear FBSG
I fear that hours spent on you will be few and far between over the following few months due to the fact that if we are to film Piper on location it has to be during the long summer days, the research needs to be done in tandem, and there are basicaly no hours left for you since I work 8-10 most days anyway. And someone is paying me (minimally) for this work, which helps lubricate the wheels etc - so, huge apologies FBSG, but you are going to have to lie dormant for the next few months - but if people want to know what is happening in Libby's hectic life meanwhile you might discover an inkling on http://piperpapers.blogspot.com.
More anon, doubtless,
Libby et al